Living with Schizophrenia | ADVANZ for Life

Living with schizophrenia isn’t always easy, but with the right support you can face whatever comes your way.

Learning more about schizophrenia, communicating with your healthcare team and family, and taking an active role in your ongoing recovery are all things that you can do for yourself.1

There’s no cure for schizophrenia, but you can certainly take steps to manage the impact it has on your life. Three key things that can help are:

Awareness

Being aware of your feelings, thoughts and perceptions from moment to moment can help you spot signs of worsening symptoms quickly.2This makes it easier to take action before things get to crisis point. It’s not always possible, of course, but taking some time to be mindful of your mental state can help you feel and function better.3,4

You can find free mindfulness resources online, or you could ask your therapist.

Acceptance

Getting a diagnosis of schizophrenia and living with the symptoms can be really difficult sometimes. But it can really help to be able to accept that this is happening and that there are things that can be done about it.1It doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it – just that you acknowledge it, without judging yourself. It is what it is – it’s nobody’ fault, it’s not any one thing that you did or didn’t do. It doesn’t say anything about you as a person.

You are a complete person. Schizophrenia doesn’t own or define you.

REFERENCES:

Helpguide. Self-help. Available at:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/schizophrenia-treatment-and-self-help.htm. Last accessed: July 2022.
NHS. Living with schizophrenia. Available at:
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/schizophrenia/living-with/ Last accessed: July 2022.
Sheng JL, et al. The effects of Mindfulness Meditation on hallucination and delusion in severe schizophrenia patients with more than 20 years’ medical history. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2019; 25 (1): 147-150.
Boge K, et al. Mindfulness-based interventions for in-patients with SSD. Front Psychiatry. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00600.