Conflicting Public Attitudes to Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article.  Although before I go into this in my last blog about hope a couple of weeks ago I wrote how it was hard on my daughter and she just had to keep up the hope.  Well in the last week she had two good things happen to her and she is not stressed and I do not have to be a sounding board and not be able to help.  She was really stressed at time wanting to just give up but she has three kids and could not.  I am really happy that she is not stressed no more and that she quit one job and has weekends off finally.

Now we just have to keep hoping that the stigma gets better.  That is what this article talks about conflicting attitudes towards schizophrenia. “People are becoming more ready to accept a biologic explanation for schizophrenia, shows a German study spanning 21 years.  On the other hand, the study participants became less comfortable with patients who have the condition, with more people interviewed in 2011 wishing to keep a social distance than in 1990.”  We are ready to accept that it is biological although keep away from me.  This study was finished three years ago.  I thought some things would have changed by now.
This is the hardest part of the study as people with schizophrenia need jobs also to make it in this world. “For example, the proportion of people who would not recommend a schizophrenia patient for a job rose from 44% to  63% (the largest increase) and the proportion who would not allow a schizophrenia patient to look after their children rose from 67% to 79% (the highest rate).” The last one would not let a schizophrenic look after their children.  It is not passed on like a cold.  Stigma has a long way to go yet.
There looks like there is some good news with this study: “However, participants were markedly more ready to recommend professional mental health services to people with any of the conditions.  There were large, significant increases in the proportion of participants who would encourage patients to see a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist, and who would recommend psychotropic medication and psychotherapy.  Seemingly, the changes that have taken place in psychiatry over the past decades have benefited the image of psychiatry, but have failed to improve the image of patients. Say the researchers.  Further efforts are necessary to combat the stigmatization and discrimination of people with mental illness.” I read some of the sites of people with schizophrenia that they even talk what is recovery?  I heard about but have not met no one that is recovered.  I feel I know for a fact that I am not alone in being recovered.
I remember in college a professor telling me her cousin was a lawyer and they had a magazine of people that were successful that had a mental illness. Unless we tell they will never know that we have a mental illness.  Because I look just like anybody and you would not know it. Here is a link to an article on IQ it might be interesting.