In this video Dr Syl reacts to the video: Living with Schizophrenia Life with hallucinations (link below) from the Special Books by Special Kids KZhead Channel. Dr Syl discusses the challenges of treating schizophrenia, the futures of diagnostics, the importance of understanding the prodrome, the importance of social supports and reflects on his experiences as a doctors treating mental illness.
Video: • Cecilia's Life with Sc...
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I remember Cecilia saying later on that the reason why she was looking away and seemed especially uncomfortable in this video is because she was trying to avoid eye contact with a hallucination in the room. That must've been really uncomfortable, for sure.
she also has autism i believe
I don't look in their eyes because I have a problem with people not being real people, and you can tell by looking them in the eye. So, as long as I don't look they both are and are not real and I can have a conversation with them. Sometimes I slip up and catch their eye and it turns out the healthcare worker isn't real and I have to change person.
I love SBSK! And yes, Chris’s message with this channel is pretty much that no matter how different we are, we all want and deserve human connection and friendship. This video with Cecilia is when she’s very deep into the symptoms of schizophrenia. There are follow videos with her from later times when her symptoms are better controlled. She is doing a lot of active work in mental health advocacy.
I love them, too! Been following for years. :)
She almost looks like an entirely different person! This channel is great, please do your best to share. My friends and their daughter were featured not too long ago, the Einstein family.❤️
@@jeanieolahfulI tell everyone I can about SBSK. It's so important and insightful.
Today she is even much much better...she looks and very pretty
yes! Chris used to work as a special needs teacher and SBSK started with one of his classes, but it's since expanded to highlight people of all walks of life with different mental and physical ailments and disabilities, while allowing the person themselves(or their carers) to speak for themselves.
Not sure if you saw but Chris recently did an update interview with Cecelia on SBSK. You can tell by her demeanor that she is doing significantly better, which is so great to see. She has clearly been very insightful and hopeful with her diagnosis, and I’m so happy that her dedication resulted in her able to live a healthy and happy life with minimal symptoms.
Yes!! The update video was heartwarming. She's doing so much better, which gives me hope for others with the same condition. I'd love to see Dr. Syl react to that video and tell us more about how proper treatment guided her to that healthier state.
I was going to say this as well! I hope he watches it! She is so much better and deserves for more people to see that version of herself.
😮awesome❤
I think there’s a later interview with her, where she’s in much better shape mentally (she talks about the difference).
Yes! I've also watched that vid. Way better!
I think she said that she was having hallucinations during this interview!
Just a shout out for the channel "Special Books by Special Kids"; it is a truly wonderful channel that provides so many diverse people with illnesses/disabilities to express themselves openly and educate others regarding their experience of life. The couple who run the channel are very good at listening, asking suitable questions and being an empathetic audience. It's a great resource. I think, having seen this interview a few years ago, Cecelia addresses the need to look away from him and that he establishes that she is comfortable with where he is sitting in the beginning of the interview (or on another interview he does with her)
Yes I agree. Incredible interviews with people from all walks of life
And I love that later on she had a better interview with Chris.
Chris worked as a special education teacher, so that is why he has that familiarity with the people he is interviewing. ETA, Chris always asks if people are fine or comfortable. If she did want Chris next to her, he'd have no problem honoring her wishes.
Cecilia did an incredible TedTalk as well
I remember that ... She got the ted staff to change the Ted talk stage decor as they are typically her triggers : a lot of the colors RED and WHITE ... ( she joked about it at the beginning of her talk ) ...
She explained at some point to the fact that she's looking away from him and is looking anywhere but in his direction and is maybe looking a little bit uncomfortable is because she was having a hallucination that was in his direction like right next to him... I think she said that it was the clown. the clown was like right near him and so she didn't want to look ANYWHERE near her interviewer during the interview. So from what she has said she wasn't uncomfortable with his physical closeness but she was uncomfortable with the hallucination that she was experiencing during that time.
Psychosis is triggered by stress. Being physically close to her most probably was a stressor that led to the clown appearing.
@@gianfranco_maldetto_92 Possibly, but she also said she has hallucinations almost constantly... and knowing Chris' interview style he would have asked her first where she wanted him to sit.
@@junbh2 You can easily tell the constant terror in her face. Hallucinations are usually triggered by stressors. The expected stress everyone experiences at the beginning of an interview in her case caused the clown to appear. The lingering effect does not mean that a schizophrenic truly experiences hallucinations 24/7.
I have schizophrenia, I'm only scared of saying it most of the time, most often people will pronounce their fear of us before I tell them, in which case I just don't interact with them afterwards. And if I could change on thing in my life it would be to erase the stigma of schizophrenia from the world. It's an uphill battle for me because I'm resistant to pretty much every antipsychotic out there but if cecila can make it through life so can I. She's become a huge inspiration for me now. Glad I saw this video so i could learn about our similar stories and have someone I can look up to.
Have you had vitamin/mineral hair analysis done? It's very helpful tool
I was diagnosed as schizophrenic at 36. Previously I had been diagnosed as Bipolar with psychotic features. At 36 something changed. At first it began as delusional thinking and then declined into auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations and it was very much like being in a waking nightmare. It wasn't until I became catatonic that I was sent to hospital. Thank you for showing Cecilia.
I hate that it took so long for you to be diagnosed. But, not surprised.
@@shalacarter6658 It's ok. I am actually doing a lot better now. I talked with my doctor about tapering off of haldol after being on it nine years because new research has shown that a certain diet can decrease symptoms. So right now I take it as needed. I would not recommend this for everyone, and certainly not without supervision. I still see my doctor monthly. While haldol helped, it also kept me in a zombie like state and did not deal with the negative symptoms. Now I experience a full range of emotions.
Your condition is probably in the schizoaffective spectrum.
Did u ever try any of the atypicals? Theoretically it should help with negative symptoms with D1 receptor partial agonism in the mesocortical pathway
@@johnkim6447I’m sure their doctor is doing a great job with their medication management. They don’t need armchair psych
I love how he listens so well when she never even looks over at him. I find it hard to look at people and get my words out.
In the update she mentions that she was looking away to avoid looking in the direction of a specific hallucination. Its a really great update and she seemed to be more comfortable.
I love Cecelia! She’s been such a huge inspiration for me as an advocate.
If you follow Cecillia's story you will be amaized how she develloped since this interview. She is now a speaker and group leader for students with schizophrenia. She can connect with people and found a lot of friends. She is very intelligent and reflected.
SBSK is an incredible channel. The man doing the interviews is uniquely kind-hearted.
Este es el claro ejemplo de un psiquiatra que no comprende que las enfermedades mentales no hacen al otro ser la etiqueta de la enfermedad mental sino que son parte de su ser. Por desgracia son pocos los especialistas de esta rama que son integradores. Saludos
hey Dr Syl. I'm a mental health crisis nurse who enjoys watching your stuff in my free time bc i can't turn my work brain off lol. Cecilia actually has an update on this channel where her presentation is a lot different, and I think it'd be interesting for you to watch and see how she's changed :)
You have such a soothing voice and a really respectful way of talking about the people you watch. Loved getting that insight of a Dr's perspective.
Everytime ive gone into psychosis and started hallucinating, it begins with flashbacks then a tsunami of memories then escalates to not eating and sleeping
Cecilia said in a later interview, that her lack of eye contact with Chris was because of a hallucination on that side of the room
Could you do the newest Cecilia interview? It would be interesting to see your input in her current update, as well as comapring and contrasting her past and present body language, speech, and mental state.
i love the way cecilia is so in control and is able to share her reality..
Cecilia is great, she has newer videos too. 😊 (FYI: you mentioned her active hallucinations during this interview and commented that further workup may be needed: lates she shared in another video that during this time she was struggling.. I think with substance abuse issues. So this is why her symptoms are “worse”)😊
She is doing sooo much better now. And she is doing a really amazing advicat and peer support work
I used to work with adults with mental health especially schizophrenia and bipolar as an admin person. I tried to understand and treat equally our clients with schizophrenia but it was sad when another department with our agency that was not educated in mental health would be afraid of our clients with schizophrenia because society still stigmatizes and sees them as scary. Cecilia is right, people with schizophrenia are not monsters and the sad thing is a few of our clients with schizophrenia unintentional killed themselves when I was only at that outpatient clinic for only 2 years. I loved the clients but the management sucked.😅 The ironic thing is serial killers with antisocial personality disorders act Super normal so I am more afraid of super normal people than anybody who has schizophrenia.😊
Schizophrenic people do murder
Thanks Dr Syl!!!!
Thank you again. :)
So grateful...this helps so much ❤
Excellent description of schizophrenic symptoms.
When I was six years old I thought after watching the movie Body Snatchers that my grandmother was trying to send me home with avocado 🥑 and I thought she was trying to make a symbiote out of me. I thought it was a pod from that movie.That sounds like my first delusions with hallucinations. The Blob and the movie Poltergeist did a true welcoming introductions to schizophrenia for me. I believe I hallucinated from fear and stress after viewing those movies. Intense visual tactile and auditory hallucinations. They looked like computer graphic animations. Sometimes you do see monsters under the bed or spirits emanating from clothes closet. I had insomnia start then as well. About the same time-line.
OH, you poor thing! I wish we paid better attention to what our children see.
Wouldnt it be vetter to avoid scary movies & never watch them or be influenced by them? My father never let me watch anything scary & to this day i never watch horror flicks or violent movies
I am enjoying your channel. Thanks!
What a fantastic woman.
Thank you for doing these videos they are really educational
What an incredible woman.
She has such insight that only comes from deep introspection. She's
i love your videos mate love from northern ireland 💙
This is interesting. I don’t know much about this issue but thank you for helping me learn.
Very intelligent and insightful lady dealing with a complex, hard to treat illness.
I love your proposed way of reacting to someone setting boundaries in communication.
Cecelia is highly intelligent and expert in science. Watch her TED talk.
i really like her voice. It's really soothing to hear her talk
This is the second video of yours I see and I just want to tell you that your demeanor is so impressive. You seem so friendly, understanding, respectful, and comforting, which is extremely pleasant and interesting to watch. I'm glad you showed up in my recommendations!
So helpful!
Cecilia has a wonderful Ted talk and updated video with Chris. Please review those too!
Really enjoying your content! Thank you for your perspective. Not sure if you know there was a follow up conversation with SBSK, it was another great upload.
Wow just happened to come across this interview randomly. But I found really interesting & really informative & easy to Understand how a person with this condition feels.
Love SBSK and their wide ranging advocacy and collaborating with really cool folks with different life situations like disability and mental illness, folks we otherwise wouldnt get to meet.
I just wanted to say I LOVE her necklace!!! 🥰
That is so great that you say you're in charge and you can leave at any point!
This is so fascinating. Im really impressed how well her personality is developed around her disorder. My first impression was that she obviously faking, but then when she told us how long she experiencing those symptoms, I realize that she actually developed a lot of defensive mechanism which keeps her in reality so to speak. She seems to be very introspective and she is able to tell the difference between her hallucination and real life. I wonder is it that product of intense psychotherapy, or she did all the work by herself ?
There are some other videos of Cecilia in a much more balanced mental state, worth watching to see the difference. She presents vert differently when she's not so symptomatic. And she is a wonderful mental health advocate!
@@LillianChasteau i saw. Thnaks
Faking? Faking what
Try to unlearn thinking people are faking things. It is ablest and really harmful to lots of people. SO many of us have invisible disabilities and judging us is not helpful. Learning to be better and do better will make you a better ally.
@@alexanderjohnson8333 I thought that this is one of those training videos without real patients. Pleas forgive me, I didn't wanted to offend anyone
Dr. Syl, you have a very calm and soothing voice which I believe will help all your patients! Thanks for the videos which have opened my eyes to seeing the patient’s side of their illness!
Thank you so much for these great and informative videos.. I am the mum of a wonderful young man with Hebephrenic Schizophrenia. I love that you talk aabout the illness,.... AND,... could you also talk about the treatment modalities that can be available in different countries, and what is useful for different types of altered states, and what is not ? In particular I so wish that residential Therapeutic Communities such as Gould Farm or Cooper Riis were available world wide. Along with medication, these caring and work based models seem ideal... But sadly,... so expensive
Love these videos - you have a really relaxing voice too! You should consider soft spoken asmr videos, you'd get heaps of views.
I’d highly recommend the video she did with Chris years later. She sheds some light on how she was feeling during this interview.
I love SBSK. Chris used to be a teacher for children with different disabilities. I started watching him years ago after my own son was dx with Autism and GDD. ❤
Being different is hard. I have bipolar disorder and a physical disability and get stared at for my physical disability every day. I wish I could switch that off, the staring. I mean I'm just me. I can't change it but I wish I could. Also when I get psychosis my most common hallucinations are tactile. Great video!
Tactile hallucinations are new to me. Not very happy about that. Yeah, I get the part about being started at. I just smile at ppl staring at me. Makes me feel a bit better. But, I feel like ppl are judging me for using a store scooter. Feel like they are thinking; "Oh, she is just using that because she is fat" instead of the real reason which is I cannot walk very far. Less than a block.
@@shalacarter6658 People can be very unkind sometimes. All I can say is I hear you! It can still hurt though. I have a very rare congenital condition that makes me look like I don't have a neck and people I think are more surprised more than anything when they see me and I can tell they don't mean to do it. I just wish I didn't care about it so much. Yes, tactile can certainly be interesting and not always in a good way.
She did an amazing Ted talk
I am so impressed with Cecilia. She is incredibly self-aware and articulate. She has also convinced me to avoid horror movies lest they show up in my dreams ... or worse. What we put into our brains contributes to how we see the world.
Hey, Chris asks and interviews in the way that feels better for the person he's interviewing.
My very good friend has schizophrenia. He was very good at hiding it. Only thing that was weird at first was him moving to different apartments because he said that his neighbors were bothering him, banging on the roof, spying on him etc. But we didn't think much of it as he was pretty poor at the time and lived in very poor neighborhoods. Not until I got a call from my other friend that he was at a psych ward did I eventually started to put 1 and 1 together. His mannerism is often weird and sometimes he kinda zones off. I'm not sure if he's hearing voices or otherwise hallucinating at those times. We have asked only bare minimum about his symptoms. Basically only thing he has said is something like "yeah I guess it's schizophrenia." We have left it at that. He's obviously ashamed of it, but he shouldn't be. It might have something to do with his very religious family not understanding his illness.
I just want to again thank you so very much for these videos. Your compassion gives me hope for the future of Mental Health Care in Australia.
Dr. Syl, I love how compassionate you are with the people and subjects in your videos. I’m wondering if you could do a video about BPD, and the difficulty the medical community has in treating it, with all the stigma involved. Just one suggestion! I’m sure you have many we’ll all also love. Thank you so much for your videos!
I had hallucinations for a while after a trauma and coming out of a coma. Most of mine were what I called smoke animals. I thought they were real at first and then realized they weren’t and later they faded away. I can’t imagine dealing with that for an extended time.
I studied and lived with quite a few schizophrenic ppl in my life and ive seen all different types of symptoms displayed in all of them, and all different kinds of m3ds for it. Its the most complicated and confusing mental illness there is!😮 Its encouraging to know that its still being studied
Schizophrenia is not a single disease, but a plethora of different brain pathologies. The people you have dealt with are not necessarily all the people that suffer from schizophrenia.
She doing better and has a ted talk!!
Hey dr Syl can you do his second interview with Cecelia when she's in better control and comment on the contrast? Great work Doc! Also I was wondering if you listened to dr Puder's podcast and could comment on his episone one schizephrenia spectrum disorders as a neurodevelopmental phnomenon.
I am Not a Monster: Cecilia McGough - TEDx Cecilia McGough is an astronomer, activist, and writer as a Penn State Schreyer Honors College scholar pursuing a major in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Cecilia is the founder and current president of the Penn State Pulsar Search Collaboratory. She has been participating in pulsar research continuously since December of 2009, co-discovering pulsar J1930-1852 with the widest orbit ever observed around another neutron star, competing in the International Space Olympics held in Russia, and co-authoring her research in the Astrophysics Journal. Cecilia is a mental health activist in fighting against the negative stigma towards mental illness. She is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the soon to launch non-profit Students With Schizophrenia which is the only non-profit in the United States focused on empowering college students with schizophrenia.
Please do an update video with Cecilia's new video with SBSK :)
Christine has come so far from her original interview. The interviewer does a wonderful job too.
I found this very interesting. Thank you.
Special books by special kids also have an updated interview with cecilia that you should check out next, It is very interesting. She is a wonderful person😍
A hallucination that has the ability to potentially control your actions (passive influence) and internal voices sounds an awful lot like DID/OSDD. Obviously many other things factor into this but it makes you wonder how many people out there have been labelled psychotic when they're actually traumatised
I choose not to apply labels to myself, but I'd been struggling with something like this since I was 14 or 15. It was like my brain shattered into a bunch of distinct pieces, but they were all their own people. We capped at 3, including myself. When a 4th tried to form, everybody else started panicking, and their overlapping voices made me sick-- Which I guess made sense when the whole shebang eventually collapsed on itself and things went quiet again. Slowly but surely, my psyche knitted itself back together. But not completely, random likes/dislikes and some of their physical mannerisms were retained. But in the end... I got stuck in my own head, by myself, dealing with the full-blown delusions that once belonged to an entirely separate entity. Designed to contain those delusions from me. Yayyy. 😐 God I wrote a full blown rant going into more detail about what it's like now, but the time and place for that probably isn't under a random youtube comment. Your words struck a chord with me, though. I don't know what I have, and it's changed a lot since then, but I've been fixating on channels like these and trying to pick at whatever bits could help me. I've definitely ruled out schizophrenia... but that's 1 out of a billion other disorders to sort through.
I had childhood onset, so I've lived with schizophrenia for over 40 years. I'm fascinated by schizophrenia and dreams because sometimes my delusions will bleed into my dreams and rarely I swear I hallucinate in my dreams (is that even possible?). I will wake up and realize the theme of my dream was a long held delusion, or that what I saw in my dream wasn't quite real. No one seems to know what to make of it because of the unreal elements to dreaming in everyone. Maybe it just means I'm really not making this all up... I had no idea internal voices were more of a trauma response. Thank you! I mostly have internal voices but I hear music externally. The Girls came to live in my head when I was 12. They were aliens who could travel between my head and their world. They were mostly nice but most were my age so they acted like tween girls. The Girls left when I was 14, leaving only my alien older sister, April, behind. She comes and goes as she has her own work on her planet.
I feel like I should've gotten help earlier. I did have symptoms in 20s not diagnosed until 30s. I agree with her. Her journey is important and similar
Yeah, it can be hard to diagnose when someone only sees you for twenty minutes.
Mate where'd you get your glasses? I need a new pair and I love the frame size (unless you've just got a deceptively large head haha)
Actually, I read that the most common cause of premature death in people with schizophrenia is heart disease. This makes sense because it is also the most common cause of death in ALL people (at least in the West with a heart-disease-encouraging diet) and because antipsychotics can cause obesity and heart disease regardless of diet. I have personal experience with this (I don't have schizophrenia but I have a mood disorder with psychotic features) because I take antipsychotics and gained a lot of weight as a result.
lots of folks with significant mental health issues also smoke cigarettes, which are super detrimental to cardiovascular health.
You should watch the newest video he did with her. Very inspiring.
Maternal grandmother & mother-in-law both diagnosed with paranoid schnitzophrenia schizophrenia schizophrenic
With Cecelia's interpretation of her symptoms it would be interesting to see if lucid dream training would be beneficial.
I saw a follow up interview. Ceila said she was struggling with substance abuse issues at this time of her life.
LOVE SBSK!
7 years ago, Cecelia did a Ted Talk: "I am not a monster: Schizophrenia" Cecelia McGough, TEDxPSU
I wish Chris had given her space during this interview if she was having a hallucination that was appearing right next to him. Maybe Chris asked her if she was okay with him sitting there as she was enduring the hallucination. It’s uncomfortable watching her shrink away from him so much.
I have commands and derogatory voices almost always. I'm diagnosed with schizophrenia and I say the same as Cecilia when they talk about voices, I don't want to give them power by confirming them. I can ofc just say this now as I'm medicated, but they are still there. As I'm talking about that they start. Right now.
I wish I would've got help for my anxiety and depression when I was younger or removed from the school I was abused that caused me a nervous breakdown
I think I recall in her update that she says she was also diagnosed with autism which explains her lack of eye contact and reciprocal body language and may influence her schizophrenia hallucinations.
Cecelia did say in an update video she was on recreational drugs during that interview with Chris.
Yes! Her spiders! I feel that where you don't know it's an hallucination/.
Spiders big theme. Insects too for me.
I saw her follow up interview. She couldn’t look at him because he did not appear to her to be a person. She was hallucinating, but wanted to continue with the interview.
Shoutout to SBSK, I've been following the channel for years and they do such an amazing work❤❤❤
I had Psychosis and yup feels like a dream state
You talked in this video about the heterogenous causes for schizophrenia: on that note, would you be open to doing a response / review video of the book Brain Energy? I am intrigued but also a little concerned by some of the implications of the claim that mental illness is fundamentally reducible to metabolic matters. I’m concerned it places too much onus on the patient to live a perfect, pure life, but I would really like to hear the opinion of you because you are a mental health practitioner who has recently gone through medical school.
I love SBSK, but sometimes I find it so so so hard to watch. However I can't imagine a more respectful channel/producer.
Two things: one, like everyone else said, watch the update, it’s such a positive change, and she’s so awesome. Two, you have like puppy dog eyes, which I think will work ridiculously well for you in psychiatry 🤣 you just look and sound like a very calm person, I’m sure part of that is your education, but it works well lol.
this was the first I had heard of touch hallucinations. They suck!
Pretty sure hallucinations can occur with any sense- your brain is producing a false stimuli and perceiving it as real. Phantom pain that amputees experience is a tactile hallucination for example
@@KayosHybrid Exactly! But no one told me that you can hallucinate with all senses until fairly recently. Even then it was something I learned over on "Living Well with Schizophrenia."
Cecilia does look at him in other videos, and I think in this video specifically, she mentions in another video that she was hallucinating something behind the camera.
I would freak. To close to personal space. No boundaries 😔
I believe Cecilia also did a TedTalk on her Schizophrenia condition.
Hello. I would like to find out about agitated depression. I have it. I dont know how to dealing with agitation episode.
A giant leathery skinned yellow spider with black legs making the sound of children laughing as it moves!! Thanks Cecilia for the most awesome mental construct on the web!! 🕷🕸