

In the book, Nasar profiles his lifelong battle with schizophrenia. Nash, who died in 2015, was a prolific mathematician and economist, earning a Nobel Prize for the latter in 1994 for his work on game theory along with two other theorists. If you’ve seen or read “A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar, you know who this man is. She currently resides in San Francisco with her husband. Her disorder did not stop her from graduating from Stanford, earning spots on the New York Times Bestseller list, and becoming an independent queer and femme business owner with her personal brand helping “ambitious people with limitations.” Her book discusses many of the challenges people with psychotic disorders often have to face: the decision to have children, how they will craft their work life best suited to their needs and navigating higher education when elite schools discriminate against people with mental illnesses. She made a sparkling public debut into the mental health world when she published “ The Collected Schizophrenias ” in 2019, which is a collection of first-person essays about her experiences with schizoaffective disorder. Esme Weijun Wang Image via Esme Wang’s FacebookĮsme Wang is a newer, up-and-coming figure in the schizophrenia activism movement. She is a promoter of empowering patients in their personal healthcare strategies, which contrast many stereotypical treatment plans used by doctors who tend to keep their patients in the dark due to their anosognosia, or the perceived inability to be able to adequately understand their condition.ģ.

She draws on her own experience with schizophrenia and psychosis to advocate for more holistic approaches for treating auditory hallucinations and other symptoms of psychosis. She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Psychosis Research Unit at the University of Manchester. You may recognize Eleanor Longden from her TED Talk, “ The Voices in My Head,” which has garnered more than five million views. Though she struggled with many hospitalizations over the years, she found success in her career and love life and resides in California with her husband. Her activism weaves closely with her professionalism in that her other works include advocating for the rights of people with mental illness. Elyn Saks won the MacArthur’s Genius Grant in 2009 for her memoir. Her schizophrenia did not stop her from holding an impressive academic track record at Vanderbilt, Oxford and Yale, where she earned her law degree. You might have seen Elyn Saks in her TED Talk, “ A Tale of Mental Illness,” or her memoir, “ The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.” She is an esteemed university professor at the University of Southern California where she advocates for better mental health laws. Each individual has the power to change the stereotype for the better, and here are a few people who live with a psychotic disorder and thrive: But the negative stereotypes of people with schizophrenia don’t have to be true. Many people with schizophrenia experience anosognosia, which is the lack of awareness of the severity one’s condition. Even though schizophrenia affects around 1% of the population, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that people with schizophrenia make up to 20% of the homeless population.Ī schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) can make it difficult to work and function due to symptoms of hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech, social withdrawal and other behaviors, according to WebMD. Schizophrenia gets such a bad rap in the media that it is often difficult to imagine a fulfilling life once one acquires the diagnosis.
