Battling Schizophrenia

By Matthew Robert Payne

There seems much written by professionals on these two illnesses, there is much being spoken about at conferences by professionals on the subject and every good conference will have a consumer speak. I am a consumer who suffers from both these mental disorders and I want to give you some light into my mind and perhaps a positive spin on what seems a very sad subject for some.

The first Good thing

More →

Share This

The voices made him to do it.

One blistering sub-zero January night Bill MacPhee went wandering naked on a four-lane highway against speeding traffic, convinced he was Christ. When police picked him up and took him to the local psychiatric ward, he thought they were ancient Romans, taking him away to be crucified.

“That’s what it’s like to be mentally ill. When you’re psychotic, you don’t realize you’re sick because you’ve split from reality. You don’t respond to logic because your reality has its own logic,”said MacPhee, a leading mental health advocate and founding publisher of Schizophrenia Digest.

More →

Share This

First premiered at SXSW in 2005, You’re Gonna Miss Me tells the story of rock visionary Roky Erickson, who was the front man of 60s psychedelic rock band 13th Floor Elevators.

The band became notorious for their fondness of drugs such as cannabis and LSD and Roky was subsequently arrested for possession of cannabis in 1969. To avoid a prison term, Roky pleaded insanity and was sentenced to a mental hospital for the criminally insane. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in Rusk State Hospital where he stayed for three and a half years.

Following his release in 1973, Roky came out crazier than when he went in. With a head full of devils and aliens, Roky went on to form a new band, Roky Erickson and the Aliens. ….

More →

Share This