My first experience with the mental health care system was when I attended a day program shortly after I was released from the hospital the first time.  I participated there for about 13 months and then was sent to another day program that I attended for about nine months.  The counselor at the second program was not convinced I could go to work although she did submit the paperwork for OVR, which is now VESID, the New York State agency that trains people with disabilities or sends them to school so they can get jobs.  I obtained my first job as an administrative assistant after I completed the clerical training.

While at my second job I decided I wanted to join a group therapy.  The social worker who did the intake operated out of a brownstone in an exclusive neighborhood in Brooklyn.  At the second intake session he told me there was no way I had schizophrenia.  I had just gotten out of the hospital five months earlier because I had stopped the medication and relapsed.  He took one look at me coming straight there from work in an Anne Klein suit and promptly decided because I wasn't babbling that I couldn't have schizophrenia.

I promptely decided not to join his group therapy and attended instead the group therapy of a wise, compassionate woman who told me, "You're perceptive and self-aware.  You could take over my chair."

Five years later I wanted to return to group therapy and met with another woman social worker who told me, "You're doing so well.  I'm afraid you're not a candidate for group therapy because it could bring up a lot of upsetting feelings."  Can you imagine?

A friend once told me that everyone keeps saying the mental health system is broken but nobody's been able to fix it.

One way to fix it would be to educate therapists and doctors that people with schizophrenia can recover and that those who do recover aren't some kind of oddity.  These kinds of professionals think that people with schizophrenia are resigned to being warehoused in adult homes or day programs.  If you can walk and chew gum at the same time they think you can't have schizophrenia.  This is sad indeed when their expectations of us are so low.

Luckily: and I'll end here: my psychiatrist Dr. Altman is someone I wish I could clone and give to other people diagnosed with schizophrenia for their treatment.  I can tell he values my insight and is genuinely concerned about my mental health.  So maybe I would be one of those patients in the 80 percent who say their psychiatrist do well or very well in treating them with courtesy and respect.

It is a professional marriage of my insight and honesty with him and his education and expertise with the latest treatments.  I've seen him since July 2003 so it's been seven years so far working with him.

Above all I feel a therapist or psychiatrist must LISTEN and not treat us with a cookie cutter approach.

Now I'd love to hear from you on this topic. 

To read the details of the news article on the schizophrenia patients survey you can log on to my ChristinaBruni Twitter account and click on the link to the survey.