This is an excellent video about a lady’s (Eleanor Longden’s) experiences with schizophrenia. She has some good advice for people suffering from this illness or people who are coping with hearing voices, grotesque visions, suffering from delusions, or experiencing hallucinations in general. 

I really like how she explains that her voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events. They were a source of insight into solvable emotional problems. I also like how the people who loved her did not save her, but empowered her to save herself.

She learned how to properly interpret what the voices meant and understand that they represented the parts of her that she had denied and that were in pain. These were the parts that needed to be shown the most love and understanding.

Furthermore, Eleanor has some great ideas about how psychiatry should not be about asking what’s wrong with you, but about asking what’s happened to you. It should also emphasize that we don’t have to live our lives forever defined by the damaging things that have happened to us. We are unique, irreplaceable, and whatever lies within us can never be truly contorted or taken away; The light never goes out.

Finally, she mentions that a great doctor once told her, “Don’t tell me what people have told you about yourself. Tell me about you.” What a fine way to help free the power of the individual!