Plain-language, educational articles on schizophrenia, psychosis, antipsychotic medications, and lived experience — by ColdAI.
Lent's reflection and fasting can be meaningful — and risky for some patients. Easter brings family and food. Here's a calm, faith-respecting guide to both.
Early onsetCoordinated Specialty Care (CSC) is a team-based, evidence-supported model for first-episode psychosis. For young people, it dramatically improves outcomes.
State guidesNorth Carolina is in the middle of a major Medicaid transformation that includes Tailored Plans for adults with serious mental illness — built on the legacy LME-MCO system and IVC law.
Legal & FinancialA power of attorney lets you choose, in advance, who decides for you if a future crisis takes away your capacity. It is a powerful and often-overlooked alternative to guardianship.
Side effectsSome antipsychotics — especially the older phenothiazines — make your skin dramatically more sensitive to sunlight. Knowing this prevents painful sunburns and lasting skin damage.
Physical healthAntipsychotic-related liver problems are usually mild and reversible — but a few warning signs deserve attention, and most patients benefit from a lab check at least once a year.
BehaviorsWandering during psychosis is rarely random. It usually has a trigger, a pattern, and an internal logic. Knowing them helps families prepare and respond with dignity.
CaregiverYoung children almost always know something is happening. Honest, age-appropriate explanations protect them better than careful silence ever does.
HospitalAOT lets a court order ongoing community psychiatric treatment for people with a history of serious illness and refusal of care. The evidence is real; so are the ethical debates.
TherapySupported decision-making is a legal and clinical alternative to guardianship that helps people with serious mental illness make their own decisions, with structured support.
MedicationMirtazapine has a quietly growing evidence base as an add-on in schizophrenia — for negative symptoms, akathisia, sleep, and weight loss. The evidence is modest but real.
MedicationBrexpiprazole tends to produce less akathisia and insomnia than aripiprazole — but the trade-off includes a slightly higher tendency toward weight gain and sedation.
MedicationLumateperone is one of the newest atypicals — distinctive mechanism, surprisingly mild side-effect profile, and a growing role in schizophrenia and bipolar depression.
MedicationRisperidone is generally well tolerated at low doses, but has a distinctive side effect profile — particularly hyperprolactinaemia and dose-dependent movement effects. Here's what to expect and how to handle them.
StoryFor three years, my mother covered her television with a bedsheet at night so it could not see her. The morning she walked into the living room and asked me to take the sheet down was the morning I knew she was coming back.
Side effectsSexual side effects are among the most common reasons people quietly stop their antipsychotic. They are also among the most treatable when named.
DelusionsThought withdrawal is one of the more disorienting experiences of psychosis — the felt sense that a thought is being pulled out of one's head, sometimes mid-sentence. It is a classic first-rank symptom.
ResearchFunctional MRI lets researchers watch the brain at work. In schizophrenia, two decades of fMRI studies have changed how we think about brain networks — but it is still not a diagnostic test.
Medical comorbidityHIV is several times more prevalent in people with schizophrenia than in the general population — and modern treatment makes it a manageable chronic condition with normal life expectancy.
Lab monitoringAntipsychotics can change cholesterol and triglyceride levels in just a few months. Lipid monitoring catches the shifts before they become heart disease.
MedicationDroperidol is a fast-acting butyrophenone used in emergency rooms for severe agitation and as a powerful antiemetic. Its regulatory history is one of the most contentious in modern psychiatry.
FitnessTeam sports give you exercise and social contact in the same activity — a rare combination. Here is how to participate at a level that fits your stability, energy, and social comfort.
DisparitiesMost US counties have no practising psychiatrist. For rural Americans with schizophrenia, the work of getting care is often the work of bridging miles, broadband gaps, and a workforce shortage that is decades deep.
Substance useOpioid use disorder in schizophrenia carries some of the highest mortality risk in psychiatry — and some of the most underused effective treatments. Here is the practical roadmap.
MedicationMolindone is a first-generation antipsychotic with one unusual property — it tends to cause weight loss rather than weight gain. It also faded from market availability for several years, then returned. Here is its story.
InternationalSchizophrenia affects about 24 million people worldwide and contributes a disproportionate share of years lived with disability. Here's what the global numbers tell us — and what they don't.
InteractionsOpioids and antipsychotics are increasingly co-prescribed. The combination is not categorically wrong but the additive risks — sedation, respiratory depression, constipation, QT — deserve real attention.
StoryI had a psychotic episode in the second semester of my master's program. I took two years off, came back part-time, and graduated. Here is what made the difference.
StoryI went into CBT for psychosis assuming it would be like talking to a friend. It was not. It was more like learning a new language about my own mind.
StoryI was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 24 and ran my first marathon at 36. The training did more for my stability than I had expected — and less for my voices than I had hoped.