Plain-language, educational articles on schizophrenia, psychosis, antipsychotic medications, and lived experience — by ColdAI.
I started risperidone at sixteen, the year I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Nobody told me how strange it would feel to take a pill that would change who I was while I was still figuring out who that was.
Rating scalesWhere the PANSS gives you 7 positive items, the SAPS gives you 34 — including detailed coverage of formal thought disorder. It remains the standard instrument when researchers want to look closely at positive symptoms.
Thought disorderWord salad — clinically called schizophasia — is the most severe end of disorganised speech, where sentences become strings of unrelated words. Modern care has made it less common but no less important to understand.
WorkplaceStigma in the workplace is sometimes loud and sometimes quiet. Both kinds shape careers. Here is how to recognise it, respond, and protect yourself legally.
StoryI have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old, and I have schizophrenia. We have built a household that works for all three of us, mostly.
Crisis modelsMobile crisis teams send trained clinicians and peer specialists to where the crisis is happening — a home, a coffee shop, a park. The goal is calm, on-the-spot care that prevents an unnecessary ER visit or arrest.
Culture and faithAsian American communities are highly diverse and have some of the lowest mental-health service use rates in the country. This is a guide to the barriers and the resources.
VocationalBorn in 1948 from a small group of former patients who refused to be ex-patients, the Clubhouse Model is now a global network of more than 300 communities organised around work and belonging.
MediaJoe Wright's 2009 film with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. is unusual among schizophrenia films for refusing a tidy ending. We look at what it got right, and the things even a careful biopic cannot show.
Peer supportFounded in 1992 by people who had been psychiatric patients themselves, the National Empowerment Center has been a quiet engine of the US mental health recovery movement for three decades.
RecoveryWRAP gives people a structured way to write down what keeps them well, what tips them off-balance, and what to do when things get hard. SAMHSA lists it as an evidence-based practice.
TransitionsMost psychiatric ED visits do not end in admission. They end with a discharge home. The quality of the warm handoff at that moment is what decides whether the next week goes well or badly.
Negative symptomsAvolition is the reduced ability to initiate and persist in goal-directed activity. It is one of the most misunderstood negative symptoms — and one of the most disabling.
Differential diagnosisBoth conditions can involve poor attention and executive dysfunction, but the underlying mechanisms — and treatments — are very different. Stimulants need careful thought in psychosis.
MythsThe stereotype of the 'dangerous schizophrenic' is one of the most damaging myths in mental health. The data tell a very different story.
How-toIf your insurer denies coverage for mental health care, you have the right to appeal — and parity laws are on your side. Here's how to do it without getting lost.
CaregiverWhen schizophrenia takes a parent off the field, grandparents often step in. This guide covers the legal, financial, and emotional terrain.
NutritionSmall trials and case reports suggest the ketogenic diet may reduce symptoms in some people with schizophrenia. The evidence is real, early, and not a substitute for medication.
SleepMany people with schizophrenia have a body clock that runs late, irregular, or weakly anchored to daylight. Realigning it is one of the most underused tools in recovery.
RecoveryRecovery after a psychotic episode usually moves through phases — acute, stabilisation, and growth. Naming the phase you're in is one of the most useful clinical tools available.
TherapyMotivational interviewing started in addictions but has become a core skill for working with schizophrenia — especially around medication adherence, substance use, and engagement.
MedicationPerphenazine sits in the middle of the first-generation potency spectrum and held its own against newer drugs in the CATIE trial. Here is what its side effect profile actually looks like.
MedicationAripiprazole tends to be lighter on weight gain and sedation but heavier on restlessness, sleep disruption, and a small but real risk of compulsive behaviours.
ProfileLionel Aldridge played in two Super Bowls for Vince Lombardi's Packers, then lost most of a decade to schizophrenia and street homelessness — before becoming one of the country's first prominent Black mental health advocates.
PsychosisDelusions are not simply 'wrong beliefs.' They are organised, often elaborate experiences that follow recognisable patterns. Understanding those patterns is the first step to better care.
NeuroscienceDopamine has dominated schizophrenia research for decades, but glutamate — the brain's main excitatory neurotransmitter — may be closer to the underlying problem.
DiagnosisSchizophrenia is diagnosed by a clinician sitting down with you for a long, structured conversation. Here is what that interview covers and why each piece matters.
TechnologyFrida turns short daily check-ins into a longitudinal picture of cognitive stability. Here is how it works, what it does not do, and why we built it this way.
MindfulnessQigong is a simpler cousin of tai chi — repeated, gentle movement and breath. The schizophrenia evidence is small but consistent with the broader tai chi literature. There is also a small case literature on 'qigong-induced psychosis' worth knowing.
Rare presentationsParaphrenia is a historical name for late-life psychosis. The condition it describes — delusions emerging after age 60 with relatively preserved personality — is still very much real.