(Aug. 6, 2013) “It isn’t easy to be crazy. But seven years on this path has taught me that people with mental illness are some of the most resilient and courageous people there are.”
Michael Hedrick has been battling schizophrenia for the last seven years. His firsthand account of his psychotic break and subsequent delusions takes the reader inside the logic of his “cracked mind.” (“I thought I was a prophet,” Salon.com, August 2).
Michael describes how his first delusions brought him across the county to carry out “God’s will” as a prophet tasked with saving the world. After a period of hospitalization in a psychiatric ward in Boulder, Colorado, Michael struggled to return to a normal life and combat his paranoid thoughts.
“To be unsure of your own mind is a prison, one that can break some of us. It simply becomes easier to slip into homelessness or drug abuse, but I fought against that,” Michael relates. Today, he consistently takes his medication (while working to counter the side effects), has health care, a career and a close family that checks in on him.
Michael also writes about societal preconceptions that people with serious mental illness are violent “monsters” and shares his efforts to “change minds” and fight stigma of mental illness.
Ultimately, Michael realized that despite the side effects of his medication, his treatment plan made him feel “okay” and that was much better than the alternative.
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