Cecilia McGough - Blog #3 Interview

 

Cecilia McGough

    This is Cecilia McGough, she has struggled with Schizophrenia since Junior year of highschool but she estimates that it has been there her whole life. Schizophrenia affected her a lot, it affected her psychologically, socially and her perceptions. She is now the founder and executive director of Students With Psychosis, She has been featured and interviewed quite a bit, her interviews include: Special Books By Special Kids, Anthony Padilla, CBS and PBS on a documentary called "mysteries of Mental Illness." Her features include: Glamour UK, Women's Health Magazine, twice in Forbes, USA Today College, Healthline, Daily Mail, The Indian Express, MTV University, WGBH, and Mental Health America. Her goal is to help others like her with schizophrenia to be able to say "I have schizophrenia" without the fear, and the stigma surrounding the disorder. 

Self-Concept and Perceptions

        Growing up, her self-concept and perceptions would be considered depressing. Before her diagnosis and her understanding of schizophrenia and how it is more of a chemical imbalance inside of someone's head, she thought she was possessed which terrified her. In her TEDx talk she always expressed that her life in college was a living waking nightmare because of the hallucinations that were auditory, visual and physical that haunted her. A quote that Cecilia has brought up in her TEDx talk and the Special Books by Special Kids interview that stuck out to me was "I often say i'm just someone who can't turn off my nightmares, even when I'm awake" because her hallucinations were 24/7 and the worst for her at that time.

    In the now however, in her second interview with Special Books By Special Kids she has showed to be more confident and has experienced a lot of growth and positive change. She was able to reflect back on her old self from the first interview with them and talk about how even though it is a hard video to watch for her it is also important because she could tell her old self was in a lot of pain but r

   Coping

    Coping was hard for Cecilia in the beginning. When she first discovered she probably had schizophrenia in her Junior year of highschool, she told her first boyfriend about her hallucinations and what she was hallucinating at the time which was the clown from Stephen King's "it," he looked up what the clown looked like and just laughed at her, which made it difficult for her to cope with what was going on with her and set the tone where she insisted on not telling anyone outside of her family about what was going on because of that fear of being laughed at again and the stigma the disorder has. In college when things spiraled, her coping strategies included just learning to live with the hallucinations and abusing her prescription medications and then her first suicide attempt due to the fact she hallucinated so much she felt that she had no other options left and doing anything related to college was becoming near to impossible. 

    Now, Cecilia has a support system she can go to, prescribed medications that work for her and she takes as prescribed and practicing self care. She is able to know when she is going to spiral as in if she is starting to feel symptomatic she knows her plan on what she needs to do to help herself. 

    Instead of doing what Cecilia's first boyfriend did which turned her away from reaching out to others about what was going on. It is important to be educated about the disorder and the treatments, have a structured and supportive environment, set realistic challenges and help the family member or friend by setting achievable and manageable goals, and to empower them by encouragement of self independence and self-help. ( Smith, M M.A., Robinson, L & J Segal, J Ph.D.) It is important to be a supportive person to a loved one or friend who has schizophrenia as it is an exhausting disorder and with plenty of support that exhaustion can be minimized.

Physical Impact

    When it comes to physical impact and schizophrenia, it is not really thought of the physical symptoms that really interfere as it is more of a psychological impact. For Cecilia one of the physical impacts she really talked about in her TEDx talk was how sometimes her visual hallucinations would bring physical harm even though it wasn't real. One of her hallucinations would stab her and sometimes it would stab her face. 

        On a non-psychological note research has found that the physical health in a schizophrenia patient is weight gain, abdominal obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease (Heald A.) These health problems can reduce the quality of life and should be taken in account with a schizophrenia patient as even though it is a psychological matter, the physical health is important and should be looked at as well. 

Psychological impact 

    The psychological impact of schizophrenia on someone is debilitating without the proper treatment. Hallucinations and delusions can mess up the psyche and become so bad or have a hard time from deciphering what hallucination is real or not that some people cannot function properly like how Cecilia's hallucinations got worse and harder to ignore. Another psychological impact is suicide. Suicide is common with those with Schizophrenia, and can happen with little warning due to the psychotic processes in which a suicide attempt happens (Warshaw, R.) Or with Cecilia feeling like she could not be who she wanted to be and people not accepting her and accept her diagnosis. 

    Another problem associated with psychological impact that I found fascinating was when in the first interview with the Special Books By Special Kids, Cecelia mentioned that people who would ask her if she was hallucinating and if she responded yes and showed them where in the room it was, people would look at it and she explained that it really psychologically messed with her head really badly when reality would interact with an illusion that only she could see. 

Social Impact

    Schizophrenia is heavily stigmatized disorder like many other mental illnesses. People stigmatize the person with mental illness by categorizing them by their disorder (Better Health Channel) With someone with schizophrenia, someone may label them psychotic. Most of this stigma happens because people are not educated and have no idea what it is like to be living with mental disorders like schizophrenia. 

    In the first interview regarding the Special Books By Special Kids Cecelia mentioned that when she would tell others about her disorder they would be fearful of her, and she felt they labeled her as a monster because of the chemical imbalances in her brain. 

    Ways for people to stop the stigma would be by learning and educating oneself about mental illnesses, getting to know people with mental illnesses to understand their personal experiences, not to judge, label or discriminate people with mental illnesses, avoiding language that puts the illness in front of someone for example: that person has bipolar versus that person is bipolar, copying other ill-informed people who say awful and rude things to someone, or if oneself has a mental illness to spread information by talking about one owns experience (Better Health Channel.)

Links To The Interviews/Ted Talk Mentioned 

Special Books by Special Kids Interview 1: https://youtu.be/7csXfSRXmZ0

Special Books by Special Kids INterview 2: https://youtu.be/6wXCEAXfYco

TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/xbagFzcyNiM

References   

 Smith, M M.A., Robinson, L & J Segal, J Ph.D (2021, April 19). Helping someone with schizophrenia.    HelpGuide.org. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-   disorders/helping-someone-with-schizophrenia.htm#.

Heald A. (2010). Physical health in schizophrenia: a challenge for antipsychotic therapy. European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists, 25 Suppl 2, S6–S11. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0924-9338(10)71700-4

Stigma, discrimination and mental illness. Stigma, discrimination and mental illness - Better Health Channel. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2021, from https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/servicesandsupport/stigma-discrimination-and-mental-illness.

Warshaw, R. (2021, May 27). Young adults with schizophrenia have highest suicide risk. Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/young-adults-schizophrenia-have-highest-suicide-risk.