Is Schizophrenia Hiding In Your Family?

追加: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00][music] >> When we can get people in first episode psychosis programs or even when we can simply get them to treatment early in the illness, we can have vastly different outcomes. And things like Homeground SCZ can be part of the resources that we use to share with people early in the illness. Later in the illness also. I don't want to give the misconception that this is only for people who are newly diagnosed. It can be used by anyone and their care partner regardless of where they are in the journey.

[00:00:37]But this is a resource that as of April 2026, I have to offer my newly diagnosed patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia to say, "Hey, here's a community of other people with lived experience that may sound a little bit like what you've been through." And to their care partners, "Hey, here's a community of individuals who maybe have some similar experiences and concerns and questions as you have and and have had over the last however long, you know, we've been dealing with this. Hey everyone, this is Jonathan Marks from GoTo Health. Hope you're having a good day. You know, I'm surprised by this, but millions of Americans are living with schizophrenia. And most care partners are family members who spend significant time managing care and daily life. Experts, however, say that the stigma, delayed diagnosis, and limited social support can complicate outcomes for both patients and families. There's a new website which has just come online which supports schizophrenia patients and families. It's called Homeground SCZ.com.

[00:01:52]That's Homeground Schizophrenia. And it's a community, an online platform, and resource for people living with schizophrenia and also their care partners, offering evidence-based information and support all in one place.

[00:02:08]It's sponsored by Teva Pharmaceuticals.

[00:02:11]With us to talk about this today is Nicole Gillan. She's the care partner and mother to a daughter living with schizophrenia. And also Erin Crown, certified physician assistant in psychiatry specializing in schizophrenia care. Before we get to our guests, please subscribe to us at gotohealthmedia.com or on YouTube or on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to us. And if you like what we're doing, please give us a thumbs up or a five-star review.

[00:02:40]That helps get evidence-based information out to more people. Thanks in advance. So, welcome to the show Nicole Gillan and Erin Crown. How are you both today? Wonderful, thank you.

[00:02:52]>> thank you. Good. So, tell me and either one of you can take a shot at this. How does schizophrenia develop in a person and what are some important early warning signs that we should be on the look for at the onset of this disease?

[00:03:05]So, I think I'll jump in with that one, Jonathan. How does it develop? I don't think we really have the answer to what exactly is happening in the brain or the central nervous system that ultimately results in the experience of a diagnosis of schizophrenia. But what I can tell you is how we begin to see it appearing or manifesting in the life of someone who ultimately does go on to get a diagnosis of schizophrenia. And it can happen at any age from childhood to 30 or maybe early 30s. Most commonly in late teens or early 20s. And it often starts with the recognition of some bizarre behaviors. Maybe they had been doing a good job of keeping their room clean and keeping themselves clean and maybe they've kind of stopped taking care of themselves and the space around them and they're saying and doing some things that just don't seem their usual selves. This period of untreated psychosis, we call it DUP in psychiatry.

[00:04:15]It's duration of untreated psychosis.

[00:04:18]This period of of DUP can be varying lengths for different individuals and the longer it goes, the riskier it is in a variety of ways. But ultimately, about the average DUP is 2 years and for a variety of reasons, people can not understand what's happening to them.

[00:04:40]They can have anosognosia, which is an absolute lack of an insight that there is anything wrong. People with schizophrenia when they are in a state of psychosis, they lose touch with reality and that that loss of touch reality results in these other things going on being their reality even if it's distorted and and unreal to those around them. So delusions, ideas, thoughts that are bizarre or seem impossible to us are very real to them.

[00:05:15]They're seeing things, hearing things that others don't see or hear. Those are auditory and visual hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior. Lots of things can go on including mood lability and and I'm so pleased to be partnering with Teva to share this information with the broader community and and bring awareness to this highly stigmatized illness. Good.

[00:05:40]We'll get to treatment options in a little while, but I wanted to find out from Nicole. Nicole, can you share the journey that you've been through with your daughter? What happened and what age and how you're handling it now?

[00:05:52]Yeah. And And so, I want to key on what Erin just said, right? Where up to 2 years where people are often not treated or diagnosed, that's exactly what happened to her. She start She graduated from college, top of her class, honors and distinction, living overseas, then her roommates contacted me to tell me that very strange things were going on.

[00:06:15]I brought her home to the US cuz I thought I knew the US healthcare system and how to navigate it. And here's my kiddo clearly having delusions and and and hallucinations and doctors mistreating her, you know, misdiagnosing her. Oh, she's got depression. Oh, she's got PTSD. Oh, she's faking it. You know, oftentimes people with schizophrenia are highly intelligent, like my kiddo.

[00:06:39]And she could sit in front of a doctor and have an have an extremely articulate discussion because she understood that was the kind of her homework assignment.

[00:06:47]And so, doctors didn't really understand what was going on. But at the end of the day, finally got the right diagnosis, which was both um comforting, like, ah, this is what's happening, but heartbreaking because, oh my gosh, this is what's happening. Yeah.

[00:07:01]And have since then been able to get her on a much better path with better medications and and she's now talking about her future again, but that that diagnostic process, oh, that was chaos and confusion and that was just like I can't even describe how how harrowing it was. Yeah, that that sounds like it was such a difficult journey to to not get diagnosed properly. Are we getting better at diagnosis and recognition of this or are we still kind of in the dark ages here?

[00:07:33]I think it's a mix. I I think that answer is it depends, right? Who are you seeing as a healthcare provider? What's their experience in seeing and treating schizophrenia? Mhm. And and what is the healthcare provider's stigma around the illness? I'm just going to put that out there in the open because we should not pretend it doesn't exist. It's how people get misdiagnosed sometimes. It's not just because they don't recognize it or don't identify the symptoms of it and and put two and two together to get schizophrenia. It can be because of their own internal or institutional stigma around the the illness as well.

[00:08:19]Interesting. So, tell us what does diagnosis and treatment look like for families these days? How does this work?

[00:08:26]So, there are these things called first episode psychosis programs and I encourage your listeners to learn about those and to find out if there's one near them. These are things that school professionals can contact to make a referral about. Church individuals can contact to make a referral about as well as parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, co-workers, a clinician, anybody can contact them and then they contact the individual to say, "Hey, someone contacted us and suggested this and we're wondering if you'd like to come in and talk about it and and see if you're a good fit for the program." But, when we can get people in first episode psychosis programs or even when we can simply get them to treatment early in the illness, we can have vastly different outcomes. And things like Homefront SCZ can be part of the resources that we use to share with people early in the illness, later in the illness also. I don't want to give the misconception that this is only for people who are newly diagnosed. It can be used by anyone and their care partner, regardless of where they are in the journey. Mhm. But this is a resource that as of April 2026, I have to offer my newly diagnosed patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia to say, "Hey, here's a community of other people with lived experience that may sound a little bit like what you've been through." And to their care partners, "Hey, here's a community of individuals who maybe have some similar experiences and concerns and questions as you have and and have had over the last however long, you know, we've been dealing with this."

[00:10:19]Mhm. And I would also advocate that every healthcare professional should should know about this. We are getting better with medication. We have long-acting injectables now that can be very helpful. We have some treatments with other hypothesized mechanisms of action and improved tolerability available to people, but for people that don't have insight into their illness, medication can be a tricky thing because they don't necessarily believe that there's anything wrong with them.

[00:10:52]>> That's where community comes in. Got it.

[00:10:55]Let me mention that website. It's homeground SCZ, homeground SCZ, which is short for schizophrenia. So, Nicole, can you tell us about more about your daughter's journey? She finally got diagnosed.

[00:11:09]How's she doing now? Is she on medication? What's life like now for both you and her?

[00:11:15]Yeah, so she is on medication and is treatment compliant. And you know, it's been a long road in trying to to get at those hallucinations and delusions. And unfortunately, she has what they call treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Mhm. Which means that unfortunately most medications still don't get on top of it. But, you know what? She fights every day. And every day she is doing her best to get healthy.

[00:11:44]She has a vision.

[00:11:46]She wants to go back and get her master's and her PhD. She wants to lead a full life.

[00:11:52]And And I think it's one of the things that people just don't understand is that Yeah, it's a terrible illness.

[00:11:57]Yeah, it can take away everything that you thought was going to be your future.

[00:12:01]But, it doesn't mean you can't build a new one. It doesn't mean you can't have new dreams and new visions. And that's what we focus on now. And And And And as her care partner, I do everything I can to find new possibilities, you know, whether it's new treatments or anything that might potentially help her. I'm researching and I'm trying to see if if she can get involved in. And for her part, she is ready. She wants to do whatever she can to ultimately get healthy and lead that life.

[00:12:31]>> She just You know, it is complicated.

[00:12:33]Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no.

[00:12:34]I interrupted. Forgive me. You can finish, please.

[00:12:37]Oh, I don't remember. That was 10 seconds ago. Back to you.

[00:12:39]>> [laughter] >> Okay. Good. Well, you just used the term care partner, and it's a very interesting, you know, term that you used. It's you know, it's care, but there's also partner, so that you and your daughter are working together. Tell us more about that dynamic and how you learned to be a care partner. Yeah. So, it's a wonderful question because when she first was sick, I was clearly her caregiver. But, as she got healthier and as we got her on better medication, I had to shift from caregiver to care care partner. I needed her in on the process.

[00:13:12]I needed her to understand what this illness meant and how the more she participated in it, the healthier she would get. And that meant I had to learn how to communicate differently because, you know, she still has an attribute of schizophrenia that's called anosognosia, where you don't really know you're sick.

[00:13:31]And yet she's acknowledged it, and yet she hasn't. And so I couldn't force this on her. I had to try to find a way to have her embrace and own this as much as I did. And and that's that's my role now as her care partner. And we talk about what this what what this will continue to mean as we move into the future. If I may just augment that by saying, I am also a care partner. I am a prescriber and I do light therapy as well, but I cannot give the care to those that I see. I can partner, I can provide them with information and resources like Home Ground and other community supports and things like that, but I am also a partner in the care. And so, being a care partner is so inclusive. And if we can think about partnering in the care of this patient population, rather than, you know, this notion of caregiving, when they may not need the level of care that that someone needs that requires a caregiver. This is not a debilitated, bedridden population.

[00:14:43]They're going to be busy living their lives when they're well. They can get their education. Nicole's daughter can absolutely get her master's and her PhD, and it excites me and thrills me to know end to think about that. And I can't wait to hear about the day she does.

[00:14:58]>> [laughter] >> That's good. That's great. You both made a really important point. This is not a debilitating disease where someone's lying in bed. These are active people living lives, and they really need partnership and acceptance and, you know, a place to feel like they're okay.

[00:15:16]Absolutely. And I applaud Teva for adopting that language. Not all industry, not all advocacy groups out there are yet using that language, but I believe that that is language that will help reduce the stigma around the population and what these people dream of and how they want to live and who they are and the way that they're received within our communities. Good.

[00:15:46]So again, if you want to learn more, you can go to homegroundscz.

[00:15:51]That's homegroundscz for schizophrenia. So let me ask you both, is there is there a way to predict what's happening? Is this hereditary? Is should people be looking for schizophrenia in the family history somewhere? Is there any way to predict this?

[00:16:08]So I'll take that one if that's okay with you, Nicole. There's not a way to predict it, but there are things that we know that can be predisposing factors to the development of schizophrenia, but they aren't always the case. So these are not absolutes and I want to be really clear about that. We do tend to see schizophrenia familially. So if there is a family history of schizophrenia or even it seems to be closely tied disorder. If we see a family history of bipolar disorder, that is a predisposing factor. Additionally, and I'm just going to say this as a healthcare provider who sees it all the time and really cares about this and the misinformation that's out there, I want to be clear I hold no judgment about people who do consume this, but things such as marijuana, cannabis in any form, it's not safe. At high concentrations, THC is a psychogenic substance and people who have a predisposition to the development of a psychotic disorder of any kind can be triggered by using a psychogenic substance such as marijuana, LSD, magic mushrooms, MDMA, any of the stuff that can result in a psychedelic experience or psychogenic in nature can trigger a predisposed person to develop this disorder earlier at an earlier age or to develop it when perhaps they might not have otherwise. There are some other indicators such as stress levels, stress exacerbates symptoms, and so people with significant trauma backgrounds or living in extremely high stress situations can also maybe be triggered to develop a psychotic disorder that they're somehow predisposed for.

[00:18:09]Thank you.

[00:18:10]>> Treatment is getting better, more effective, and more tolerable. So, those are good things, I guess.

[00:18:15]>> Thank you for sharing that. That's so important. Nicole, let me ask, what kind of support are you getting? This must be you know, I don't know if the word traumatic is right, maybe you've gotten used to it, but it must be a challenge for you. And what kind of support are you getting as a parent? Yeah, thank you for that question. And the reality is when when she first started getting sick, I immediately got myself a a therapist.

[00:18:39]And and and at first, it was just to give me support, right? To be someone I could talk to. But then I realized, wait, he's my sherpa. He's helping me understand the language, like what's happening to my daughter. And when she's doing and saying things, how should I respond to her? And all of a sudden, what what was started as a resource for me just to help me really became much bigger and more meaningful in my process of moving from caregiver to care partner. My therapist. Amazing, amazing resource. And then the the second thing was really finding healthy outlets.

[00:19:13]Finding ways to get out there and vent my my my sadness, my frustration, my anger in productive ways because it is all encompassing and so overwhelming and confusing. And you know, to have I'm just to bring it back to have something like Home Ground that is fundamentally trying to build that community, trying to build that safe space that we as caregivers are desperate for. That's that's That's an exciting thing and uh and that didn't exist when when I started. And so I am thrilled to be part of something where it might help somebody else who's now starting down this journey. So am I understanding Home Ground sounds like it's very new? Is it just developed this year?

[00:19:57]Yeah, they just launched Teva just launched it in April. So this is a brand spanking new platform. And and I just want to make a note. So in the United States, every state is different in terms of how they approach health care.

[00:20:11]Every county is different and sometimes every city is different. And Home Ground allows you to put in your zip code so you can get down to that micro level of where you live and what that means in terms of the kinds of resources that are available to you. And that's why something like this is so powerful because it is so fragmented in the United States.

[00:20:32]Nicole, let me ask in the treatment of your daughter or the care for your daughter, does she need to be overseen all the time? Do you feel you can walk away? Can she be independent or is she Can she be on her own okay now?

[00:20:43]Yeah, yeah. I mean she's at the point now. I mean I can go away for a weekend or something like that and she's perfectly fine. She is a fully functioning human being, right? She She has, you know, chores and things she does around the house. She cooks all of her own meals. She takes classes online.

[00:20:59]She She can literally do everything that you or I can do and not think twice about it. But she still has delusions and hallucinations. And so, what's so interesting about your question is again there's like this misconception that just because someone has schizophrenia, are they an invalid? Are they incapable of doing all these other things? The answer is no. She's fully capable of all this stuff at this point. And she's doing her best, and she is treatment compliant, and she wants to build that future for herself. And what I wish that the world knew is that for someone who has schizophrenia, that all they want is a little grace. All they want is an acknowledgement they're a person just like you or I doing their best.

[00:21:43]Erin, do you have a final word for us?

[00:21:46]Yeah, I think I just want to try and make this really real for your listeners and remind them that if we have a child or a loved one who's diagnosed with diabetes in their childhood, teens, early 20s, we are not ashamed to share that information with our family, our friends, our other community outlets and and connections. And likewise, those people have no problems expressing sincere condolences or or you know, offering support and and sharing resources.

[00:22:29]And that is just not yet the case in schizophrenia or quite frankly in any other any other mental illness. And that's just silly because someone's brain not functioning the way it's intended to function is really not different than someone's pancreas not functioning the way it's intended to function. But somehow because we see these behavioral changes, these social interactions that are different, that are outside the norm of what we expect, it's just gotten misunderstood and has all this stigma attached to it. And education, and connection, and community, and resources like Home Ground are the way that we're going to change that tide, turn those tables around, and give these people the same support that other people with other types of illnesses have had for decades. Yes. Thank you so much both for being with us today. Thank you for your service, and it really is service. And I God bless you both, and God bless your daughter, Nicole. I hope she does well.

[00:23:43]Yeah. We'd been talking with Nicole Gillan, she's a care partner to her daughter who's living with schizophrenia, and also Aaron Crown, who's a certified physician assistant in psychiatry specializing in schizophrenia care. If you want to learn more, you can go to Home Ground SCZ, that's put out by Teva, which is a pharmaceutical company, but it's Home Ground SCZ, where you can learn more and become part of a community. This has been Jonathan Marks.

[00:24:10]Thanks so much for being with us today.

[00:24:12]You can visit us at our website at gotohealthmedia.com.

[00:24:16]We have over 300 interviews on evidence-based medicine. You can also watch us on YouTube, or listen to us on Apple, Spotify, or many others podcast networks. And if you like what we're doing, please give us a thumbs up or a five-star review. That helps get the evidence-based information out to more people. Thanks so much for being with us. This has been Jonathan Marks with Go to Health, and as we say at the end of every show, go to health. God bless.

[00:24:43]We'll see you again next time. Bye-bye.

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