Sandy Jeffs, diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1976, reflects on how her life changed drastically at age 23 amid a pervasive stigma against mental illness. Despite her journey from a university student to a mental health advocate, she recognizes that complex conditions like schizophrenia remain stigmatized compared to more common issues like anxiety. Surrounded by societal misconceptions, including negative portrayals in Hollywood, she contemplates whether true destigmatization is achievable, particularly in light of recent tragedies that center on individuals with similar diagnoses.
To have your future taken away from you like that, at 23 years of age, was just awful... I bought into the pessimism of my diagnosis because that's what I was told.
Despite being involved in several anti-stigma campaigns, complex mental illnesses like schizophrenia have never become normalized in the way anxiety and depression have.
Hollywood hasn't helped either depicting us either as mass murderers or mad geniuses... No one is ordinary like me.
Now, after the relentless negative spotlight cast by the Bondi Junction inquest into the Joel Cauchi mass stabbing murders, she wonders can we ever de-stigmatise schizophrenia?
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