Plain-language, educational articles on schizophrenia, psychosis, antipsychotic medications, and lived experience — by ColdAI.
The NHS care pathway for schizophrenia is built around early intervention teams, community mental health teams, and structured care planning — here's how it actually works.
InteractionsAripiprazole is often described as a 'milder' antipsychotic, which can lead to assumptions that recreational substances are safer with it. The pharmacology says otherwise.
DelusionsPersecutory delusions — the unshakeable sense of being watched, followed, or harmed — are the most common delusion in schizophrenia and often the most distressing.
CopingDistraction is one of the oldest and most effective ways to take the edge off distressing voices. Here are the techniques with the best evidence and how to use them well.
StoryMarcus and I met on a psychiatric unit in Cleveland. Six years later, he died by suicide. This is what that loss has taught me about staying.
StoryI am 51 and started clozapine after thirty years of schizophrenia. This is what nobody warned me about, what was easier than I expected, and why I wish I had started it sooner.
StoryIsolation crept in long before the diagnosis. Coming back out of it was the slowest, most rewarding work of my recovery year.
StoryI was a 20-year-old sophomore when my mind stopped feeling like mine. This is a composite account of what a first psychotic episode in college can actually feel like — and what came after.
CaregiverWhen someone you love is in active psychosis, instinct says to argue them back to reality. That almost never works. The LEAP method offers a better path.
StigmaStructural stigma isn't about individual prejudice — it's about how laws, insurance rules, hiring practices, and zoning codes quietly discriminate against people with serious mental illness.
Special populationsMany people with schizophrenia now live into their seventies and eighties. The illness changes with age — and so should the care.
Co-occurringObstructive sleep apnea is several times more common in schizophrenia, often misread as antipsychotic sedation, and capable of worsening cognition and mood when untreated.
LifestyleA 2010 trial suggested fish oil could delay psychosis in high-risk young people. The follow-up trial didn't replicate the effect. Here's the honest story of where the evidence sits.
LifestyleThe Mediterranean dietary pattern has accumulating evidence in nutritional psychiatry — not as a cure, but as a meaningful complement to antipsychotic treatment.
CrisisPeer respite houses are voluntary, home-like, non-clinical settings staffed by people with lived experience of mental illness. For some people in crisis, they are the difference between a setback and a hospitalisation.
HospitalVoluntary admissions and involuntary holds look similar from the outside but operate under very different legal frameworks. Understanding the difference matters for patients and families.
TherapyWorking with delusions in CBT does not mean trying to talk someone out of a belief. It means building trust, exploring meaning, and gently widening the range of possible explanations.
MedicationPaliperidone is the active metabolite of risperidone. The two share most properties — but pharmacokinetics, prolactin effects, and long-acting injectable options separate them in practice.
MedicationQuetiapine is one of the most-prescribed off-label sleep aids in the United States. The reasons are understandable — and so are the concerns. Here's the honest picture.
MedicationHaloperidol is one of the oldest and most widely used antipsychotics in the world. It is potent, predictable, and affordable — but its side effect profile demands respect.
MedicationQuetiapine's most common side effects are sedation and metabolic changes. Both are predictable, both are manageable — but only with proactive monitoring and honest conversations.
ProfileArnhild Lauveng spent ten years inside the Norwegian psychiatric system with a schizophrenia diagnosis. Today she is a practising clinical psychologist whose books are translated into a dozen languages.
ProfileDiagnosed with schizophrenia in college, astronomer-turned-advocate Cecilia McGough founded Students With Psychosis, one of the largest peer-led organisations for young people with the diagnosis.
ProfileBrian Wilson, the principal songwriter of the Beach Boys, lived with schizoaffective disorder for more than fifty years and continued to write and perform throughout. His story is honest about both the cost and the possibility.
SymptomsDisorganised thinking is the symptom that makes conversation hard to follow during a psychotic episode. It reflects a disruption in how thoughts are sequenced, not a loss of intelligence.
PsychosisLong before a first episode of psychosis, there is usually a quieter phase of subtle changes. Catching it can change the entire course of the illness.
OverviewSchizophrenia affects men and women at similar rates over a lifetime, but the timing, hormonal interactions, and life-stage challenges look very different. A practical overview for women and their clinicians.
Rating scalesNegative symptoms are the hardest to measure because they are absences rather than presences. The SANS was the first scale that took them seriously, and it still anchors much of the field.
StoryI went back to my old high school last spring, ten years after my first hospitalization. The visit was small, ordinary, and one of the most healing things I have ever done.
StoryI refused antipsychotics for seven years after my diagnosis. The reasons made sense to me at the time. The reasons I finally said yes are the part I want to write about.