Plain-language, educational articles on schizophrenia, psychosis, antipsychotic medications, and lived experience — by ColdAI.
Mindfulness has moved from monasteries into mainstream mental health. For psychosis, it can be powerful — but it needs careful adaptation, and it is not safe in every form for every person.
StoryI lost my warehouse coordinator job after a relapse and spent more than a year rebuilding. The path through unemployment, supported employment, and back to a paycheck was longer than I expected.
CaregiverAn adult child moving home is rarely Plan A — but it can be a stable foundation for recovery if the household is set up thoughtfully.
WorkplaceFor people living with schizophrenia, pacing is not laziness — it is a survival strategy that protects everything you have built. Here is how to do it on purpose.
RecoveryPeer support specialists — workers in recovery from their own mental illness — are now part of mainstream care. The evidence for what they add is strong.
TherapyOpen Dialogue is a Finnish approach to first-episode psychosis built around rapid family meetings, minimal medication, and treating the network rather than the individual.
MedicationThiothixene is a chemically distinctive but pharmacologically familiar first-generation antipsychotic. Here is what to expect from its side effect profile and how to manage it.
NeuroscienceNMDA receptor hypofunction is one of the most testable and best-supported neuroscience models of schizophrenia — and one of the hardest to translate into new drugs.
DiagnosisAmerican psychiatrists use the DSM-5-TR. Most of the rest of the world uses the WHO's ICD-11. Both define schizophrenia — but they emphasise different things.
FAQSchizophrenia is diagnosed by a psychiatrist or qualified clinician using the DSM-5-TR or ICD-11 criteria. There is no blood test or brain scan — the diagnosis is clinical.
StoryMy monthly medication bill went from $480 to $42. None of it was magic. All of it was phone calls.
Thought disorderTangentiality is when a question gets a related but off-target answer that never circles back. It is one of the more common and easily missed forms of thought disorder.
StoryI told my manager I had schizophrenia on a Wednesday in March. Twelve months later, I am still in the same job. Here is everything that led up to and followed that conversation.
Culture and faithFor many African American families, the Black church is the first place a person experiencing psychosis is taken. It is also a source of community, hope, and increasingly, partnership with mental-health professionals.
VocationalTransitional employment is a clever solution to a hard problem: how do you give someone a real-job experience when the employer can't yet take the risk of an unproven worker?
Differential diagnosisUp to 30% of people with borderline personality disorder report brief psychotic-like experiences, which can lead to misdiagnosis. Here's what actually separates the two conditions.
MythsThe assumption that schizophrenia rules out employment is wrong. Evidence-based supported employment helps the majority of participants find competitive work.
How-toThe ADA covers schizophrenia. Here is what reasonable accommodations actually look like — and how to navigate disclosure, the interactive process, and your legal protections.
SleepREM sleep — the dream-rich phase of the night — is altered in schizophrenia in measurable ways. Understanding REM helps explain dreams, medication effects, and cognition.
MedicationZiprasidone is among the most weight-neutral atypicals — but it requires food for absorption and demands attention to cardiac safety.
PreventionPsychiatric genetic counseling helps families understand inherited risk for schizophrenia honestly — without overpromising or fuelling unnecessary fear.
Drug interactionsMost antibiotics combine fine with antipsychotics — but a few common ones can sharply raise drug levels, prolong QT, or cause unique problems with clozapine.
WorkplaceRemote work helps many people with schizophrenia stay employed — fewer sensory demands, more sleep control, less daily disclosure stress. It also has real costs. Here is how to think through both.
Crisis modelsThe CIT model — born in Memphis in 1988 — trains a subset of patrol officers in mental-health crisis response. It is now in over 2,700 US communities, with mixed but meaningful evidence of impact.
Negative symptomsAsociality is a reduction in the drive to seek social contact. It is not shyness, not anxiety, not preference for solitude — and the difference matters for treatment.
Rare presentationsFolie à deux describes the rare but real phenomenon of one person's delusion being adopted by someone they live closely with. Treatment usually involves separation and care for both.
StoryAfter my third hospitalization, my discharge nurse said: 'A routine doesn't have to be impressive. It just has to be repeatable.' That sentence saved me.
GeriatricAn older adult with new hallucinations or delusions might have late-onset schizophrenia, a dementia syndrome, delirium, or a medical condition. Sorting it out matters enormously for treatment.
Early onsetSeveral antipsychotics are FDA-approved for adolescents with schizophrenia. Choosing one is a careful, family-centred conversation about benefits, side effects, and monitoring.
State guidesNew York has one of the most developed public schizophrenia systems in the country — the OMH, HARP plans, OnTrackNY for first-episode psychosis, and Kendra's Law for assisted outpatient treatment.