We must stop criminalizing mental illness. It's a national tragedy and scandal that the L.A. County Jail is the biggest psychiatric facility in the United States.
Elyn SaksThere are not schizophrenics. There are people with schizophrenia and these people may be your spouse, they may be your child, they may be your neighbor, they may be your friend, they may be your coworker.
Elyn SaksOne of the reasons the doctors gave for hospitalizing me against my will was that I was ‘gravely disabled.’ To support this view, they wrote in my chart that I was unable to do my Yale Law School homework. I wondered what that meant about much of the rest of New Haven.
Elyn SaksOccupying my mind with complex problems has been my best and most powerful and most reliable defense against my mental illness.
Elyn SaksStigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a number of those faces.
Elyn SaksNo one would ever say that someone with a broken arm or a broken leg is less than a whole person, but people say that or imply that all the time about people with mental illness
Elyn SaksSome people still hold [the] view that restraints help psychiatric patients feel safe. I've never met a psychiatric patient who agreed.
Elyn SaksPortray [people with mental illness] sympathetically, and portray them in all the richness and depth of their experience as people, and not as diagnoses.
Elyn SaksThe schizophrenic mind is not so much split as shattered. I like to say schizophrenia is like a waking nightmare.
Elyn SaksEven with all that - excellent treatment, wonderful family and friends, supportive work environment - I did not make my illness public until relatively late in life, and that's because the stigma against mental illness is so powerful that I didn't feel safe with people knowing. If you hear nothing else today, please hear this: There are not 'schizophrenics'. There are people with schizophrenia, and these people may be your spouse, they may be your child, they may be your neighbor, they may be your friend, they may be your coworker.
Elyn Saks