Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
I came into our bedroom one night and he was sleeping and he, to me, looked like he had died. And I thought I was the one that had killed him. I was just terrified at what was going on. And then the spiritual thing happened where suddenly I see God and Jesus in the clouds. We've already heard on Lost Patients how psychosis can feel like a nightmare.
or a dream. I didn't see anything at all wrong with it. I just figured as long as I had my drugs, I was okay. I had no idea I was psychotic, so it didn't hit me, the gravity of what had happened. Coming up next week on the final episode of Lost Patients, we hear from people who found their own ways out of the dream to stability. When I came out of the episode, I realized, oh my God, I'm married. I thought, wow. You know something?
There's something to what's going on here. How much is it me? We hear how they learned to live with serious mental illness. Are you hearing voices now as we sit together in this room, or are they quiet right now?
Sometimes they're talking, but most of the time they're kind of subdued, they're quiet. And we ask, what can we learn from these experiences that might help us build a system of psychiatric care that works better for people? After months of talking with patients, their families, healthcare providers, researchers, we glimpse what a different approach to these illnesses might look like.
and what that would take. The system fails because you and I can go to our doctor's appointment, manage our life around whatever we're doing, but somebody who's disorganized because of psychosis isn't going to do it. We seem to have no model in our country of long-term support for people who may actually want it and may actually benefit from it in the long term. Episode 6 of Lost Patients comes out Tuesday, April 23rd.
Since we launched Lost Patients, we've heard from listeners all over the country about how these issues have touched their lives. If you have experience navigating these mental health care systems as a patient or a parent, a sibling, a friend, we'd really like to hear from you. You can reach us by email at letters at KUOW.org.
Also, if you're in the Seattle area, we'll be delving deeper into the questions raised by lost patients at a free Seattle Times and KUOW event on May 9th. It's at the Seattle Public Library in downtown Seattle. You can find more information and reserve a spot at KUOW.org slash events. Stay tuned for the final episode next week.