Straight Talk About Living with a Severe Mental Illness (Ep. 109)

GUEST: Darrell E. Herrmann

WANT THE TRANSCRIPT? CLICK HERE

Millions of Americans are affected by psychosis, a condition that includes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

One man, Darrell Herrmann, is sharing his story in an effort to help others who may be diagnosed with similar conditions.

Herrmann, who holds a degree in physical science and served as a military officer, is diagnosed with schizophrenia and has lived with it for 40 years. 

Herrmann has written a book titled Straight Talk About Living with Severe Mental Illness. He hopes readers gain a better understanding of psychosis and how to adjust their lives to manage the condition.

We Ask:

• Your Story
• Your Views on Anosognosia
• Difference Between Hallucinations and Psychosis
• Thoughts About Anti-Psychiatry
• Your document on NSSC and your book
•  greatest frustrations with the family advocacy movement with regards to serious mental illness
• Re involuntary hospitalization; “A change in the delusion or a different hallucination can totally change the person’s patterns of action in moments. Remember to the person in psychosis the hallucinations and delusions are reality, and for example if he hears a voice that convinces him that someone is out to kill him, he may act in perceived self-defense and kill or harm that person. “
• “Currently the criterion for hospitalization is danger to self or others. This should become actively psychotic instead. ”

Darrell Herrmann - CURESZ Foundation (The guide to psychosis and psychotic illnesses  for NSSC)

NSSC_Guide Psych+Illnesses 

The YouTube video of Darrell's speech for NSSC on 6 June :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpR4Jv1o2Gk&t=684s

The article I published on LinkedIn titled "The Illusion Of Recovery Oriented Hospitals": Darrell Herrmann’s Post

A link to my book on Amazon (It can also be purchased through Barnes & Nobel)

Straight Talk About Living With A Severe Mental Illness: Herrmann, Darrell Ernest: 9781707189779: Amazon.com: Books

Mindy and her book:

Want to know more?
Join our facebook page
Our websites:
Randye Kaye
Mindy Greiling
Miriam (Mimi) Feldman

Transcript

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Randye Kaye: Welcome to this episode of schizophrenia. 3 moms in the trenches.

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Randye Kaye: It is December, and we're approaching the holidays for many people a time when a lot of families are

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Randye Kaye: really

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Randye Kaye: striving to have as good a holiday as they can if one of their family members has a severe mental illness or Smi. So today's topic is, I'm really excited about this. It's called straight talk about living with a severe mental illness, and our guest is someone who actually lives with an Smi and is doing very well. Daryl Herman will join us in just a second. And we're really excited. Yep, on Youtube.

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Randye Kaye: We're holding up our, we're holding up our books. Same title. By the way, straight talk about living with a severe mental illness which is short and sweet and easy to read, and explains so many things about the difference between psychosis and hallucinations, and talks about anasagnosia talks about marijuana. We'll get to all of that today, welcome to our podcast if you're new to us, we are 3 moms who met online

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Randye Kaye: through our 3 books. We each have a son with schizophrenia. And we're turning our pain to purpose. By holding this, podcast

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Randye Kaye: I want to begin with a reminder. More and more we're hearing from

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Randye Kaye: fans. I'll just say fans air quotes. If you're listening. I'm doing air quotes because it just seems like

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Randye Kaye: I don't know. Seems so weird to have fans, but it's called fan mail on Buzzsprout. So just a reminder, please, if you want to

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Randye Kaye: a response, I've been talking to buzzsprout to see if we can respond straight from our podcast website and we can't do that yet. So if you wish any of us to contact you in response to what you have to say. Sometimes we read your fan Mail on the air. But if you know, if you just provide an email address or a phone number. Then we can get back to you.

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Randye Kaye: And you know, I've heard today via email and via fan mail about so many people in so many difficult positions with their loved ones. I heard from a family who's going into debt to pay off their son's debt, and is afraid to have him declare bankruptcy because they don't want his credit report to be affected. I heard from someone who has a son

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Randye Kaye: with a man who goes in and out of treatment, and is an amazing father when he's in treatment, but when he's not in treatment, it's a nightmare for everybody and frightens their child, and we do have a few episodes about when your spouse has a serious mental illness. You know who we are is in our title.

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Randye Kaye: 3 moms in the trenches. But anytime anyone in your family has an Smi. It's difficult. And with that I'm Randy Kay, by the way, and I'm here with Mindy Greiling and Mimi Feldman or Miriam Feldman, as it says on her book. And

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Randye Kaye: so, just a few hours before we recorded this in the news is a verdict in

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Randye Kaye: a story that's really big on the east coast where I'm from. And it happened in New York City, and the reason I bring it up is because we are going to do a part. 2 of an episode we did about New York City's plan to help the homeless.

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Randye Kaye: and we want to see how that program is going. But someone who was not helped by this program. His name was Jordan Neely. He had been a Michael Jackson impersonator, has an Smi was no longer working, and evidently was on a subway car

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Randye Kaye: acting out.

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Randye Kaye: Some of the people who were on the subway car with him said that they felt very frightened. He was throwing things, and

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Randye Kaye: it's all in the news article. But a man named Daniel Penny, or

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Randye Kaye: former marine took it upon himself to what he said was, protect the

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Randye Kaye: people on the train, and unfortunately he used a chokehold, and you know what happens with that? So poor Jordan Neely

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Randye Kaye: passed away. Whether it was from the chokehold or from the synthetic marijuana in his system or sickle cell anemia, there are a lot of reasons. It wasn't clear that the chokehold did it, but certainly there's passion on both sides. The verdict came back as not guilty. And

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Randye Kaye: here's the 2 things I've been rolling this around in my head.

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Randye Kaye: number one we're going to address on our next episode, which is.

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Randye Kaye: yes, if the New York City system hadn't failed to address serious mental illness and homelessness. This didn't have to happen at all.

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Randye Kaye: So we'll talk about that. But the other thing

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Randye Kaye: that I've been thinking about because, again, if you're new to the podcast my son, who I call Ben for public purposes, was doing really really well.

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Randye Kaye: And then he added marijuana to his

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Randye Kaye: to what he was doing, and wasn't doing well, and wound up in that world of acquiring marijuana on the streets and wound up in jail. After a year in jail he

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Randye Kaye: jail got into jail diversion. He was never convicted, and he did amazingly well with

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Randye Kaye: the confines of being court ordered to be sober and in treatment.

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Randye Kaye: 2 days after he got out of that program he began using again. And right now he is facing homelessness. He's facing eviction.

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Randye Kaye: and working really hard to find another way.

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Randye Kaye: But all I kept thinking was, I, I am hope I'm not hopeless. I'm helpless here.

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Randye Kaye: I'm there's no place for the homeless to go in the city that he's in.

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Randye Kaye: and he can't come home and live with me because I'm in fear of him right now.

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Randye Kaye: So could that kid Jordan Neely on the subway have been my son?

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Randye Kaye: He could have been my son, and a lot of the Facebook comments I'm reading goes. Where was the family? Where was the family? Where was the family? Well, I'll tell you where the family has been. They've been working

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Randye Kaye: like crazy for decades and years to get help, and sometimes successfully, and sometimes not, and so

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Randye Kaye: to to jump to blaming the family is something we all face.

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Randye Kaye: The other thing that I kept thinking about. I'm going to be completely honest here is.

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Randye Kaye: It's very hard to say this.

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Randye Kaye: and I'm not really facing this, but I think the only thing worse than having my son be hurt

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Randye Kaye: would be feeling like he was responsible for killing someone else or hurting someone else.

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Randye Kaye: I think the guilt

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Randye Kaye: of having someone you love have his, and my son's not violent. He's a very gentle person, but, as Daryl will will probably talk about when he comes on. You never know what psychosis will

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Randye Kaye: change in someone

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Randye Kaye: so as much as I fear for my son's future, and I'm doing everything in my power to make his future better

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Randye Kaye: part of letting go is knowing he might not be well, and the only thing worse would be having him

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Randye Kaye: be responsible for hurting another human life.

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Randye Kaye: So that's kind of where I'm at serious, you know.

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Randye Kaye: Arguments on all sides. So that's all I have to say about that I don't know who's guilty or not guilty. I'm not weighing in on that. I wasn't at the trial, but I just know we need to do something about this

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Randye Kaye: thoughts. Other 2 moms, you know.

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Mindy Greiling: I think you said it very well, and the one thing I would add is

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Mindy Greiling: that I think people nowadays in 2024 have great sympathy for people with mental illnesses there's much more awareness. But, as we all know, and as we see in this case.

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Mindy Greiling: when something goes wrong, and the person is

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Mindy Greiling: scaring people, or, worse yet, committing crimes than

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Mindy Greiling: the sympathy goes out the window, and people are all for

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Mindy Greiling: the system putting people in jail if they go to prison, or if someone kills them.

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Mindy Greiling: I think that public opinion isn't always with us. Then.

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Randye Kaye: Yeah, I mean, it's complicated. It's not an easy thing. But just

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Randye Kaye: since we are a very raw, honest, podcast. I just have to say what was running through my mind.

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Randye Kaye: That I feel for Jordan Neely's parents. I feel for Jordan.

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Randye Kaye: I feel for Daniel Penny, too. I think I think

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Randye Kaye: he was thinking he was helping people, so I don't know. But I think the main thing is this is the situation we get ourselves in.

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mimipainter: I think what it is we have to. We look at the story underneath the story.

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mimipainter: The story is what happened on that train.

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mimipainter: but the story underneath that story is, the person with Smi

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mimipainter: should never have been there, and would never have been have, or would probably not have been, in that situation

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mimipainter: if it weren't for the lack of services and help. And once this thing happens, yeah, public

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mimipainter: sympathy goes towards the hero who is trying to help everybody but us as moms. Immediately

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mimipainter: we project and see our own sons there, and understand that

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mimipainter: if they were the person threatening, or were the person

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mimipainter: creating that problem. We understand why and how it got there. And so. But it's very hard to present this publicly to discuss in the public discourse and in the world of politic and policy.

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mimipainter: Well, you know, really, we should go wind it way back to when this guy was a little boy and his problems started and all that. But it's really true. And this is where we come to so often with these systemic problems

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mimipainter: is

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mimipainter: there has to be such a rewind to get to the point of starting to understand how it got to this. But it's the only way it's going to change.

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Randye Kaye: Yeah, it's.

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mimipainter: Simple case to make.

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Randye Kaye: So we're out there, you know, all doing our advocacy in different ways. And you know, if you read Mindy's book, fix what you can you know how long it took to change? I think one word in the State legislation, but you know, and Daryl Herman, who's coming in in a minute has some thoughts as well about how the law could be changed. But I will say this right now, my Ben.

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Randye Kaye: he's 2 and a half weeks overdue for his injection he is actively using.

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Randye Kaye: He's been served with eviction papers.

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Randye Kaye: and I'm still paying his rent, and I'm still sending money for him to go shopping at the supermarket.

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Randye Kaye: and they they they give me information. And as of last week

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Randye Kaye: he was at the supermarket sort of holding it together, but

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Randye Kaye: twitching, having facial ticks, hand tics hard to focus together.

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Randye Kaye: And I was like, Well, can you get him to the hospital? Nope, he's not sick enough.

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Randye Kaye: and this is what gets me I don't know right now. They're shopping again, and I don't know a week later how bad it's going to be, or if the drugs, mask the symptoms. But I'm just like, get him to the hospital, so I can move him out of his apartment.

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Randye Kaye: Not have an eviction on his record, you know, get his stuff into storage, so he doesn't lose his stuff, and then we can get him help from the hospital. You know. It's just so frustrating because he is not sick enough. But what does it take for his psychosis to take over which

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Randye Kaye: I don't know. So this brings me to

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Randye Kaye: tonight's topic. And tonight's tonight, today's wonderful guest. Millions of Americans are affected by psychosis. It's not just us. It's a condition that includes schizophrenia. But it also includes bipolar disorder.

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Randye Kaye: depression, drug use as well can cause psychosis. So one man, Darryl E. Herman, is sharing his story, and he does that in an effort to help others who may be diagnosed with similar conditions. Daryl actually lives with a serious mental illness, and holds a degree in physical science, and served as a military officer

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Randye Kaye: he is diagnosed with schizophrenia. He's lived with it for more than 40 years. He's written a book which Mindy and I held up before called straight talk about living with severe mental illness. It's on Amazon, and his hope is that readers will gain a better understanding of psychosis and how to adjust their lives to manage the condition. So, Daryl.

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Randye Kaye: please join us and turn on your your camera and welcome.

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Randye Kaye: Thank you. So I see the background is the national shattering silence coalition. And you've written a wonderful wonderful piece on their website, which we will put in the show notes welcome to the podcast.

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Darrell Herrmann: Thank you. Glad to be here.

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Randye Kaye: Can you begin by telling us your your just tell your story, and then we'll talk about various topics.

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Darrell Herrmann: Well, I'm originally from western Kansas. I grew up on a small family farm about 30 miles east of Dodd City, which that's the real Dodd City of the Western Fans. If you're a Western fan

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Darrell Herrmann: both the guys before. After school did all the usual farm boy stuff

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Darrell Herrmann: after high school. I went to college at Kansas State University to study physics

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Darrell Herrmann: got involved with Rotc. In 1976, I graduated

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Darrell Herrmann: and was commissioned as a Secretary of the United States Army.

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Darrell Herrmann: By 1984, I was a captain. My specialties were field artillery nuclear weapons.

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Darrell Herrmann: and it became psychotic. Began to think that I've been drove these

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Darrell Herrmann: drug that was going to make me a super soldier, and that I was having bad side effects from it, and that was why I couldn't function with just falling apart, and didn't do anything.

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Randye Kaye: If I'm going to, if you could just slow down a little bit because it's going by really fast. So you you made it all the way through college. You made it, and then you you took us a super drug, a super drug. What did you do.

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Darrell Herrmann: Well, it was my delusions. I was 29, almost 30. The delusion was that I had a drug with a drug that would turn me into a super soldier.

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Randye Kaye: Oh, that was your delusion. Okay, and it just came out of nowhere. These delusions.

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Darrell Herrmann: I went downhill over a period of about 2 or 3 days.

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Darrell Herrmann: For some people it's 2 or 3 days like me. For some it's 2 or 3 months. For some it's 2 or 3 years, for one's different. But in my case it went down a hill for 2 or 3 days.

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Darrell Herrmann: and because I believed I had a medical problem caused by a drug that I've been given without my permission or knowledge.

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Darrell Herrmann: I decide to go seek help at the Army Hospital

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Darrell Herrmann: when I got there, of course, and told them my story. They quickly realized I was becoming psychotic.

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Darrell Herrmann: I wound up in a military psychiatric ward. The diagnosis was later schizophrenia, and we went on. From there

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Darrell Herrmann: it took about 6 months for the army to go through the process of deciding what to do with me and discharge me from active duty.

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Darrell Herrmann: I eventually ended up with a medical retirement.

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Darrell Herrmann: After being discharged, I went back to college at Kansas State University.

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Darrell Herrmann: completed a bachelor of science in computer science.

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Darrell Herrmann: You proceed to work for the next 18 years very successfully as a professional computer programmer

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Darrell Herrmann: at the end of that 18 years I was becoming so stressed out about work

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Darrell Herrmann: that I just couldn't cope. The stress was causing me to have

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Darrell Herrmann: delusions, hallucinations, even though it was a high dose of medications.

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Darrell Herrmann: A call happened to be the Dilbert Syndrome after Dilbert Comic Strip, because I was dealing with the possible co-workers, impossible situations, guidance that was completely hard to understand.

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Darrell Herrmann: just totally chaotic work, environment.

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Darrell Herrmann: And I couldn't see a win in it for me. My coworkers by company anyone.

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Darrell Herrmann: and the stress has probably become delusional, hallucinate.

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Darrell Herrmann: So talking with my psychiatrist and my psychologist, and the decision was to go on disability.

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Darrell Herrmann: Because after 18 years as a computer programmer, I learned that the American corporate environment right now

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Darrell Herrmann: is full of Gilbert syndrome. It's endemic everywhere.

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Darrell Herrmann: And I can't work in that kind of a situation.

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Darrell Herrmann: So.

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Randye Kaye: Ask you a question. So all this time, 18 years during which you.

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Randye Kaye: you completed your degree, you were working, you were, on taking your medication willingly correct, and even despite that, if I'm hearing you correctly, the stress of corporate America and the Dilbert syndrome, that is what had the you were still on your medication, but the delusions came back anyway. Do I have that right?

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Darrell Herrmann: That's correct. Stress often increase the symptoms makes it worse. That was what was happening to me. The stress of work in a situation that was just impossible

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Darrell Herrmann: was causing me to have hallucination delusions and a breaking down. I just couldn't work in that situation.

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Darrell Herrmann: And like, I said, 18 years of professional computer programmer. I found that it was basically endemic in the American corporate culture everywhere.

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Darrell Herrmann: And although well, I think my psychologist put it best, she said. When we're talking about this, she said. I think that an ideal environment not only could you work, but you would thrive.

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Darrell Herrmann: The problem is that it's very hard to find an ideal environment. Today's corporate workplace, and when you do, it doesn't stay ideal for very long.

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Darrell Herrmann: And that's my experience.

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Randye Kaye: All right. Thank you. So I mean, you would be considered

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Randye Kaye: definitely a success story in that.

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Randye Kaye: Once you and I think you say in your book.

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Randye Kaye: I don't know. They told me to take these meds, so I did like. I don't think anyone convinced you. They handed you pills, and you took them, and so it seems at some point you realized you were doing better with them. So you did you ever deal with anosagnosia yourself? The the lack of awareness that you were ill.

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Darrell Herrmann: Acidogia affects a lot of people.

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Darrell Herrmann: but I think a lot of people don't understand what as Audiogy really does to us.

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Darrell Herrmann: What happens is that when you're psychotic your hallucinations, delusions seem real to you. They are your reality.

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Darrell Herrmann: You hear it with your own ears, you see it with your own eyes to you it's all real.

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Darrell Herrmann: and no one in the system anywhere tells us that this could possibly be false.

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Darrell Herrmann: No one tells us what hallucinations are. No one explains what psychosis is. So to a lot of patients it was all real. They experienced it, they saw it, they heard it with their own eyes, their own ears.

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Darrell Herrmann: so they don't understand that it could have possibly been false, and because of that they go through their entire life without realizing they could have experienced things that never really actually happened.

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Darrell Herrmann: I think that's a big piece of what Asaroji is. They can't question it because no one's ever told them they should.

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Mindy Greiling: That's 1 thing I really liked. I really liked your book. I think Brandi probably read it to maybe, Mimi. I read it this weekend, and it I recommend it to our listeners, because it is straight talk, and it's short, you know. So many of these books are treatises, and and you use them as reference books. But this is one. You can actually read the whole thing and get a lot out of all at once. And one thing I.

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Randye Kaye: Pages, 64.

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Mindy Greiling: There you go, 64 pages. One thing I really liked was your beef with the psychiatry system that relates that people don't get enough education. We don't credit people that are newly diagnosed with having the wherewithal to understand their illness, to learn about it, to know what to do.

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Mindy Greiling: And I wonder if you could comment on that? And also, do you think

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Mindy Greiling: Anasagnosia can be mitigated with education or not?

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Darrell Herrmann: Let me talk about the Astonosia first, st like I said, a lot of what we call Anastonosia is because no one's ever explained to them. They might want to question what happened to them, as whether or not it was real.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I think it will always seem real. There are things that happened to me 40 years ago with my 1st psychosis to this day. I don't know what was real, what was not.

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Darrell Herrmann: I've just had to accept that I never will.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I think that's a big part of it.

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Darrell Herrmann: And my beef with the mental health system is that no one does anything for you.

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Darrell Herrmann: What they do is give you a pill. They expect the pill to solve all the problems, and there's so much more you need other than a pill.

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Darrell Herrmann: When I became ill in 1984.

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Darrell Herrmann: I will submit it to the hospital. Give it a pill.

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Darrell Herrmann: They didn't tell me anything else. They wouldn't tell me what my diagnosis was. They wouldn't tell me why I was there.

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Darrell Herrmann: I knew I had a right to read my medical records, so I read my medical records after I demanded. I see them.

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Darrell Herrmann: It says schizophreiform disorder, which told me exactly nothing.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I got out of the hospital and tried to find that psychology textbooks because I realized it was subside, a kind of mental health problem.

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Darrell Herrmann: I never found a psychology book that mentions schizophreal form disorder.

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Darrell Herrmann: but I did find a psychology textbook to talk about schizophrenia briefly.

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Darrell Herrmann: and when I looked at the symptoms and stuff was good for me, I said, That's what I've got.

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Darrell Herrmann: and that's how I knew I had schizophrenia, and it wasn't until 6 months later, as the Dsm. Specifies that the changes I was from schizophreniform disorder to schizophrenia.

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Darrell Herrmann: but they didn't tell me anything. All they do is give me pills and talk to me.

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Darrell Herrmann: and to this day that's what happens. If you come into the hospital psychotic, you're placed on medication.

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Darrell Herrmann: Sometimes I guess you will sometimes not

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Darrell Herrmann: with suture no longer psychotic, typically 3, 4, 5 days, usually less than a week you're discharged.

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Darrell Herrmann: During that time no one's done anything at all to prepare to live with the mental illness.

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Darrell Herrmann: The only you've gotten in form of therapy is medication.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's like taking someone with type, one diabetes saying, you have type, one diabetes you need insulin and send them on their way with no education whatsoever. It doesn't work.

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Darrell Herrmann: There's a whole lot of things you need to know. You need to know what I probably you're probably questioning what caused it.

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Darrell Herrmann: You don't know what solutions and lesions are. You don't know what your diagnosis means, and they tell it to you, and a lot of times they don't tell you.

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Darrell Herrmann: You don't know what side effects of medication you cause. You don't know what symptoms you're treating.

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Darrell Herrmann: They don't tell you that they tell you nothing. Basically, you're there for usually less than a week.

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Darrell Herrmann: The only thing you get in the form of therapy is your medication and no education whatsoever.

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Mindy Greiling: Thank you.

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Mindy Greiling: You're doing education in the hospitals. I applaud you for that. Did you? Did it? Say in your book you do like 7 groups, or 7 hospitals. Or what is that that you educate people.

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Darrell Herrmann: Well, after I went on disability, I started going to hospitals here in Columbus, Ohio.

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Darrell Herrmann: and talking to the hospitalized patients about how to live there with a serious mental illness.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I want to help them do that, because when I was on disability I made it my mission in life to do everything I could to help the severely, mentally ill live better lives.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I was trying to educate them. How to do that, how the things I had learned over the course of my illness that I needed to know, to live good life. I would help them

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Darrell Herrmann: doing that. I learned a lot about what they knew and didn't know and needed to know. And of course I've been doing research for years on my own illness, trying to learn everything I could. So I do quite a bit.

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Darrell Herrmann: and what I've done is I took the information I thought they needed most and put that in my book. That's where the origin of the book came from from talking to all those patients, all their questions, all the answers I had to give them, what I had to learn to help them.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's where that book came from, and

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Darrell Herrmann: I did that until Covid hit

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Darrell Herrmann: in the 10 years before Covid, I spoke to more than 30,000 people in those hospital groups.

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Randye Kaye: Wow!

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Darrell Herrmann: When Covid, when Covid came along they shut down all my groups.

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Darrell Herrmann: and the hospitals have not let me back in since

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Darrell Herrmann: today I have no hospitals, because I.

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Mindy Greiling: Terrible.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's good.

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Randye Kaye: Yes, so so what you're doing instead is, is writing, which is really helpful.

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Randye Kaye: I I totally hear what you're saying.

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Randye Kaye: but I do have to add that, you know, for my son, because I'm his

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Randye Kaye: currently conservator of his person and a State. But person is what matters here.

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Randye Kaye: I do know what they've tried to do in the hospital.

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Randye Kaye: and he's been in many, many

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Randye Kaye: group homes and hospitalizations where they did education, and they did try. It was invited to peer groups and support groups, and all along the way is like, no, no, I don't need that. I don't need that. I don't have this illness, I think there has to be a level of all right. Let me learn about it.

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Randye Kaye: I, you speaking to 30,000 people, is amazing, and I am so glad you were able to help that many people, but

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Randye Kaye: for somebody like my son, who got ill in his mid teens, he's not having it.

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Randye Kaye: He, you know he, he!

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Randye Kaye: Where he is right now is not just an apartment. There are services available to him, and he's like, I don't need those stupid groups. Those are boring. They don't have anything to do with me. I'm not sick.

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Randye Kaye: so that education I totally agree with you is important.

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Randye Kaye: but they also there are people who aren't ready to hear it.

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Darrell Herrmann: I'll greatly agree with you. During the course of my hospital groups I saw some people

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Darrell Herrmann: a few times so many times.

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Darrell Herrmann: and a lot of it is just they're not ready at that moment to listen

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Darrell Herrmann: of being required to be in the group. They they had the opportunity. Some didn't take the 1st time. It doesn't always take on the 1st time. Sometimes it's 2, 3 times, maybe a dozen times, but you gotta keep trying.

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Darrell Herrmann: and the opportunity is there, but they have to be willing. You're correct if they, if they are not willing to learn

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Darrell Herrmann: well, as the old say goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

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Randye Kaye: Right.

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Randye Kaye: Can you talk about something I really liked in your piece at the National Shattering Silence coalition? There's a piece written by you

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Randye Kaye: which explains Anasagnosia to the layperson, but also talks about. And this is the 1st time I'd heard this. It was very powerful to me.

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Randye Kaye: The difference between hallucinations and psychosis. And I'm going to suggest, Daryl for a second that you try turning off your camera because your sound is kind of spotty. So I'm thinking your Internet might not be that strong. So we'll try it. If you turn off your camera, maybe your sound will be a little clearer.

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Randye Kaye: Can you explain the difference between hallucinations and psychosis, because my son is always like, I don't hear voices. I don't see anything, but it's clear that he has psychosis. So what is the difference?

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Darrell Herrmann: Well, 1st off the piece, I the piece you references. I talked about 2 symptoms of psychosis, hallucinations and delusions, and they're both symptom psychosis.

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Darrell Herrmann: If you check the Dsm. There are, in fact, 5 possible symptoms of psychosis. 2 of them are hallucination delusions. I don't talk about the other 3, because they're not very common. And I don't think they're important to what we're talking about here, because most people schizophrenia experience hallucination delusions. That's what they have. So that's a practical definition. Rather the Dsm definition.

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Darrell Herrmann: Now, according to Dsm, and this is very important.

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Darrell Herrmann: It's not just an hallucination. It's losing touch with reality. At the same time.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's what psychosis is. If you do not lose touch with reality, you do not have psychosis.

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Darrell Herrmann: We do those 5 symptoms according to Dsm, you technically have to lose touch of reality, or you're not psychotic.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's the key difference. It's not just a symptom. It's losing sexuality at the same time.

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Darrell Herrmann: and that's something a lot of people don't understand, because many people have hallucinations without losing touch reality. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's not an illness. For example, there are 2 types of hallucinations called hypnopotic and hypnogogic hallucinations. What these are is people hear voices that aren't there as they're drifting off to sleep, or as they're waking up in the morning. That's a normal reaction. Anyone can have it. It's not an illness, and it's not psychosis. You're having hallucinations. But it's not psychosis.

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Mindy Greiling: I hadn't heard that either, until I read that same piece that Randy's talking about.

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Mindy Greiling: and what I found fascinating was you're connecting it to the need for

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Mindy Greiling: involuntary care for people who have psychosis.

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Mindy Greiling: and how the hearing voices, movement, and others

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Mindy Greiling: don't make the distinction that you're making between psychosis and hearing voices, or having just hallucinations without psychosis. So could you talk a little bit about that in connection with

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Mindy Greiling: involuntary care? And how far do you get if you talk to people from the hearing voices, communities about relating to what you're saying.

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Darrell Herrmann: I tend to avoid the hairy Voices people because they are not open to discussion.

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Darrell Herrmann: According to them, schizophrenia is not a physical illness. Many of them believe it's caused by the mental health system itself and the treatment they receive from it.

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Darrell Herrmann: I have no common ground with them whatsoever, other than the fact that we're both considered peers.

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Darrell Herrmann: And I think that's a very important thing to realize, too. Peer does not necessarily mean someone who has psychosis. It means something else.

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Darrell Herrmann: And these hairy voices, people and many of the other peers, are, in fact, not experienced with, and do not understand anything about psychosis or what it means.

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Darrell Herrmann: I think that's a big problem, because these peers that don't understand psychosis

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Darrell Herrmann: are basically in control of what is called peer services and peer support in the country. So if you're getting a peer support, you may actually be getting someone who's telling you you don't need to take medications, maybe telling you to stay away from your family and maybe tell you to stay away from the psychiatrist.

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Darrell Herrmann: There's a whole lot of stuff going on there that is just not worth having.

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Darrell Herrmann: so I don't have much track with them. I just don't talk to them much.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's where they're at, and I'm in a different place, and

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Darrell Herrmann: these to define what a psychiatry is.

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Darrell Herrmann: Basically psychiatry today says that schizophrenia is a physical medical illness.

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Darrell Herrmann: And when you're an as psychiatrist, you don't accept that.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's basically what a psychiatrist is their acceptance of physical medical illness.

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Darrell Herrmann: And with that, but that's it.

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Randye Kaye: Thank you. I just want to clarify again, because you have a lot to say. So. You're talking very fast. So just to recap, you're talking about the anti-psychiatry movement, sometimes called the Hearing Voices movement. And this is a huge distinction, Daryl, because I have been at conferences, including once a Nami Conference, where

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Randye Kaye: the people in the hearing voices movement were like, Okay, well, you know, this is the voice of your trauma, and just talk back to it. And okay, good for you. But that would never work with my son, and I love the distinction

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Randye Kaye: of psychosis being losing touch with reality like that is so huge. And you're right. The antipsychiatry people aren't

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Randye Kaye: aren't taking into account those with Smi that have lost touch with reality that will look at their own mother me, and say, you're not my mother. I'm going to call you Randy from now on, and you've always been against me that is losing touch with reality.

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Randye Kaye: so that I think that distinction is so so powerful. So that is a really sensible answer to the antipsychiatry, and hearing voices, movements, they may have their own solutions. But they're not experiencing psychosis. So that's huge, Mimi. You have a question.

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mimipainter: Yeah, you know, it's a funny thing, because every time Nick gets a new peer counselor I always get a little nervous for the same reason. It's you don't know quite where they're coming from, and the concerns of the mom are going to be different most of the time than the concerns.

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mimipainter: You know, then, the agenda of the hearing voices, movement, or the antipsychiatry movement, and honestly, that whole thing just scares the hell out of me because the last thing I want is for Nick to be convinced that he doesn't need any help, and everything is fine the way it is

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mimipainter: and you know that kind of family advocacy that that they

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mimipainter: give you, or push on your whatever verb you want to use is sometimes very frustrating, and I'm wondering if our guest has had any experience, or has any opinion about that about the family advocacy movement.

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Darrell Herrmann: I have some frustration with the family advocacy movement, and let me tell you 2 stories about my 1st 2 encounters with the family advocacy movement. That may explain why I have frustrations with them.

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Darrell Herrmann: The 1st time I encountered anyone from private advocacy movement was in 1987.

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Darrell Herrmann: I was a brand new computer programmer in Barksville, Oklahoma, working for Phyllis Petrole Company. This was their worldwide headquarters. It's their corporate offices. It's huge there that I would estimate that probably a quarter to a 3rd of the people of Bartlesville work directly for Phyllis Patrol Company

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Darrell Herrmann: one day after work. It was a I think it was a Friday. I don't remember what day it was. It was a Friday. I was off work, and I was going through the Mall doing a little shopping. I was still wearing my suit. At that time. Programmers wore business suits with ties. All the time. I was still dressed appropriately.

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Darrell Herrmann: and walking through the Mall came a small health bear.

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Darrell Herrmann: There was a booth there that, said Nami.

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Darrell Herrmann: Well, I had read about Nami and Dr. Ifel, notorious surviving schizophrenia a couple years before. He had good things to say about it, so I decided to walk up and talk to them, see what they were about

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Darrell Herrmann: walking up there talking to them. They started talking to me. They said.

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Darrell Herrmann: What brings you here? I said, I'm a new computer programmer. I work with Phillips, and we talked a little bit more, and they said, What's your collections? Who in your family has it?

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Darrell Herrmann: I said, I do. I have schizophrenia.

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Darrell Herrmann: And suddenly the whole attitude changed. Instead of being willing to talk to me and invite me to the meetings, I was not welcome.

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Darrell Herrmann: They said they had a son with schizophrenia.

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Darrell Herrmann: who spent most of his time sitting up behind their house next to a pond, plays guitar to the fishes.

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Darrell Herrmann: and they wanted me to be his friend, but I would not welcome to their meetings to hear more about what Dr. Tory had to say

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Darrell Herrmann: the the one time away from the person with the mental illness I was not welcome.

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Darrell Herrmann: I didn't have any contact with the family movement for many years.

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Darrell Herrmann: Then in Columbus about 2,001, 2,002 I got involved with the support group, started work with mental health. America of Franklin County, here in Columbus.

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Darrell Herrmann: got to know their executive director a little bit. She was a very nice lady, and very involved in

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Darrell Herrmann: mental health.

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Darrell Herrmann: so I decided to check out the Nami group here in Columbus, too, so I went to Nami of Franklin County.

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Darrell Herrmann: met their executive director. She was a very nice lady, had bipolar, and

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Darrell Herrmann: we talked for a while, and she said, You're very interesting. She invited me to their support group, which is going up

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Darrell Herrmann: in about a week.

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Darrell Herrmann: Well, I decided to go to the support group I got there. We collected. There was about 15 or 20 people there. We formed a circle with chairs. The lady run the group said, Hi, I'm so and so I'm a family. The family instructor, my son has schizophrenia. Please go around the room, introduce yourself and say, what's your connection to serious mental illnesses.

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Darrell Herrmann: the managing director said, I'm her husband. Our son has schizophrenia. We went on around the room. Got to me, said, Hi, my name is Darryl. I work full time as a professional computer programmer, and I have schizophrenia.

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Darrell Herrmann: the father exploded. How can you possibly say you have schizophrenia? You're working full time as a computer programmer.

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Darrell Herrmann: The executive director, who I was sitting next to because she was the only person I knew in the room, spoke up immediately and said, well, she wasn't sure exactly how it was possible, either, but she knew it was because she knew of Dr. Fred Fries, the famous psychologist who had schizophrenia was, in fact, on the board of Nami National.

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Darrell Herrmann: and we went along with the meeting. That was my 1st Eastern tsunami meeting.

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Darrell Herrmann: What I learned later is that Nami self selects because the way it works, the people that are looking for help, all have severe problems with a family member

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Darrell Herrmann: when they get to Nami. Nami accepts him. They talk to people. In Nami. Everybody in Nami has a family member that has severe problems.

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Darrell Herrmann: So they think everyone with schizophrenia has severe problems.

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Darrell Herrmann: and their their stories are very real. They're very sad. When do you do better with those people?

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Darrell Herrmann: But that's not the norm.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's far from the norm.

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Darrell Herrmann: Most people with schizophrenia can do very well if they do 3 things, take the medications as prescribed, stay. Aware of alcohol, marijuana.

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Darrell Herrmann: and go up with the treatment team.

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Darrell Herrmann: So what they're seeing is not the norm, it's far from it, but they think it is.

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Randye Kaye: Okay.

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Randye Kaye: I'm going to stop you for a second. Thank you for your stories, and just for the benefits of the listeners. So Nami is the national alliance on mental illness. It was started, probably, when you met them, Daryl, by families dealing with serious or severe mental illnesses, and it was very, very family oriented, and I'm so sorry that you went through all those frustrating experiences and felt that

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Randye Kaye: like rejected. That's horrible. I think Nami is a little bit different now, which kind of frustrates sometimes the family members, because now they're about mental wellness, and so I can certainly feel your frustration. And I'm really glad that you're with the national shattering silence coalition and doing all the work that you're doing.

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Randye Kaye: because your sound isn't ideal, even with your camera off. It's a little bit better, but I'd like those 3 things the last 3 things you said. I'd like you to repeat them number what you said if I hear you correctly is, people with schizophrenia can do really well. If

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Randye Kaye: one, they take all their medications.

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Randye Kaye: 2. They avoid substance, use especially marijuana, and what was the 3rd one.

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Darrell Herrmann: Cooperate with your treatment team.

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Randye Kaye: Cooperate with their treatment team. Now, whether or not your statement that

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Randye Kaye: that level of recovery is the norm or not, I don't have any statistics on that, I know for the 3 of us, you know, we go in and out of those phases of recovery, but certainly somebody like you shows that it is possible

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Randye Kaye: to live and live well with schizophrenia. You have a happy marriage, you are functioning beautifully. You have a job, you have a college degree, and we have a lot of episodes about. You know how early treatment helps the later you get schizophrenia the better your outcome. So I don't know what the norm is. I don't know what the percentage is, but I think those 3 things you said are so vital and so important. And I'm so glad you're sharing them. Stay on your meds. Avoid substance, use and cooperate with your treatment team.

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Randye Kaye: If my son were doing those 3 things he'd be working right now, instead of

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Randye Kaye: whatever he's doing. So. Thank you.

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Mindy Greiling: Could I? Could I comment on Daryl's comments about the Nami and the family, and so forth. because I'm I've been around this block a very long time as well. I have seen that same transition. Daryl. Jim was diagnosed in 1999, and I went to Nami, and I went to family, to family, and did all the classes and everything, and

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Mindy Greiling: and I got materials, and everything was so gloom and doom that I just was so depressed I couldn't find anything of anybody

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Mindy Greiling: doing as well as you in recovery. So it doesn't surprise me that family members that you met in those times just could not believe that someone could be doing that well. But I had had a grandmother with schizophrenia, so I knew she most of the time did really well, and she worked at a women's clothing store, and so forth. She had terrible

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Mindy Greiling: relapses at times.

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Mindy Greiling: But I then asked for could I have something hopeful? You know not just that he's going to have to live this kind of life, and so forth. And Dr. Fred Freeze was the materials that I finally got some of his

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Mindy Greiling: talking to the audience. I read them thirstily and shared them with Jim, and then, when I went to be on the National Nami Board, the 1st person that I met at a reception

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Mindy Greiling: as I was running for that office was Fred freeze, and I got to meet his wife, Penny, and it turned out that they had relatives here in Minnesota and got me really good sign locations on a busy street with their relatives. I got to go over to their house and meet the family. He was just a wonderful man.

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Mindy Greiling: but, as you said he was one of many that people just didn't realize how many people were doing. Well, so I appreciate those criticisms of Nami and the family movement, and, as Randy said

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Mindy Greiling: hopefully, and it seems that there's been a lot of progress since. But Nami really was formed for families, and it was a family movement.

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Mindy Greiling: And now I think that's changed considerably so. But thank you for those criticisms always make us be better. When I 1st went to Nami. Actually, anyone who had someone in prison was shunned in our State Nami. They were not welcome, because no one wanted to admit that anyone with a serious mental illness would ever commit a crime. So that would be my next question for you.

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Mindy Greiling: You talk eloquently in your book about

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Mindy Greiling: the few people who do commit a crime, and that how it is not common. But what can be done about it? Could you talk about that.

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Darrell Herrmann: Most people that commit crimes have 3 things in common.

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Darrell Herrmann: Number number one. When I take the medications

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Darrell Herrmann: number 2, the use of alcohol, marijuana.

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Darrell Herrmann: and almost always they have a past history of violence.

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Darrell Herrmann: When you see those 3 3 things together. That's what you want to account for.

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Darrell Herrmann: But there's no guarantee. You may see someone with all 3 of those things that doesn't become violent. You may see someone with none of those 3 things that does. Those are just predictors.

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Darrell Herrmann: and the key thing to remember is that when you are psychotic your hallucination delusions are your reality.

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Darrell Herrmann: and that could change very quickly.

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Darrell Herrmann: You can be going from, not endangered anyone to be endangered yourself or someone else in seconds.

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Darrell Herrmann: In my speech for Nssc. I talked about one story I heard here in Columbus

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Darrell Herrmann: of a young man who was eschoteric.

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Darrell Herrmann: He had religious delusions, a lot of religious delusions.

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Darrell Herrmann: and one day he was found to have jumped off the top of a parking garage at Ohio State University. Here at Columbus and died.

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Darrell Herrmann: It was ruled a suicide.

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Darrell Herrmann: The family says it was a suicide.

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Darrell Herrmann: He had religious delusions. He was fixated on the tip nation of Christ. If you know the sword tiptation to Christ, the devil takes Christ up to a high place, and so it would jump off, and the ages will wear him up.

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Darrell Herrmann: and the family says that's what he was doing. He went up the high place and jumped off. Expect the angels to bear him up

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Darrell Herrmann: had to happen very quickly. He had not been injured, anyone not injured himself.

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Darrell Herrmann: but the delusion said, Go to the high place and jump off, and he did.

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Darrell Herrmann: We'll never know if that's what actually happened.

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Darrell Herrmann: but it certainly makes sense from my own experience. That's entirely possible.

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Mindy Greiling: My

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Mindy Greiling: jumped off a building when his delusion told him to do that, so I with him. It was very possible.

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Mindy Greiling: 3 stories.

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Darrell Herrmann: It can happen.

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Darrell Herrmann: And you could have someone who is thinking someone's about to get their persecution complex.

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Darrell Herrmann: But they may not be doing anything about it.

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Darrell Herrmann: And then, if you get a auditory hallucination, says someone is getting ready to harm you, maybe kill you.

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Darrell Herrmann: You may buy the 2, and you may suddenly decide. You have to do something to protect yourself.

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Darrell Herrmann: and in what you perceive to be an act of self-protection you may harm or even kill that person who you think is an enemy of yours.

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Darrell Herrmann: You think you protected yourself.

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Darrell Herrmann: but it's not there. It's just your hallucination delusions and your psychosis is making you do these things.

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Darrell Herrmann: and that could happen in a matter of moments.

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Darrell Herrmann: I believe that anyone who is actively psychotic

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Darrell Herrmann: meaning they cannot distinguish hallucination from reality should be hospitalized immediately until such time as they are no longer actively psychotic.

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Mindy Greiling: Do you have any chances to get to policy tables? Because with policymakers, because to me this is such an important message and distinction that you make, and legislators, and I was a legislator here in Minnesota for 20 years. So I know legislators when dealing with mental illness. Topics want to listen to people with mental illnesses and the groups that represent them.

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Mindy Greiling: But, as you said so often, the groups representing that are at the table do not make this distinction with people who hear voices. So they think they're talking for everybody, including those who have psychosis when they really don't know anything about it. Do you have any opportunities or people who share your viewpoint

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Mindy Greiling: to interact with Federal Congress people or people in Columbus at your legislature?

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Darrell Herrmann: I have not been doing that in the past, but I've tried to do that right now.

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Darrell Herrmann: This summer I found out that Ohio built in the

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Darrell Herrmann: House Legislature called Ohio House Bill 249, which was a tip to increase the chance of being someone involuntarily hospitalized who was, in fact, in needy of it.

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Darrell Herrmann: but I didn't like the way they had done it.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I sent you all a write up what I believe the criteria should be. That was a result of seeing what they do with hospital 2, 49, or what I thought should actually be done

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Darrell Herrmann: at that point. In time I took a position as policy director for the State of Ohio, for National Shadows Coalition.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I'm not trying to advocate here in the State to change our law to something along the lines of what I wrote as opposed to what the House Bill 2, 49, was doing, because I don't think it's a good solution.

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Darrell Herrmann: and I've tried to get with the people that are Sponsoring Hospital 249, but so far they have been willing to talk to me.

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Darrell Herrmann: I've talked to one person who's running the corporate thing she's gave me the names of all the contacts.

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Darrell Herrmann: I said each of them. I sent a joint email to all of them, introducing myself, pointing out what I thought we should be doing, trying to explain what I'm doing.

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Darrell Herrmann: That was about a month or 2 ago. I've heard nothing from any of them since.

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Mindy Greiling: I'm sorry

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Mindy Greiling: to hear that. You know I read what you sent us, and I thought it was very good, and so

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Mindy Greiling: hopefully working with the national shattering silence. Coalition will help, I always think, when an individual comes they have a lot more power working with an advocacy group with legislators.

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Randye Kaye: Yeah, thank you. And is this.

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Randye Kaye: we're we're going to be running out of time very quickly. And

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Randye Kaye: I note also that you can. It's not just the national shattering silence coalition. But also you're with Curesc or cures. CURESZ foundation. So you've written for them as well. There are links in the show notes to speeches that you've made in some of your writings. What I have here a quote from you is currently

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Randye Kaye: the criterion for hospitalization is danger to cell for others.

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Randye Kaye: In some states it's imminent danger to self or others. This should become actively psychotic. Instead, that's your platform right?

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Darrell Herrmann: Platform.

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Randye Kaye: Right. So if the psychiatrist thinks the person should be hospitalized, he'll ask the person to admit themselves. If they won't, he'll initiate a 72 h hold.

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Randye Kaye: and then once you're in the hospital, you can ask for hearings and so forth. And you know again, regarding involuntary hospitalization. You wrote.

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Randye Kaye: and this kind of sums up what you've already said to us. But, as I said, the sound was a little iffy. I'm going to try to provide the transcript for people so they can hear it. I know the Internet was a little fluffy, but

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Randye Kaye: someone who presents themselves as being in psychosis may not appear to be a danger to self or others at this time. But speaking from personal experience, that's you that can change on very, very short notice. Right? That's what you were just telling us. A change in the delusion or a different hallucination can totally change the person's patterns of action in moments.

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Randye Kaye: Remember to the person in psychosis. The hallucinations and delusions are reality. And, for example, if he hears a voice, you just said this that convinces him that someone is out to kill him. He may act in perceived self-defense, and kill or harm that person.

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Randye Kaye: or like your friend's son, or like Mindy's son, or, like our our guest past Guest, Jerry Clark, who's the 1st line in her speech to Congress, is something like my son, finally met the criteria for hospitalization. When he jumped off a bridge and killed himself.

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Randye Kaye: You know these, these are the things we live in fear of every day I live in fear of my son

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Randye Kaye: doing all of a sudden having a psychosis that convinces him that he needs to.

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Randye Kaye: I don't know what. I don't even want to think about it, but it can change, and I want him in the hospital. Now

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Randye Kaye: I want him back on medication so that I can take steps to once again try to save his life as best I can. And when the comments about Jordan Neely say, where was the family? If this kid was homeless, it just makes me mad because we're here, and we're always trying to help, and

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Randye Kaye: and our hands are often tied. Yes.

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Darrell Herrmann: That's why I wrote that 6 page thing on psychosis, psychotic illnesses so that people could educate legislators and judges and district attorneys and sheriffs and

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Darrell Herrmann: police officers, and whoever about what this is because they don't know

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Darrell Herrmann: all the guys, what everybody else does, which is basically nothing. They don't know what this stuff is. They don't know what psychosis is or what it does to a person. And that's why they're making the decisions they do

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Darrell Herrmann: when you're dealing with someone who's psychotic, his solution to lose our reality. Those are the facts he works with. That's why he makes no sense to you or those around him.

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Darrell Herrmann: But when you deal with a legislator that doesn't make sense to you, chances are they're not work with the same set of facts you are.

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Darrell Herrmann: and that's why I wrote that piece so that they could have the same set of facts. I think when they have that same set of facts they will make decisions that make sense to you.

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Randye Kaye: Thank you. And that piece is available to be downloaded at Nssc. Underscore

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Randye Kaye: guide psych plus illnesses. Is that the one you're referring to.

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Darrell Herrmann: Yes.

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Randye Kaye: Yes, and I did send that to my State legislator, who is working on getting aot into Connecticut, and these facts, so beautifully and easily laid out so anyone can understand them was really really helpful. Daryl, I thank you so much for everything that you're doing

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Randye Kaye: to help others, even if they won't let you back in the hospitals yet they should. But these pieces are very, very valuable. And I just thank you so much for being on the podcast Mimi, any last words and Mindy.

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mimipainter: Now just echoing what you're saying. Thank you so much.

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Mindy Greiling: My sentiments. Exactly. Thank you.

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Randye Kaye: Any last words, Daryl.

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Darrell Herrmann: I'd just like to thank you all for giving me the chance to be here and talk with you all.

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Darrell Herrmann: And if you have any further questions. Just please let me know, and Nssc. Is here to help, and

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Darrell Herrmann: you can contact me through Nssc.

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Randye Kaye: Wonderful. Thank you. And again, the name of the book and the name of the episode is straight talk about living with a severe mental illness written by a man who does.

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Randye Kaye: and that's it.

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Mindy Greiling: Wow! Very wonderful.

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Randye Kaye: Thank you very much.