An Interview with Stephanie Greer
Communication is key. You can’t help a person if you don’t have effective communication with them.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that impacts not only the individual who is diagnosed but also their entire support network — family, friends, and loved ones. Understanding and managing schizophrenia is a complex journey that often involves navigating healthcare systems, battling societal stigmas, and managing daily life in new and challenging ways. It’s a journey that teaches invaluable life lessons, reveals the strengths and weaknesses of relationships, and often inspires a new perspective on what it means to love and care for someone unconditionally. In this interview series, we are talking with those who have supported a loved one diagnosed with Schizophrenia. As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kody Green.
Welcome to Unseen & Unheard: The podcast aims to change the way we see schizophrenia by revealing the untold stories of those actually living with it. Each episode will present a personal story from one of the millions of adults in the United States going through life with this condition. The hardships. The humanity. But also, the hope.
https://www.hopeforschizophrenia.com/unseen-and-unheard-podcast/
Kody Green is 28 years old with a diagnosis of zchizophrenia. Kody is a motivational speaker and content creator with over 1.5 million followers across his social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and more. He has struggled in the past with drug addiction, incarceration and serious mental health issues.
In order to be a better advocate and speaker, Kody has been trained as a peer support specialist, recovery coach and suicide prevention specialist.
Now, Kody shares his stories about his struggles and how to navigate through recovery, mental health issues, and life after incarceration. He chooses to pursue motivational speaking and mental health advocacy for schizophrenia awareness, drug recovery and second- chance opportunities because he has dealt with these struggles in his own life.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?
My name’s Kody Green. I am a schizophrenia advocate. I am also a caretaker for someone who lives with schizoaffective disorder.
I myself got into advocacy because not only do I struggle with schizophrenia, but I was raised by a mother who lives with schizoaffective disorder.
She was diagnosed in her early 30s and there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding around her diagnosis when I was younger and when she was going through that, and so I started doing advocacy as a way to not only educate people about what I was going through, but to show the stigma and misunderstanding that is around schizophrenia as a disorder.
Can you share what your journey supporting a loved one with schizophrenia has been like?
So, years before I was ever diagnosed with my schizophrenia disorder, my mom was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder when I was still a teenager, and she was in her early 30s. It was really challenging because at the time we lived in a very rural area, there wasn’t a lot of people living around us with this disorder.
There wasn’t a lot of understanding or education about schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and so, we had to learn a lot by ourselves through just life experience, through watching my mom struggle with hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and it was a very difficult time, and at the same time, she was trying to raise kids on her own.
And so, we all had to learn together, and it was because of her journey through getting a diagnosis and getting treatment and help that when I started to show symptoms, we were able to do that much more seamlessly with me.
Was there a turning point in your story where things seemed to change?
I think it was after the diagnosis, when my mom finally got her diagnosis after years of being misdiagnosed and put on the incorrect medication, receiving that official diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder allowed her to get the treatment she needed, the medication she needed, and that was such a huge shift because when you’re struggling with a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia, getting on treatment and medication gives you back a lot of who you were before your diagnosis, before your symptoms, and we started to see that with my mom, and it was such a powerful thing to see her regain her life, her loves and all the things that she was passionate about, and the whole process of getting that treatment and help was really the biggest shift we ever saw with her journey.
How has your experience been helping your loved one navigate treatment?
I think the difficulty of the journey of helping my mom navigate her illness was at the time I didn’t know anything about schizophrenia. I had only ever heard about it in school as a dangerous disorder, as something that was almost to be feared.
And still, to this day, there’s a lot of stigma around schizophrenia being a violent disorder or people with schizophrenia being inherently violent, and so, the biggest struggle with navigating her symptoms and her disorder was not having the proper education, not having people to refer to or resources for her, and especially because I myself, I was a kid at the time, helping her navigate that was difficult and it was tiresome and scary and going through all of that was incredibly disheartening, and which is why when we did get that diagnosis and the treatment it was such a weight off our shoulders to get that help and finally have an answer to what was going on.
What do you wish mental health professionals understood better about supporting family members like yourself?
When it comes to doctors and people in the medical field advising family members and caregivers about their loved one with schizophrenia, I really wish that they would focus more on education and helping us better understand the illness and what to expect, better understanding how delusions and hallucinations affect the person that we’re watching go through this disorder because it’s scary and it’s confusing if you don’t understand what’s happening to the brain of your loved one, why they’re acting the way they do.
And so, having those answers I think would have saved a lot of stress and would have got us through that journey a little bit easier.
Often, supporting a loved one with a mental health condition involves a process of learning and unlearning. Can you share with us some misconceptions you had initially and how your understanding evolved over time?
A lot of the misconceptions I had about schizophrenia are the ones that are still really common today. I did think people with schizophrenia were inherently dangerous because that’s all I ever saw on TV, on the news, were people with schizophrenia harming themselves or others.
And so, although I found out through my mom’s diagnosis that that wasn’t common, that was actually uncommon, and she was, if anything, scared, she was confused, she never at one point made me feel unsafe. She was never dangerous in any capacity. And there was also the misconception that she somehow could never get better, that there was no options for her in terms of treatment and medication, and she now lives a very functional and happy life because of those resources.
Unfortunately, in today’s world, there is still a lot of stigma to navigate. How does stigma show up in your family or culture, and how has it affected you and your loved one?
I think one of the biggest issues with the stigma that still surrounds schizophrenia is friends and family members will distance themselves. I saw it with my mom’s diagnosis. People were afraid of my mom suddenly because of her diagnosis.
There were people in our community that wouldn’t let their kids come over to our house because of my mom’s diagnosis. And so, it’s really disheartening because, as I had said previously, I was never afraid of her, I never saw her as dangerous. She was confused, she was scared. She wanted to be better, and the stigma that we have around schizophrenia prevented people from seeing what was really going on and prevented her from getting the help she really needed.
What is one aspect that you are grateful for? Can you share a memorable, joyful moment that you and your loved one experienced together during this journey?
One of the most memorable experiences I have with my mom’s journey and my journey was that after I was diagnosed, I had to tell my mom, and it was incredibly saddening, it was very scary because I know the last thing she wanted was for one of her kids to also develop schizophrenia.
And I told her and expected her to be upset in some way at me as if it was my fault, and she did nothing but embrace me and ensure me that we were going to get through it together. She was going to help to make sure I knew everything I needed to be able to get the help I needed and to be able to get the resources that she finally got after years of struggling and not having.
What are your ‘5 Things I Learned While Supporting A Loved One After their Schizophrenia Diagnosis?’
The five things I learned from supporting someone with a schizophrenia-related illness is it’s okay not to be okay, and that you can’t support them if you don’t make sure you are also well.
Sharing your story is key to helping people better understand your story and what your loved one is going through.
Communication is key. You can’t help a person if you don’t have effective communication with them.
Always look for positive moments because it’s incredibly difficult to get through a diagnosis like this or watch a loved one struggle, but finding those happy, positive moments will be a light at the end of the tunnel for you and the person who you’re caring for.
And then, educate yourself about the illness, about schizophrenia so you better understand what your loved one is struggling with and how you can help them.
Self-care is often emphasized in the context of supporting a loved one with a mental health condition. Can you share how you ensured your own well-being during this time and the strategies that worked best for you?
The conversation around self-care is so important, whether you are a person struggling with schizophrenia or you are a caregiving because in terms of being a caregiver, you can’t pour from an empty cup. You can’t provide help if you’re not in a place to do it yourself.
And I was very young when my mom was first diagnosed, and I found the most important thing was trying to remain positive, trying to be there to support her, and I could only do that if I found coping mechanisms for myself.
And for me, that was being outside, that was making sure that I stayed healthy, eating, drinking water and just worrying about general, basic care for myself, which I neglected a lot while trying to care for my mom.
Are there any books, podcasts, or other resources that have helped you understand and manage your condition better?
There are a ton of resources out there to help people better understand schizophrenia. I myself host a podcast with Janssen called Unseen and Unheard, where we go more in depth about schizophrenia, not only from a patient’s perspective but also from a caregiver’s perspective.
There’s also plenty of content creators, YouTubers and other forms of advocacy that are out there for patients and for their caregivers.
I do think it’s important to make sure that you’re vetting and checking out the resources you’re using because not everything on the internet is a reliable resource, but there are people living with schizophrenia.
There are plenty of doctors and psychiatrists that will talk about schizophrenia on both a personal and medical standpoint, so those resources are out there, and you just have to look for them.
The reason I love doing the podcast that I hosted was I got to talk to other people with schizophrenia. I think very often advocates forget that other people have lived experience that differs from their own.
It’s so important for us to hear from others and continue learning, and even after I was diagnosed, I thought I knew everything about the illness just from being a caregiver, and it’s really eye opening to hear it from others what they’re going through, whether they’re a caretaker or someone living with the illness because no one knows better than those with lived experience.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in business, VC funding, sports, and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why?
If I could sit down with breakfast for anyone, I think it would be Jimmy Kimmel just to help spread my message, and also because I love people who are in the spotlight that also care about advocacy and try to take advocacy into their own hands and be able to help spread big messages about disorders, illnesses and things that people are currently struggling with.
Experience with LAIs and recovery.
After years of finding success with oral daily medication, I wanted to eliminate the constant anxiety and fear of forgetting my medication or not remembering to bring my medication with me, and so, after years of being on an antipsychotic, I finally asked about long-acting injections so that I could get the help I needed without having to remember to take a pill every single day.
The problem was, I was nervous about going into a hospital after several bad experiences in psychiatric units and, in general, hospital settings.
After finally asking more questions with my psychiatrist, I found out that all I needed to do was go to my local pharmacy store and get the injection there, which eliminated all the stress and anxiety of having to go to the hospital to do it.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow me on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram @schizophrenichippie.
Thank you for your time and thoughtful answers. I know many people will gain so much from hearing this.
About The Interviewer: Stephanie Greer, PhD is the Co-founder and CEO of Akin Mental Health — a company dedicated to guiding families on their journey supporting a loved one with mental health challenges like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and severe depression. Stephanie is passionate about this topic from her own personal experience growing up with a mother who struggled with bipolar 1 disorder and found a path forward to overcome the obstacles and live well. Stephanie’s professional experience includes a doctorate in neuroscience as well as design research roles at Hopelab and Apple. Stephanie brings this personal passion together with her world-class science and technology background to support families across the US in their personal journeys supporting loved ones with mental illness. To learn more about Akin Mental Health and join our community, visit us at akinmh.com.
Kody Green: 5 Things I Learned While Supporting A Loved One After their Schizophrenia Diagnosis was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.