The TED talk I have watched and will review is “Elyn Saks: A tale of mental illness — from the inside.” Elyn Saks introduces herself to the audience saying she has chronic schizophrenia. When she was younger, she has spent a lot of time in hospitals. She said that she could have ended up being hospitalized for the rest of her life. Luckily, she hasn’t been there for almost thirty years, but she has not been clear of all psychiatric symptoms. Schizophrenia is not the same as multiple personality disorder, but the mind of someone struggling with schizophrenia, “is not split but shattered” (Elyn Saks 3:57). Multiple personality disorder is described as the presence of two or more different personality states. While schizophrenia impacts the way a person thinks, feels, and behaves.
Many homeless people have some sort of schizophrenia, but people who are working as professionals struggle with it too. Elyn Saks shared some of her experiences with the audience, starting with one of her episodes when she was in college. She made plans with her two friends to study in the Yale law school library. She said she had began to talk in ways that made no sense, and had frightened her friends. Another experience Elyn Saks had was when she had gone to see her professor, she had began to talk in unknown speech. He sent her to the emergency
…show more content…
For years, she had withstanded medication trying to convince everyone else that she was not struggling with any mental illness. She had more episodes during this time when she was with other people. She saw Dr. Marder and when in his office, began to mutter. She broke down in front of her friends and family and they had convinced her to take medication. Some of her close friends and family members know her illness and she says, “these relationships have given my life a meaning and a depth”