Since launching the Bust A Schizophrenia Myth contest on May 24, we’ve been blown away by so many of the entries we’ve received on social media. But one individual in particular has stood out…

Brenden Macdonald (or nednederB the Schizophrenic, as he calls himself on YouTube) caught our attention with his discussions of common myths on his popular YouTube channel. Brenden’s videos generate a lot of excellent discussion from folks who are learning about mental illness for the first time, experiencing it themselves, or just trying to understand more about life with schizophrenia.

We wanted to talk to Brenden about his videos and advocacy, and what better way than by making a video together for his YouTube channel? Michelle, our communications consultant, joined Brenden for a video chat last week. Watch it below, or read the transcript:

A few choice excerpts from our conversation with Brenden:

Why did you decide to start making videos?

From the start, my videos expressed my perspective and my experience of schizophrenia. And I also enjoyed my audio and digital experiments. The first two videos were trying to share and awaken a view of my mental states and experiences. I was exploring myself and trying to give away knowledge for free. I was always a fan of education and imagined in high school that I’d become a teacher. It was natural to adopt my videos more and more to advocating and teaching to raise awareness, and to #SmashStigma, a hashtag for the #BustAMythBC campaign, which is why I love this BC Schizophrenia Society campaign about dispelling myths around the condition. So it was a natural fit.

What’s the most common question you get?

I think the most common question I’ve received over the years goes something like this: “Hey, I have this experience too. How do you differentiate a symptom of schizophrenia from a weird quirk?”

My response usually is that, in fact, more than just being a quirk, illness confusion and suffering are what identify psychosis the most. If a person is otherwise okay and has a lot of these quirks, there is a word for that: “schizotypal” traits.

So a lot of people have traits of schizophrenia, [more than have schizophrenia itself]. They’re just not ill. They’re not unwell. They’re holding it together. They don’t have a diagnosis, but they still might have some of the strange experiences, and even hear a voice now and again. Maybe close to sleep or dreaming or something, they’ll hear a voice or have an auditory hallucination. That’s a schizotypal trait. It’s a schizophrenic symptom, but it’s not a symptom of schizophrenia unless you’re unwell.

And that’s like the key. That’s why they say mental illness. Whatever other traits we have, being ill and being unwell is really the significant thing. If you’re not unwell, there’s nothing to treat, right?

How can someone help a loved one who has schizophrenia or mental illness?

Learn more about symptoms. Learn more about the wide range of outcomes. One of the myths is that having schizophrenia is a one-way dead end. Actually, a lot can vary. Some people have the same symptoms for a long period. Personally, I’ve had different experiences over my four major hospitalizations. Give space for people to stabilize and adapt. We can hopefully be resilient.

And as a piece of concrete advice, do not argue with a person defending delusional thinking. It just aggravates the emotion, and in my experience, reinforces the delusion. It’s just practice for the symptoms that you enable by arguing. And delusions are usually defined as false beliefs held to the contrary of any reasonable evidence. You simply cannot tell a schizophrenic the truth and tell them to believe it because it makes sense to you. Don’t try. Focus on helping them relax and explore their situation in other ways. Listen, but don’t fight back.

What changes would you like to see to better support people with mental illness?

My mom has said for years that required courses in high school ought to include home economics and personal and family finances. More than history, more than just math. It should be finances, how to run a home. But I would add to that mental health education, sex education, and studies of historical and common contemporary abuses.

I think everything would get better [if these were included]. History would not go forgotten, friends would not go unhelped, family would always be supported by the community, and individuals could work together. Just education bringing up society differently.

We’re so grateful to Brenden for having this discussion with us! We encourage you to watch and share the full video, and follow his channel on YouTube.