I bring to you the remarkable journey of Bethany Yeiser from schizophrenia, homeless, arrested by the police to graduating with an honor from the University of Cincinnati, a woman who has a significant influence on raising awareness on schizophrenia.
In this article we’ll explore all about Bethany Yeiser remarkable journey, from schizophrenia to a motivating force in mental health (schizophrenia). How treatment has proven that schizophrenia is curable, and one can have a good and fulfill life. Let’s quickly delve into her success story.
Warning
- Names of drugs or medication mentioned in this article, is not for self-prescription.
- Contact a professional for any medical advice.
- You may feel emotional but hold on, it’s worth reading!
Who is Bethany Yeiser?
Bethany Yeiser is an author of “Mind Estranged” and also advocates for schizophrenia. Her journey from the beginning of her mental illness, through extreme psychosis, homelessness, two brief incarcerations, and full recovery, is chronicled in her memoir “Mind Estranged” (2014). As a motivational speaker, Bethany encourages positive shifts in the way the medical community and society see and handle individuals with schizophrenia diagnoses. She talks about how families and medical professionals may work together effectively to assist patients to understand mental illness, provide their consent for treatment, and recover as much as they can.
Bethany Yeiser’s Achievements and Awards
Bethany Yeiser is the President of the CURESZ Foundation, which she co-founded in 2016 with Dr. Henry Nasrallah. She is well known for her advocacy for schizophrenic patients. Her journey from the beginning of her mental illness and extreme psychosis.
As a motivational speaker, Bethany Yeiser encourages positive shifts in the way the medical community and society see and handle individuals with schizophrenia diagnoses. She talks about how families and medical professionals may work together effectively to assist patients to understand mental illness, provide their consent for treatment, and recover as much as they can. Additionally, Bethany draws attention to the disproportionately high rate of incarceration among those with mental illnesses.
Bethany Yeiser Story to Schizophrenia
Bethany shares her story and according to Bethany, preconceived notions about the homeless are carried by Americans. They are perceived as being just lazy, alcoholics, and drug addicts. Locking someone in is seen as appropriate if they are a nuisance to the community and are unable to get off the streets, but then there’s me. I have never consumed alcohol or drugs in my life. I’ve always had a strong work ethic and a passionate approach to life. In 2002, I organized a fund-raising event for a Kenyan charity; in 2003, I’m pictured below with two Kenyan girls.
Being filthy, living on the streets, and foraging for food scraps that people had thrown away were not decisions I made. My untreated mental condition, which began during my initial years of college, was the cause of my actions. (I am evidence that alcoholism and drug abuse do not always impede the development of schizophrenia). I had to cut off all communication with friends and family because of my condition. My doctors are still unsure of the specific cause of my schizophrenia.
It is not meant to happen to drug- and alcohol-free young ladies with excellent academic credentials to end up homeless on the streets and imprisoned for their actions. However, nobody asked whether I was sick when I kept living in the university library where I had previously been an honors student. Nobody thought to ask if I needed help or if my odd behavior was a sign of a mental condition. I got worse after being homeless for three years; I started hearing voices and seeing unreal objects and people. It would have been clear that I was hearing voices and needed antipsychotic medication if a psychiatrist had watched me for less than five minutes.
But nobody was interested or knowledgeable enough to assess me. Finally, for trespassing on the grounds of a university where I had been an excellent student and where I felt in my heart that I was still welcome, I was arrested twice, first for three days and once for five.
I still find myself wondering why they believe I stayed on at the university. Would it be illegal if I happened to be there or if I was there because I was confused, which I was? Nobody asked themselves why a former honors student at a university would decide to turn herself into a vagrant stranger living on the streets. I was just locked up!
Luckily, I was only incarcerated twice, and for a short period each time. When I was detained a third time, the police took me against my will to a psychiatrist. My parents took advantage of the situation and intervened right away. They decided to confront me in court and show that I required therapy if I wanted to leave the hospital, go back to the streets, and become homeless once more. I’m positive that I would have ended up back on the streets and in jail if it weren’t for my parents. If they hadn’t intervened, I would most likely be rotting away in a jail’s mental health unit right now.
However, this chapter of my life ended happily. My parents were ready to go to court if I attempted to live on the streets once more, so I was forced to decide between living in the hospital and living at their house. My doctors prescribed a very effective antipsychotic that is meant to be used as a last resort. It may be hazardous, but it works wonders when other antipsychotics don’t work. I never gave up and I always took my medication with the kind support of my parents. Finally, the drug started to work. When I recovered consciousness, I realized how ill I had become. I recuperated after a few more months, at which point I moved to a university close to my parents’ house. My doctors urged me to start writing my story when I graduated as a Student Marshal.
The way the mentally ill are treated these days is so tainted. If severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia are not treated, they can have a lot of negative effects, such as homelessness or incarceration. The local jail may house a higher number of mentally ill individuals than the local psychiatric institutions in practically all-American cities. In addition, suicide can result from untreated mental disease.
Our society blindly locks up those suffering from mental illnesses, frequently ignoring their cries for help. Without a second thought, I was locked up for inconsistent, not illegal, behavior. Anyone can experience it if it can happen to me.
Thanks to an infrequently used generic drug called clozapine, I have been completely healed from schizophrenia for eleven years without experiencing a relapse. In 2011, I received my molecular biology degree with high honors from the University of Cincinnati, she added.
Today, recovery is achievable. Hope exists. When the correct medication is found (for me, that medication was clozapine), even the most mentally ill people living on the streets deserve the opportunity for a new life. Every day, as I put a lot of effort into running CURESZ and leading a fulfilling life, I am grateful for my full recovery, she encouraged others.
Symptoms of Bethany’s Grandiose Delusions
Bethany the founder of CURESZ shared her schizophrenic symptoms known as grandiose delusion which simply refers as an unfounded or inaccurate beliefs that one has special powers, wealth, mission, or identity. According to her “my inflated sense of self began with this. Not too long ago, I started to believe that, like Bill Gates, I would one day be able to donate millions of dollars to Africa.
My parents objected to my plans for a second vacation to Thailand while I was failing college. My parents informed me that if I went through with the Thailand trip, they would no longer provide financial support (I had been abroad twice recently). I picked Thailand and resolved never to communicate with my parents again because I lacked the maturity to seek counseling or psychiatric assistance when I needed it and was unable to continue my studies. The signs of my psychiatric illness were apparent when I was unable to learn, refused to talk to my parents, and could not identify where I needed support.
After I got back from Thailand, I moved back into the university dorm. Even though I was failing my classes once more, my irrational hope that I would soon drastically alter the course of history overpowered all logic.
Two months later, in March 2003, I felt that I had received a spiritual vision from God telling me that I needed to fly to Boston to meet a wealthy guy who would be aware that I was traveling to Boston. I thought he would make it possible for me to keep touring the globe and collecting money for the underprivileged. My mind was racing with excitement as I flew across the nation and turned in the key to my dorm bedroom. Before returning to Los Angeles, I slept and waited at the Boston airport for fifteen hours.
I came back to a city where I was homeless. I started sleeping in the university libraries’ carrels, attempting to fit in with the students, considering it my final resort. I conducted my independent research on conspiracy theories online at night, looking at hypotheses like the one that claimed Princess Diana’s death was a covert murder. I felt that by thoroughly studying Yasser Arafat’s and other foreign politicians’ roles, I would be more equipped for the future.
I had flown to Boston with all of my remaining money, so I had nothing left over to buy food. I survived by going through the campus trash cans and consuming whatever edible items that were discarded. I had no other option except to deal with my hunger.
My family made every effort to contact me, reaching out to my instructors and friends as well as traveling to Los Angeles in an attempt to locate me. I once noticed my dad from a distance in November 2003, but I immediately fled the scene out of fear that he would stop me from becoming a prophet. But for the next four and a half years, I would not speak to my parents again after this one brief encounter.
I led a false existence, living in libraries and abandoned buildings, from March 2003 to January 2006, all the while pretending to be a student.
The voices started the second time
I was sitting alone on a park bench on January 28, 2006, when I heard a chorus of kids’ voices in my head. It was like a terrible stimulus as the voices taunted me and called me names like “homeless hoodlum” over and over. But as they validated my fantasies, they also hinted at my glorious future as one of the most powerful people on the planet. I found this to be quite exciting.
A few days later, I heard three rude men making fun of me as I was taking a shower. I knew the men could see me in the restroom based on the way they were talking to me. However, I didn’t see a window or sunroof when I looked. There was no sign of the males.
One of my Chinese pals, who had returned to China months before, was standing at a crossroads and was periodically waving to me like a machine at Disneyworld. For several minutes, I could hear a woman in high heels striding back and forth. However, she was not there. I saw that when I opened books, odd patterns of lines were underlining words once, twice, or three times. When I glanced into a mirror, I saw my face, but with the features of the TV character Lisa from “The Simpsons.”
A local library’s name was changed by a single letter. I started having hallucinations when I tried to verify the date in a newspaper around the summer of 2006.
Every time I asked for a favor, especially when asking friends for a place to sleep or take a shower, the voices started screaming at me. Every night, I resorted to sleeping on a concrete slab in the backyard of a nearby church. (I stayed in a dorm as a credit-sharing student, and the churchyard was only across the street from it.) The voices got louder while I slept beneath the sky for six months. Now and then the rain soaked me through. I never gave thought to getting in touch with my family or old pals during it all.
Even though I’ve never taken drugs or had alcohol in my life, I nevertheless separated myself and lived alone in my small fantasy world. I never begged, I never held up a sign, and I never talked to other homeless people. I never took assistance when I was homeless; instead, I preferred to sleep outside and scrounge food from trash cans.
The command hallucinations started in October 2006. Initially, they gave me basic instructions like hitting myself or moving to the right or left. At some point, they started giving me more difficult tasks to complete, including walking kilometers in places where there weren’t many people on foot.
The voices continued to yell at me on October 16, 2006, until I went to the university campus, where I had previously been a student, and took a nap in an upscale lounge. University employees could not have cared less if I had once been an honor student when they saw me—a filthy homeless woman—lying down in a posh graduate student lounge. I was hauled to jail after they phoned the police.
Regretfully, my psychosis did not get better after I was arrested. After a few days in jail, I was let out, and I started sleeping on the streets, eating trash, and spending my days in parks where I would have hours-long auditory and visual hallucinations while staring into space.
Then, one evening, I was yelling back at the voices that were constantly making fun of me. On March 3, 2007, early in the morning, the neighbors phoned the police. After picking me up, they sent me to a psychiatric center for assessment after realizing that I was mentally sick. Finally, after four years of living on the streets and experiencing hallucinations, I was going to get mental health care.
The hospital staff asked me whether I wanted to talk to my mother when I was admitted. I consented after considering all the time my parents had tried to get in touch with me and my refusals, as well as the financial burden they had incurred from my incomplete college education. My mother told me I was her best friend when we spoke on the phone. That I was, not that I had been before or could be again. She expressed that she missed me. My folks left Ohio and arrived in Los Angeles a day later after our talk.
I gave my permission to take medicine at my parents’ insistence, and I was given risperidone. This stopped the visual and command hallucinations, but it did nothing to stop the regular voices from getting louder. Nevertheless, my conduct significantly improved, the command hallucinations vanished, and the psychiatrists determined that I was stable and prepared for release.
Risperidone’s negative effects became unbearable after two weeks. My sleep was 16 hours or more every night. I suffered from acute anhedonia, akathisia (sitting for five minutes was equivalent to sitting for three hours), and an insatiable desire. I stopped taking the risperidone around ten days after I was released since I didn’t think I needed it. In less than two weeks, I relapsed into psychosis and agitation and was admitted to the hospital. My physician clarified during the second hospital stay that psychiatric drugs lose their efficacy after a relapse. I have never missed a day of my medication since I started taking it because of him nine years ago.
I tried a lot of different medications over the following year and a half, but I had little luck in quieting the voices. After that, I started taking clozapine. I saw improvement in a matter of days that was not comparable to any other antipsychotic medicine I had been prescribed. Over the next three weeks, the voices essentially vanished. I resumed my friendships, picked up the violin, and read regularly (before taking clozapine, I could read but not “study”). After taking clozapine for eighteen months, I decided to finish my molecular biology degree at the University of Cincinnati with the help of my parents and my psychiatrist. I took one or two classes at a time, and I was thrilled to receive as in nearly every one of them. I received high honors for my college graduation two years later, and I participated in the commencement ritual as one of the marshals” she said,
Schizophrenia Stereotypes: Can Schizophrenia be Cured?
There are so many myths, belief or stereotypes surrounding mental health, and schizophrenia as one of the chronic illnesses has been believed of not being curable. Here is what Bethany Yeiser have to say about schizophrenia, “Doctors encouraged my parents to lower their expectations. When I was first admitted to the mental health facility in Los Angeles, even though I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and would require lifelong group home living. However, my life is now full and typical. I frequently play the violin for events, instruct students, and volunteer. My mother, a retired nurse, wrote her book, “Flight from Reason,” about her and my father’s experience—the family burden of having a schizophrenic daughter—and I released our memoirs, “Mind Estranged,” in June 2014. I work as a motivational speaker now in the hopes of uplifting families and patients as well as being the voice of marginalized and homeless people dealing with serious mental illness. I also serve as evidence that people can recover from severe and persistent psychosis, she concludes.
Is Bethany Yeiser married?
A childhood friend got married in the most trying months of my schizophrenia rehabilitation. I hadn’t seen her in years, even though we’d been close as kids, and I missed her wedding. However, I saw photos of my friend dancing while wearing a white satin gown. She encouraged the guests to join her and her attractive new husband on the dance floor, looking happy and enthusiastic. I felt pleased for her.
I used to dream as a young girl of my wedding, including the dress, the festivities, and the emotions I would feel. I was now at a point in my life when I should have been able to get married and start a family, but I was incapacitated by schizophrenia and the adverse effects of my medication. I lay in bed for hours one evening, thinking about weddings and how other people’s lives must be amazing, while I was struggling to survive each day. I would go back to college and start dating again years later but getting married seemed as unlikely as going to the moon at the time.
Many of my friends began their professions, got married, purchased homes, and had kids during the four years that I was homeless and suffering from untreated schizophrenia. I never gave thought to what I was missing or the lives my former friends were leading while I was sick. But when the antipsychotic drug eventually took the edge off, it was heartbreaking to remember those wasted years.
When I first started therapy, my doctors and family stressed how important it was to get back into social life. A woman in her 80s encouraged and welcomed me to volunteer at a nursing home, among other things. Every Tuesday, she took me to the facility in her car, where I assisted in planning a worship service for the residents. Along with me were six female volunteers who were all fifty years of age or older.
I started to like my volunteer work with the residents and the amiable women. I would go to a neighborhood restaurant once a week and have salad and pizza with the other volunteers before the service. When I was incapacitated, I treasured this opportunity.
I thought a lot about my own life while volunteering at the elderly home, especially how much I had lost. I observed individuals who were very cut off from their past selves. I was reminded of who I was before I got sick by this. I couldn’t perform a regular job due to my exhaustion and disability, so I began volunteering at the nursing home. I still get sad every time I pass by the assisted living facility because of the years I wasted on untreated schizophrenia as well as the others who reside there. We were both disconnected from the outside world.
At a time when I thought there was no way I could heal, I also had the chance to volunteer for a local university’s program that assisted overseas students. I connected with the youngsters and felt a feeling of community throughout this exercise, which was my favorite at the time. I would push through my sluggishness, do my nails, and get dressed up to meet college kids from China, India, Africa, and other countries. I started to feel like myself again as I greeted Chinese youth with words, I had learned years earlier. But I was still grieving even at these events. I was too sick to attend college with my newfound overseas buddies.
That year, I got in touch with a molecular biology researcher at a nearby institution. Years prior, I had flourished in the lab and enjoyed my work. Nevertheless, I was worn out, preoccupied, and unable to concentrate on our chat when I met the biology professor. I was unable to engage with the local scientific community due to my disabilities.
I am a college graduate and have fully recovered from schizophrenia today, all because of my medicine. Once more, I conducted research at the university. I have a lot of pals my age who have comparable interests and aspirations. I’ve also dated a couple of young men on the side.
Looking back, I didn’t enjoy every social occasion I went to when I was sick and not myself. However, spending time with a variety of people was a crucial and essential step that helped me fully recover.
It aided in my transition to a future where I could once more express my feelings, aspirations, and desires with close friends.
It’s important for those who battle mental illness to remember who they were before their sickness struck. They must recall their past selves and their once cherished dreams. I wanted to return to my previous life as the vibrant, content, and active person that I was years ago. I am now.
It was crucial for me to never give up on myself and to never reduce my standards while I rebuilt my life. Again, I have a lot of hopes and ambitions for the future. I still want to dance and wear a white gown one day, among other things.
Bethany Yeiser and Henry A. Nasrallah MD
Dr. Nasrallah is a well-known researcher, lecturer, and psychiatrist. The American University of Beirut is where he earned his MD and BS degrees. He taught at the University of California at San Diego and the University of Iowa after completing his neuroscience fellowship at the NIH and his psychiatric residency at the University of Rochester. He then took on the role of chair of the Ohio State University Department of Psychiatry for twelve years. He began working as an associate dean and professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 2003.
The director of the schizophrenia program, Dr. Nasrallah, specializes in studying the neurobiology and psychopharmacology of bipolar illness and other disorders connected to schizophrenia. In addition to 10 books, he has approximately 350 scholarly publications and 400 abstracts published.
In addition to co-founding the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS), he serves as Editor-in-Chief of two journals: Schizophrenia Research and Current Psychiatry. He holds board certifications in psychiatry for both adults and the elderly. In addition to being president of the Ohio Psychiatric Education and Research Foundation and the Cincinnati Psychiatric Society, he is also a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology [ACNP], and a fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists.
Law Enforcement Agencies and Individuals Suffering from Mental Illness
Using Bethany Yeiser’s story to analyze the attention needed for government to look into mental health, illness and law enforcement and the need for recruiting Psychologists, Counselors, Psychotherapist, Psychiatric doctors and establishing a mental health department as we have other department like forensic, crime and protocol department. According to Bethany Yeiser “in America, two million men and women with mental illnesses are locked up annually. Like me, a great number of people are imprisoned for their mental illness-related irregular public behavior. Like me, a great deal of people wants medical attention and drugs to start over. Rehab is slowed down and stigma around mental illness is increased when people are imprisoned and criminalized. I desire that individuals who experience psychosis, as I did, will be provided with timely medical attention, psychosocial assistance, and rehabilitation to enable them to regain their baseline and resume regular lives.
What Happened to Bethany Yeiser When She Took Clozapine?
According to the physician Henry A. Nasrallah, MD in one of the interviews, he stated that Bethany Yeiser was one of her young patients, who after taking clozapine, recovered fully and resumed a productive live, after years of homelessness during which she was controlled by auditory hallucinations.
What is Bethany Yeiser Mind Estrange Book All About?
Mind Estrange Book
The narrative of Mind Estranged traces Bethany’s life from her early years as a bright college student to her unanticipated, full recovery from schizophrenia. She saw the world and gradually lost her mind. After being unable to work or study, she returned to the United States and soon found herself insane, destitute, and under the mental influence of voices that spoke to her and gave her instructions.
Bethany Yeiser Journey to Nigeria and Africa
Before her slow decline into schizophrenia, Bethany Yeiser was a bright honors student at the university. She was employed as a violinist and had published three biochemistry articles by the time she was in her third year of college. She lived in poverty for three months while volunteering in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, and Lagos, Nigeria, in 2002, the year after her junior year of college. She suffered her first episode of psychosis after returning from Africa. She had an untreated mental ailment for which she was no longer able to concentrate on her academics. She decided to leave the university and live a solitary and delusional life after the sneaky onset of schizophrenia. After graduating from college in 2003, Bethany experienced homelessness for four years. She eventually regained her life as a result of a sequence of circumstances.
Bettany Yeiser Achievements Today
Today, Bethany is in high demand as a motivational speaker because of her enthusiasm for enlightening people and motivating them to change the stigma associated with schizophrenia and how it is understood and treated.
She has told her tale at many national conferences and gatherings for doctors and healthcare professionals. In the summer of 2014, her first book, Mind Estranged: My Journey from Schizophrenia and Homelessness to Recovery, was published. The Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America presented Bethany with the Dr. Frederick Frese Award in March 2020 in recognition of her advocacy work and also Bethany Yeiser is the President of the CURESZ Foundation.
Bethany writes a blog on PsychologyToday.com titled “Recovery Road.” Her other interests include studying Mandarin Chinese and ancient Hebrew, as well as playing the violin and performing both classical and popular music.
In conclusion
The journey of Bethany Yeiser the Founder of CRUESZ is an inspiring story written by Zitamary Anumenwe to inspire individuals in Nigeria and worldwide who is, or whose family loved one is currently experiencing schizophrenia, that there’s hope, there’s treatment, with the right treatment by a professional therapist, early intervention, support, love and care from family members your loved ones will live happily again. Please don’t lose hope.
You can contact her for clinical case management and kindly share to anyone who may need this, schizophrenia symptoms are real, often indiviuals are not aware. Reason at DAilyLifeForce we share resources for mental health support.
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