77. Tracey Higgins: Healing From Schizophrenia

Tracey Higgins joins us on the show today to share how she healed from schizophrenia after losing 19 years of her life to a condition that affects millions of people worldwide. At the age of nine, she was taken from her home where she became a ward of the state. Over the next 19 years, she moved around from hospitals, group homes, a juvenile center, and the streets.

In her late twenties, Tracey found the courage to leave her schizophrenic world to help a child who was being sexually abused by her father; she discovered at the same time she too had been sexually abused as a child. That triggered off the healing process from her own dark world that robbed her of her dignity and basic human rights. When describing schizophrenia, Tracey calls it a waking nightmare. Coming out of it is a true awakening of oneself—becoming weller than well, a new version of self. 

It has been said that schizophrenia is an incurable brain disease, but is it? Tracey says no. She believes it’s a survival mechanism brought on by disturbing or traumatic circumstances. 

Today Tracey is here to tell you that schizophrenia doesn’t have to be a life sentence. While some mental health professionals called her hopeless, she went to college, worked in Government, and owned and operated a popular restaurant.

We chat about... 

• Where Tracey's mental health journey began
• What her symptoms looked like 
• Why she calls her symptoms "reactions"
• What life looked like living with paranoid schizophrenia 
• How she suffered from trauma amnesia 
• What it was like to have the memories of abuse flood back 
• How she navigated living with schizophrenia without medications
• What it was like to be a ward of the state
• Tracey's thoughts on what is wrong with our current mental health system
• Why Tracey's against the brain disease theory 
• What she believes treatment should look like for people who live with schizophrenia
• Tracey's thoughts on what she believes leads to schizophrenia
• What she feels would have helped her back in the day
• Tracey's struggle with suicidal ideations 
• What her mental health looks like today  

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