10. Living With Schizotypal Personality Disorder, with Aviana B.

Aviana shares her story with me about living with schizotypal personality disorder. We talk about the various symptoms, her experience in group therapy with others suffering from STPD, and the disorder in general. She has a popular blog at skizotypical.com

Shortly before receiving her BA, Aviana decided to seek psychiatric help . By then, she was suffering from panic attacks, couldn’t sleep at night, suffering from the disturbing images that frequently became stuck in her mind’s eye. She barely left home, let alone saw or talked to anyone else.

She didn’t recognize the problems she had as symptoms of mental illness. She only knew that she couldn’t function day to day. It was only after talking to a couple different psychiatrists and psychologists, that her condition began to make any sense. It turned out that she had quite a few autistic traits that I wasn’t aware of. Enough to warrant an Asperger diagnosis, but the doctor surmised she needed more help than the Asperger’s diagnosis could offer and sent her off to OPUS Amager, a psychiatric facility offering two-year treatment programs for young people aged 18-35 with schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like disorders and psychoses. In the end, she was diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder and began treatment.

These days, the worst of her symptoms are gone and she doesn't take any medication. However, she still struggles with balancing stress-relief with day-to-day living.

I'm Creative Director of Contemplative Light and host of this podcast. I am now offering Executive Coaching Sessions for Personal Development. These are one-on-one sessions on the phone or Zoom, depending on what works best for you. I meet you where you are at in your journey and where you want to be. If you are interested or have questions, we can set up a free session to talk more, just email me at thesanitysessions[at]gmail[dot]com

It was great talking with Aviana.

Thanks for listening!

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