Severe mental illness, such as full-on schizophrenia, is terrifying. I've seen it tear through two people in my circle, and it seems almost like some sort of divine curse. Your brain just spews pure nonsense at you, and there's nothing you can consciously do about it.

— Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) (@antoniogm) August 6, 2022

A friend in grad school described his first schizophrenic break: he thought he was a tree, had roots connecting him to the earth, and his role in life was swaying and soaking up the sun. This was someone who was doing a physics doctorate...who occasionally thought he was a tree.

— Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) (@antoniogm) August 6, 2022

(He was medicated and seemed to have it mostly under control when I knew him.)

But still...the thought your very being falls prey to deranged thoughts you can't control. And it arrives one day in adulthood with no warning.

— Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) (@antoniogm) August 6, 2022

In Naser's A Beautiful Mind' about brilliant academic John Nash who succumbed to schizophrenia, she quotes him: I'm often asked how such a smart person could believe such nonsense...and the same voice that gave me my brilliant ideas told me all the wild stuff, so I listened.

— Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) (@antoniogm) August 6, 2022

It’s even worse when it takes on a religious flavor. I had a close friend suddenly recruit me for a messianic quest involving the spacetime continuum. There is nothing you can Google that can make you feel remotely prepared to deal with it.

— Frank Fusco (@frankafusco) August 6, 2022

There is pretty compelling evidence that Cannabis *at least* hastens the onset of schizophrenia in vulnerable people (and outcomes are worse the earlier the onset).

— Burr Shot First (@ToEmisser) August 7, 2022

In some cases, after the episode ends, the person is left completely broken. Some make it back, but others just don’t. And then you lose them even though they’re in a completely lucid, though deeply depressed state.

Just horrible. What a cruel illness.

— Lee Edwards (@terronk) August 6, 2022

Horrifying, like a fire raging through the forest of someone's mind. I have strong sense memory of that terrible moment when you realize that someone's reasoning ability to be in reality has gotten away from them

— RonenNYC (@RonenV) August 6, 2022