the tara bixby podcast 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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