Speaker with schizophrenia: You can like yourself, your life

Oct. 06--Bill MacPhee was 24 when he stood naked on a bitterly cold January day, blocking a street in his Canadian hometown.

"I thought the world was a terrible place," he said during an interview with The Eagle before speaking Sunday night at Newman University. He was in Wichita to address an event to kick off Mental Illness Awareness Week.

MacPhee thought he was in that street at that moment to fix things. He saw himself as a modern-day prophet.

"I thought everybody was a mismatch to the wrong partner," he added. "I thought it was my job to help. In order for this to happen, I'm thinking time had to go backward."

That was in 1987.

MacPhee was soon diagnosed with schizophrenia. That gave him an explanation for his behavior and why he felt trapped in a world of delusions, paranoia and depression.

Eventually he would return to reality.

Medication, support of family and friends and community involvement would help put him on path of becoming an author, frequent speaker and magazine publisher.

And while many of those things indicate MacPhee has recovered from his illness, he has his own definition of recovery:

"You would not want to be anyone other than who you are today."

He's reached that point. And it's the heart of his message.

MacPhee, 52, still lives in that Canadian town -- Fort Erie, just across the border from Buffalo, N.Y. -- where he grew up and made that delusional stand in the street. Today, he's married with three children.

But for a very long while, he didn't want to be who he was. The process was slow and difficult.

For five years after standing naked in the street, while doctors worked to identify the proper medications to help him climb out of his dark hole, he was in six hospitals, placed in six group homes and tried to commit suicide once.

Fifty percent of the people diagnosed with schizophrenia -- and 1 percent of the U.S. population has been -- attempt suicide, MacPhee said. Ten percent of those actually do, he said.

"I was on the couch for five years doing nothing, thinking of ways to kill myself," he added. "I used to say to myself, 'If things don't change, they're going to stay the same.'

"I hated my saying."

There is no cure for schizophrenia, MacPhee said, but there is recovery.

Medications removed what he called the "positive" symptoms, such as delusions and paranoia. But negative symptoms remained, he said.

"Lack of motivation, lack of joy, depression," he added. "I was back in reality, but my reality was I'd lost my house, my job, my friends.

"I looked at my life and thought five years on the couch is going to turn into 10 years. I needed a spark."

He recalled his seventh-grade teacher had looked at his "chicken scratch" for handwriting and told him he'd never amount to anything unless his penmanship improved.

"When you're going through mental illness, low self-esteem is often a problem," MacPhee said. "So I thought, 'OK, I'm going to prove I can do something."'

He contacted a literary foundation and asked for help with his penmanship, but he received much more. One thing led to another through his contact with one of the foundation's volunteers.

MacPhee wound up volunteering as a treasurer for a Cub Scout Pack.

"That gave me a whole new circle of friends who accepted me for who I was and not for what I had," he said. "That was the turning point for me."

He found his spark.

MacPhee began going to town hall and city council meetings held at the library. After arriving early for a meeting, he browsed through the books and found one about starting a business with very little capital.

That launched an idea to write a newsletter on schizophrenia, drawing on his experience and what he'd learned.

By 1994, the newsletter became a magazine -- Schizophrenia Digest -- that grew to a circulation of 50,000, he said. Twenty years later, the magazine is still going, although it will become digital-only next year.

'A great wall of stigma'

MacPhee has come to understand that those with schizophrenia often get stereotyped.

That struck home with him again two years ago when a woman who subscribed to his magazine told him she was evicted from her apartment after her landlady saw the publication's title.

That's when he changed the name to SZ Magazine.

"We're dealing with a great wall of stigma," said MacPhee, whose book, "To Cry a Dry Tear," was published earlier this year.

Having the illness doesn't mean the person is the next John Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate President Reagan, he said. Or another Colorado theater shooter.

"It's very rare that these sensational stories happen," MacPhee said. "There are thousands of people who have schizophrenia who are living a good life."

The general assumption schizophrenia means split personalities also is wrong, he said. Instead, he said, "It means split from reality."

And that means a separation from logic.

"So when one person with logic is trying to talk to a person who is outside logic," MacPhee said, "that's where it gets frustrating."

'Pick up the pieces'

But he said there is hope for those with the illness.

Medication can stabilize a person, MacPhee said, "but then you have to work on your life. You have to pick up the pieces."

To help in that process, he has established guidelines that range from a spiritual component and volunteering to developing relationships that bring out the best and setting a goal to live as long and as healthy as possible.

"You can come to the point where you don't want to be anyone but who you are today," MacPhee said. "You can like yourself, like your life."

Reach Rick Plumlee at 316-268-6660 or rplumlee@wichitaeagle.com. Follow him on Twitter: @rickplumlee.

___

(c)2014 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

Visit The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.) at www.kansas.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services