Hey everybody, it's the douchebag librarian, back at it with our monthly updates. Reminder that this is not a bot post, it was written by me, an actual human, over the span of this month.

As per the routine, please check out our Community Notices page for updates from the previous month. We've also got the Creator Wiki for our subreddit artists, let us know if you want in- or just check out what we already have up!

Research

Obviously, our most breaking development is still the approval and use of Cobenfy. Nothing recently seems to come close to that in terms of impact.

Currently active studies for the last month:

• From the clever folks at Oxford (who know all there is to be known), we have Social Identity in Voice Hearers. [UK Only]
• From Lancaster University, our friend Katie is doing a 'final push' for participants in a study regarding Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP). (Raffle, potentially paid)
• From the University of Liverpool, we have Resilience in Unpaid Carers of People Experiencing Psychosis.
• From Université de Montréal in Canada, we have a survey on Online Engagement and Mental Health. (Raffle, potentially paid)
• From our friends at UC San Diego, we continue our long tradition with the Empower-3 Study for a new treatment.
  • Emraclidine is a medication that- like Cobenfy- works on muscarinic receptors, and does not (directly) affect dopamine. Emraclidine is a positive allosteric modulator at M4, whereas Cobenfy is a full agonist at M1 and M4. Interesting stuff.

There's also clinicaltrials.gov if you're wanting to look for something more location-specific to you. [US Only] Like emraclidine, for example- there's a lot of places running the clinical trials for it.

Rule 6 - Writer's Requests

I did this last month, but I see a lot of people still haven't gotten the memo on that.

We have updated our Rule 6 requirements to make it clear- if somebody comes here and wants to write about a character with schizophrenia, they are to follow the procedure:

1. Use Reddit's search function for old threads where people have previously asked for help writing a character.
2. Use the Writer's Wiki (including new information since added at the bottom)
3. If neither of those things are sufficient, they can then hit us up and ask.

Writer's requests in general are now covered under Rule 6. If you see someone asking for help with writing a schizophrenic character, we have plenty of resources to help them with that very thing- it cuts down on potential nuisance even further.

Rule 10 - Selfie Sunday Update

We've got a little more context here for Selfie Sundays. You may have seen our new disclaimer update for Selfie Sundays... essentially, a selfie is not an invitation for DMs. If the OP is open to DMs, they're free to indicate as such in the comments.

Rule 11 - Private Community Invites

Unfortunately, the cockroach we have stomped on three times now seems to be gearing up for Round 4.

For those not familiar, we have a write-up over the singular most troublesome group we've ever had the misfortune of interacting with on this subreddit. Long story short, there is an extremely toxic Discord group that has been known to create/hijack subreddits to recruit for their server. So far, they have had the subreddits r/CrazyNicePeople, r/MindfulMadness, and r/PsychoticLiterally nuked by Reddit's admins for their misconduct. The most recent prior iteration was PL, and apparently Reddit has automated tools for detecting ban evasion subs- so it was nuked for ban evasion, being a re-do of the original CNP subreddit. (as you can see if you click on the subreddit name)

(Note: If you're up on the current Reddit-wide subreddit drama, you can see Reddit's ban evasion tool nuking subs that are ban evasions of r/gamingmemes in real time lol, it's actually pretty neat to watch)

This new community of theirs, r/psyschoticfriends, seems to have evaded detection by merit of being private. Unfortunately, the group seems to have not learned a single thing about the last three times we did this dance and again decided they were going to try to target r/schizophrenia. Thankfully, Reddit does have direct lines for things like this, so we anticipate that this newest iteration of an old annoyance will be gone fairly soon. I'm under the impressions that the admins have a pretty substantial backlog to clear, but given that they've already banned a community associated with this Discord for ban evasion before, I'm about as certain as I can be that they're going to repeat the process yet again, and add yet another tally to the subreddits shut down by this group.

We learn more every time these folks try (and fail) again. This time, having a direct line to report makes it much easier for us to get it dealt with more swiftly. We're ready to go Round 5, 6, 7, or however many it takes until they get the message, loud and clear, without mistake or exception- r/schizophrenia is off-limits for their games. This only became our problem once they made it our problem, and decided to use our subreddit as their 'hunting grounds'. Had they simply learned their lesson the first few times and left our community alone, I would have just minded my own business.

Many people here have expressed some fatigue in hearing about this- imagine how I feel about it. I really don't enjoy dealing with these chuckleheads on that Discord and their burning, obsessive quest to remain relevant and/or use our subreddit to prey upon individuals they have picked out as 'vulnerable'. I'll update once the subreddit is shut down. I anticipate that now that we have the best tools to handle the issue moving forward, no further updates will be needed after that- it'll be handled before any further warnings may even be necessary.

In the meantime, the subreddit does offer an interesting perspective on how a cult works. Just remember... things are not as they seem there. It's a façade, a veneer, a tool. It all serves the purpose of driving people to that Discord, where they are insulated from any oversight or accountability. That's not what virtuous, honest people do. Something to keep in mind.

If you got an invite, feel free to check it out. If not... please don't message their mods and harass them, ask them to join, anything of that nature. They were quite clear that they only want the people they've selected joining (nothing cult-y about that, eh?) so I politely ask the subreddit to honor their request in that regard. No brigading, no shit-stirring, nada.

Technical Difficulties

So, I'm not exactly sure what the issues Reddit has been having recently is, but if you're experiencing something that is strange or unusual with the Reddit interface you use... that's 'normal.' I know sometimes people here can get bugged out when things aren't quite right, but I think Reddit put out some UI update or something that broke some things. So, if you've been getting some strange errors recently... no, your phone is not bugged, nothing like that, it's just technical difficulties. Glitches, what have you.

The main one I've seen being buggy is flairs, but there are a few other things too. You're not being crazy, that is actually happening.

Keto (Again)

Okay, so... our frustration continues with this Keto stuff.

If you have been living under a rock, then all you really need to know is that the biggest schizo- influencer, who runs a vlog, has gone on a kick on the Keto diet, claiming that it "healed" her schizophrenia and that it is past-tense. This is naturally not how it works, as we all know, and many of us from personal experience- there is no "after" schizophrenia. There are no "cures", there is no "healed", there is remission, which is not guaranteed to be permanent. Take it from someone who has been in remission for 8 years now- I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.

So, the bullet points:

1. Using synonyms for "cured" does not somehow negate the sentiment that schizophrenia- a lifelong, incurable illness- has somehow been utterly removed as a factor in one's life. This is not how it works.

2. Words like "remission" mean things and have definitions. They do not exist merely at the convenience of the user.

3. There are currently clinical trials underway as we speak evaluating the effectiveness of the Ketogenic diet to treat psychosis. The Keto diet is an extreme diet, and carries significant risk with it. It is not like the Mediterranean diet (which has actually been shown to work to a degree), so it is not some casual affair to commit to a diet like Keto on the chance that it may work based on small trials that did not yield controlled, quality data (or worse, rely on animal models or in vitro studies).

4. If you are effectively encouraging people to participate in an ongoing study without oversight - that's not how science works. Actual science dictates that we will determine whether or not it works when the data is in- all of it- and not one moment sooner. Attempting to encourage people to join you on this journey that you have touted as some sort of scientifically backed endeavor based on potential is not science- that's quackery, pseudo-science, treating it as a foregone conclusion that the actual scientific data will support your idea before it is ever in.

5. Treating things like a foregone conclusion is not science, and has had catastrophic results for mental health just in 2024. One such idiotic mistake from a group of researchers likely set back progress on using psychedelics to treat mental illness (esp. PTSD and treat-refractory MDD) years. This is not a trivial thing. If you are biased, you torpedo the inevitable outcome. The way this is being handled- even if Keto does work for psychosis- it will be eviscerated quite thoroughly in the scientific community. We do not treat foregone conclusions as being serious. We don't take "I know it's pseudo-science right now, but the evidence will back that it works, just trust me bro, it'll be actual science soon enough" to be particularly comforting.

6. All of us mods here are quite tired of this. We will hence be removing anything suggesting Keto is such a "revolutionary treatment" much as we do with other 'cures', like people claiming that Jesus magically healed their schizophrenia. No more special treatment for Keto in that regard. No more exceptions.

7. People have gotten hurt. This is not a hypothetical. Some of those people- or their family members- have come here to post about it. These are real people, and their misfortune is, likewise, very real.

If you are that dedicated to discussing the Ketogenic diet, we may redirect you to r/Metabolic_Psychiatry because we are tired of talking about it here. We'll have a serious talk about that once the data is in, and not one moment sooner.

Community Feedback

Now, for my favorite part- let's hear from you! Still haven't any requests on special flairs regarding data scraping- but if you want one, drop a comment and I'll make it happen.

It's the holidays (obviously), and the New Year is coming up. Even just here on the subreddit, it has been a pretty wild year... see above. 2025 is right around the corner, and we get to start anew. If you have any thoughts on that, want to share holiday stories, talk about your hopes for the next year, want to give the mods ideas for "festive" things to do to celebrate in a way that is most inclusive, drop a comment!

Any other random questions/comments/concerns that have popped into your head over the last month you'd like us to answer, feel free to let us know what you think. You've got our full attention.

Take care, everybody!

Welcome to r/schizophrenia!

Our subreddit rules are in the sidebar, we ask that you read and follow them. Feel free to post anything on-topic that does not violate these rules. We have a relatively comprehensive overview of how our rules are applied in reality available on the Rule Clarifications Wiki page.

Many first-time posters to this subreddit are concerned that they might be developing schizophrenia or they are concerned about other people who have- or may have- schizophrenia. We have resources available to answer these questions contained within the comments; if your question is completely answered by the information already given, it will be removed.

Mental health is complex. No symptom of schizophrenia is specific to schizophrenia alone, and there are many more common causes of those symptoms- especially in the prodromal stage. If you are experiencing an emergency, please call your doctor or local emergency services. We have a compendium of Crisis Lines available and may suggest r/SuicideWatch if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts and would like the most prompt attention.

(Credit u/soundandvisions for original post and comments)

Table of Contents

• What is schizophrenia?
• DSM-5: Schizophrenia
• Do you think you may be developing schizophrenia?
• Anxiety about developing schizophrenia (Worried you're "going crazy")?
• Schizophrenic friends, family members, or others you want to help?
• Need help writing a fictional character with schizophrenia?
• Crisis lines and resources for help
• About r/schizophrenia
• Disclaimer