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KERA's Think

Life after mental illness

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8861 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

 A diagnosis of schizophrenia is devastating — but what if the doctor got it wrong? New Yorker staff writer Rachel Aviv joins host Krys Boyd to discuss a woman diagnosed with severe mental illness for years before doctors realized it was an autoimmune response, her hard road back to health and the difficult process of repairing relationships once she was well. Her article is “Mary Had Schizophrenia — Then Suddenly She Didn’t.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0

In our new podcast, Everybody's Business, we talk about the business news that concerns everybody.

0:06.9

From Bloomberg Business Week, I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.

0:09.5

And I'm Max Chaffkin.

0:10.9

Each week, we unpack what is happening on Main Street and Wall Street, all the streets.

0:16.5

WrestleMania has taken over the U.S. economy.

0:19.3

A poetry that executives write on LinkedIn. A little actual magic in our underrated story of the week. The single grades marketing campaign, the music business has ever seen. I decided to ask people how they felt about the penny going away. Listen to everybody's business wherever you get your podcasts.

0:49.7

Among the many cruelties of severe mental illness is how it seems to steal away the person who existed before.

0:51.2

You can love someone plagued by psychosis, but you can't really rely on them.

0:55.6

Their behavior might be so radically different than before they got sick that loved ones feel

0:59.8

like they are dealing with someone else entirely. And then, if a person who's been ill for many

1:05.1

years experiences a recovery so radical that no one could have predicted it, who are you dealing

1:10.8

with then?

1:12.1

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. There's no blood test for schizophrenia.

1:18.5

Sufferers are diagnosed based on symptoms like delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and

1:23.9

speech. But scientists are beginning to realize some small percentage of people

1:28.5

diagnosed with schizophrenia are in fact made ill by an autoimmune disorder, which, if properly

1:34.3

treated, can cause those symptoms to vanish forever. Patients are effectively cured. But then

1:40.5

begins the work of reclaiming an identity they may not have fully inhabited for decades.

1:45.9

Rachel Aviv is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

1:48.8

Recently, she spent time getting to know a family who lived through this.

1:52.1

Two daughters whose mother lost herself to what was thought to be schizophrenia when she was in her early 40s,

1:57.5

only to be accidentally cured 20 years later when she was given immunotherapy to treat

...

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