In my day job, I'm the chief medical officer at Gateway's Hospital and Mental Health Center here in L.A.

So what I essentially do is I oversee all the medical staff at the hospital, which means the

psychiatrist, the nurses, the internists who, you know, treat the patients for more physical issues.

And I also see patients at the same time.

So I was treating a patient. This had to have been a couple years ago. And he was relatively young.

I want to say 18 or 19. And this was his first inpatient hospital stay. So he was brought to the hospital on what's called a 5150 or 72-hour

psychiatric hold initially because he had punched someone in the chest. So he had been exhibiting

some bizarre behavior before then, but this was his real first hospital stay.

So first he said that he didn't hear voices. Then he said, he slipped up and said, well, when I do hear voices when I smoke weed, they go away for about an hour, but then they come back really loudly.

And I was like, oh, well, I think that means you probably shouldn't smoke. And he got

really upset. But I was like, listen, here's the thing. We need to treat your symptoms first.

Okay. I'm like, you just told me that you're hearing voices. And, you know, based upon your

presentation and based upon, you know, when I spoke to your sister about some of the symptoms you've

had in the past, it sounds like you may be dealing

with schizophrenia. And he was like, well, I don't know about that. So for him, it was very evident,

even though he didn't say it, that he didn't want to be diagnosed with anything, let alone schizophrenia,

because he didn't want to be stigmatized. Like he was, you know, prime of his life. He just really

started living. He just kind of really started to be an adult. And to be told that his life was

essentially going to be colored by this diagnosis for the rest of his life was a lot for him. And I understood that. So

I explained to him that, you know, it is hard for people to want to accept help, but it's better

that you accept that you have a diagnosis and get treatment for it so that you can really actually

have a chance at living a full life.

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