Ep. 14 - Reality Check - Kody Green (Mental Health Advocate) - Reality Check. Psychosis is Real, so is Recovery.

Artwork for podcast Reality Check. Psychosis is Real, so is Recovery.

Ep. 14 - Reality Check - Kody Green (Mental Health Advocate)

Episode 14 • 15th August 2025 • Reality Check. Psychosis is Real, so is Recovery. • Clear Answers for Louisana Mental Health (CALM)

Ashley: Welcome to the Reality Check. Psychosis is real. So is Recovery

podcast. I'm Dr. Ashley Weiss. I'm a child adolescent psychiatrist.

Serena: And I'm Serena Chaudry. I'm a clinical social worker and we are the co-founders of Epic nola, which is the Early Psychosis Intervention Clinic in New Orleans, and also the co-founders of Calm, clear answers to Louisiana Mental Health.

Serena: Good afternoon. Welcome to Reality Check. Kody. I'm Serena Chaudry. It's nice to meet you. Yeah,

Kody: thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Serena: Yeah, we're super excited to have you. So we our listeners don't know much about your story, though I imagine your listeners and your followers do. So I'd love to start today's chat with you, sharing what you feel is relevant about the journey that got you to this moment.

Kody: Yeah, so my name's Kody Green. I am a patient living with schizophrenia. I was diagnosed at 21 years old after several years of dealing with psychosis and addiction. I went through a psychotic break in college and my formative years growing up, I was actually a caregiver for my mother with schizoaffective disorder.

Kody: So schizophrenia has been a part of my life. For most of my life, and it's definitely had a huge impact on not only how I view the world, but how I see stigma and how I see conversations around schizophrenia happening. So after I got stable on medication. Like I said, I spent several years in psychosis and active addiction.

Kody: I was eventually incarcerated and when I got out of jail, I was able to get stable on medication, get sober. I spent years kind of in recovery finding what medication worked well for me, kind of getting stable, getting back to work, and really exceeding the expectations of, you know, the doctors and the people around me.

Kody: And I eventually started doing peer support. I started sharing my story locally. And I felt like that wasn't enough. So I took my story to social media and I started sharing about not just my experience as a person living with schizophrenia, but my experience as a caregiver. All of the different things that I've been through with my diagnosis, with my addiction recovery.

Kody: And I really didn't think anyone would care about it or. Want to learn more about my story, but within a few years I had over a million followers on TikTok. I now have 2 million followers collectively across social media platforms, which has allowed me to have some really amazing opportunities. My full-time job now is mental health advocacy and motivational speaking.

Kody: So I get to travel around, talk to patients, peers, caregivers, all over the country and really try to change the stigma of. Mental health and schizophrenia, not just in the mental health community, but outside of that to people who have never been a part of the conversation. And so that's largely my goal with, you know, my advocacy with my social media.

Kody: I was also very fortunate to have a book come out this year called Minds Over Meetings. It's about mental health and mental illness in the workplace. And so that's a, a very short version of a, of a very long journey that I've been through with my schizophrenia diagnosis and my mental health journey.

Serena: Yeah. No. Yes. A long journey punctuated with a lot of really important moments and crossroads, I imagine. And so I'm gonna ask if you don't mind indulging us with some details around those, because I think you bring to this conversation so many different perspectives, right? You are the son of a mother living with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, you said.

Serena: Mm-hmm. And so in that context, you're both son and caregiver, it sounds like. Yeah. You have your own lived experience of illness, diagnosis, and recovery, and now you're an advocate. Yeah. So you bring it all to the table, which I think is super powerful, very inspiring. I've, you know. Listen to your podcast.

Serena: I've looked and followed you some on social, and I'm just super inspired by all you're doing because really it's voices like yours that are so, so, so important to this conversation, right? Like when we look on social media, you, you're the one who has the followers and you're the one who should have the followers, right?

Serena: Hearing the voices of people with lived experience. At the core of us as providers doing our work and providing better care. So, delving into the, some of the details on your journey, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what you remember about your battle, so to speak, between illness and addiction.

Serena: Yeah that's definitely common theme amongst our patients at our clinic, and I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Kody: You know, at the time I didn't really understand, you know, why I, I chose addiction, but now as an advocate, I know that that is unfortunately a really high percentage of people living with schizophrenia that do turn to addiction as a way to cope or self-medicate and.

Kody: Even my own mom when I was growing up, I remember her using as a way to try to silence the voices or as a way to try to, you know, just deal with the symptoms she was experiencing. And so when I was in college and my symptoms started, I didn't know how to react. I didn't know how to function. I was still trying to go to school.

Kody: I was working full-time. And unfortunately, the only way I could think to deal with that was to try to self-medicate and try to get myself through it. Not in a place where I felt like I needed help, so I didn't go to the hospital. I didn't try to get medication. I didn't try to get treatment because I didn't think I needed it.

Kody: My level of delusion and my level of psychosis made it impossible for me to recognize how bad my situation was and how bad my illness had gotten. So even though I was having constant hallucinations and delusions, I still didn't really think anything was wrong with me. But I knew that I was uncomfortable.

Kody: For me, drugs and alcohol gave me brief moments of comfort, and that's the only way I can really explain it is when I started using it was my way of escaping the, the things I was seeing and the things I was hearing and, and all of the, the different. I was having. And so it was my way of trying to just get through all of these symptoms that I had.

Kody: You know, I had went 18, 19 years of my life never experiencing, and suddenly I had all of these things I was dealing with that I should have been able to tell, you know what it was based on my lived experience as a caregiver. But unfortunately I didn't have that insight to be able to do that. So this is how I decided to cope with it.

Kody: And I wasn't able to get sober until, you know. While up to my schizophrenia diagnosis, which also made it hard to get a diagnosis properly. 'cause it can definitely change how doctors and and psychiatrists will look at, you know, a psychosis or schizophrenia diagnosis.

Serena: Yeah, for sure. And I'm so curious, do you recall any moments of insight around.

Serena: Your symptoms given your experience as a caregiver, right? As as the, yeah. Mm-hmm. Tell us about those.

Kody: I'm always, this is something that I've talked about a lot because I always expected that if I ever developed schizophrenia, that I would be able to navigate it better than my mom for a lot of reasons.

Kody: One was because I had more knowledge about schizophrenia than most people. At 18 years old. I knew more about schizophrenia than most people because I had had my entire childhood raise basically helping raise my siblings and taking care of my mother with schizoaffective disorder. So. I was very like knowledgeable about the diagnosis.

Kody: I knew what it looked like and not just like how it's portrayed on TV and movies, like I knew what it actually looked like having been around it most of my life. And so I always assumed that if it ever happened to me, I would be able to tell. I would be able to navigate it better. I. Unfortunately because of the level of delusion that comes with schizophrenia, the level of psychosis almost immediately after my symptoms started, that logic or that ability to have clear thinking went away.

Kody: And so things that I knew, things that I should have been able to, to figure out, I wasn't able to understand. I will say that in the brief moments of clarity, if for any reason I started to think that I might have schizophrenia, I kind of shrugged it off and, and part of that was I was afraid of the diagnosis.

you know, I grew. My town was: 2000

Kody: And so I, I knew how people treated my mom because of her diagnosis. I knew how they treated her when she started medication. And so I think when I did have moments of clarity, I shrugged it off. I, I, I did just like. Ignore it because I, I was really afraid of getting a diagnosis or getting, or having to be that like 18-year-old kid on medication.

Kody: Like nobody wants that life. And I thought if I ignored it, that it, you know, I could avoid it. And unfortunately all that did was put me deeper into psychosis to the point where I stopped having insight and I stopped having moments of clarity. And it became basically a full on like. Constant episode of of psychosis, always struggling with auditorium visual hallucinations.

Kody: Pretty much if I was awake, I was having symptoms of schizophrenia.

Serena: Thank you for sharing that. That's so wild and so true at the same time, right? To have all this lived experience as a caregiver, be witness to all these symptoms, and then I totally get it as much as I can, that you'd be fearful of that, but to know that the stigma that was external to you was such a significant barrier in you seeking the help you knew you needed.

Kody: Well, and I think it's interesting there, you said external too. Mm-hmm. I, I do think there was a bit of internal ableism that came with what I experienced because I, I grew up in an area where even though I, I knew my mom and I loved her. I, I took care of her. There was a part of me where I grew up in a community where people.

Kody: Basically said that if you struggled with mental illness, it was your own fault. You weren't trying hard enough, you didn't care hard enough, you weren't, you know, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Serena: Mm-hmm.

Kody: And so part of me did believe that until I went through it myself. So as a caregiver, I would get frustrated sometimes with my mom.

Kody: And it's not that I ever stopped caring for her, or I stopped trying to help her, but I would get frustrated like. I couldn't understand why she wasn't able to navigate this or she wasn't able to have more insight or, or remember to take her meds and how I had to become basically a parent for my parent.

Kody: And it wasn't until I went through it myself that I saw how. Impactful, you know, psychosis and delusions are to a, to a human brain, and how hard it was for me to understand what was going on around me and how hard it was for me to even take care of myself. So there was a bit of that internalized issue that I had too, where it was just because of how I was raised and the conversations happening in my community, it made it hard to accept that I.

Kody: Might live with that. And like it was so scary. 'cause to me, a schizophrenia diagnosis felt like a death sentence. I had never seen anyone living a full and functional life with this diagnosis. So admitting it meant that I was gonna have to live with it forever and I was gonna have to take medication and all of that was too much.

Serena: Yeah, for sure. And I. I think to some extent it's still true that people fear that diagnosis, right? And they are scared about what the life with the diagnosis of schizophrenia would look like, but. I am witness too, on a daily basis. Young people living very full lives. Yeah. While at the same time carrying a diagnosis, like I know that to be true.

Serena: You're a living example of that and that is so inspiring. And so I'm curious to sort of, you know, pivot from your story for just one second. What do you think we do? How do you think we help? Understand that this is just a diagnosis. It's not an identity, and it doesn't mean they can't live the lives

Kody: so. I always say that the reason I continue to do advocacy is so that I can be the voice that I needed when I was first diagnosed.

Kody: Mm-hmm. Because I felt very alone. And like I said, I'm not exaggerating. When I said that, I felt like my diagnosis was a death sentence. And it wasn't until after my diagnosis, you know, I got treatment, I got medication, I went to a peer support group, and for the first time ever I saw people with my diagnosis working.

Kody: They had friends and family, they were driving, they were doing all these things that I was being told I would never be able to do again. And that gave me hope That I think we don't get to see in the system a lot. Yeah. So one of the things I'm frustrated with and, and. I understand that, you know, sometimes in medical professions and like, you know, in clinical settings, we look a lot at statistics, right?

Kody: Mm-hmm. I was told several weeks after my diagnosis, so I had just gotten on medication. I was just starting to have some clarity, and if it wasn't for my medication, I probably wouldn't remember this conversation, but this was 10 years ago. I've been diagnosed now. 10 years into this diagnosis. I still remember this.

Kody: A few weeks after I was diagnosed, I started medication. I was having some clarity. I had a doctor tell me that I would never work again. And it wasn't a question, it was a statement. Now, this was not my doctor. This was not my primary care doctor. This was, I had an emergency. I had to go in and talk to someone.

Kody: He happened to know that I was recently diagnosed with ski schizophrenia. He saw it on my chart and he said that I should get comfortable being on disability 'cause I would never be able to work again. Which is really hard to hear, right? Because I had an idea for a life that I thought I was gonna have.

Kody: I had a psychotic break. I, I just basically came out of, I, I always say like that three years of being an active and addict, active addiction and active psychosis kind of feels like a dream. And so I basically came out of like a three year long dream. I was really like nervous, but I wanted to kind of get my life back on track.

Kody: I wanna start pursuing things in, maybe go to work, go back to school. And now I had the one person that I'm supposed to trust with my, with my medical journey telling me that that was not gonna be possible. Now going back to to the statistics of it, right? I know now as an advocate, 10 years into my journey that people with schizophrenia, the last statistic I saw said 90% of people with my diagnosis are unemployed or unable to work.

Kody: So if you are in that doctor's position, I can see how. When I came in to his office, he saw my diagnosis, he saw the severity of my symptoms. 'cause at the time, I'm not the person that's sitting in front of you talking to you. Like very coherent, very well spoken. I was basically nonverbal. I couldn't communicate, I couldn't, I couldn't even articulate my thoughts and feelings.

Serena: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kody: So like the level of severity that I was having, I was still constantly having auditorium visual hallucinations. I was still having delusional thoughts. I was still paranoid, but I was starting to get kicked. I was starting to have less and less symptoms. So from his point of view, I came in very severe symptoms.

Kody: He knows the statistics, he knows that a lot of people with my diagnosis can't work, but. It prompted the conversation of I am a human being and not a statistic, and I think that's what we forget. Okay. We forget that people with schizophrenia and psychosis are coming in. They're already scared, they're already nervous, they're already fearful that they're not gonna live a full and functional life.

Kody: They need hope.

Serena: Mm-hmm.

Kody: As as hard as it sounds like. Yeah. I know. The truth of the matter is that a lot of people might not get to work. They might not get to do all of the things that I do, but we're telling them from that it's not possible. I think that's a really terrible move for people that need hope and support more than anything.

Serena: I totally agree, and it infuriates me that you were told that, and I think it's very generous and speaks to your quality of character, generous of you, to give this position to be able to understand where he was coming from when sharing those stats with you. But I, I, I totally disagree with that, having been said in 100%.

Serena: Believe and clinically practice the with hope that, that we all need, hope, diagnosis, or not. Right. And I think if we can plant that seed early on for the individual who's been diagnosed early on for the family and communities, then we create a space where anything is possible. Any of us, again, diagnosis or not may, she may pursue the career path we thought for ourselves, may get married and have a family, may do X, Y, and Z and many of us may not.

Serena: Diagnosis or not. And I think creating barriers, more barriers for individuals who are encountering. You know, an infinity of barriers is just really unfair. Yeah, and I think I'm gonna circle back to stigma because I do think there is this stigma on in all levels of the system, right? You were speaking about your own internalized stigma based on what you had witnessed externally, how the community treated your mom commun, how the community treated mental illness.

Serena: There's this. Level of stigma amongst providers, mental health providers, medical providers, right? Telling you, believing that individuals with these diagnoses cannot get better, and then we move through the system. Where I, I think the further away we get from the individual experiencing these symptoms, the worse the stigma gets.

Kody: Yeah, and I, I, it's really frustrating as a patient, right? 'cause I've been doing advocacy now for five years and I would love to say we're, we're close to the finish line, but every day I feel like we're just past the starting line of like reaching people and fighting stigma. 'cause it's not just overall stigma, it's different in every community, in every setting, in every workplace.

Kody: Like we're, we're fighting the, the macro. Stigma, the, the, all of the stigma that we all know and we see every day, but there's also different assumptions that are happening in small rural communities or in like big cities, but like different racial and ethnic backgrounds mm-hmm. Have different points of view on, on mental illness and how it's treated.

Kody: And there's still a lot of stigma around. I think one of the things that frustrates me is the stigma around medication and treatment. Mm-hmm. You could be someone who's severely struggling and trying to get help, and certain communities will tell you that you're better off just figuring it out than getting treatment or medication, because medication is still very stigmatized itself.

Kody: So I feel like it's an ongoing battle that we're fighting from every angle.

Serena: Yeah, I, I totally agree. And that was gonna be one of my questions for, for you is, you know, where we stand in the face of stigma, and I don't wanna admit this, but I agree, we're barely past the finish line or the starting line.

Serena: And that is, on one hand, really, really discouraging. And on the other hand, it it

Serena: do this. All day, day, every day. Longer and harder until we move the needle exactly know, closer toward the finish line. And I think conversations like these, voices like yours are so essential in this. So pivoting back to your story and the journey of how you got here, thinking more about the, your battle with addiction and using medication to manage symptoms.

Serena: So often what we see for so many, and I think understandable, age appropriate, and. I'm curious what helped you to stop using or admit that using was not helping as much as you hoped or wanted it to with hallucinations?

Kody: Yeah. I get this question a lot and I, I think the frustrating part is that, you know, I, I'll, I'll have a lot of caregivers ask me, like, oh, my, my loved one is struggling with schizophrenia and addiction, which should we battle first?

Kody: And I, I think we forget that like. Recovery, mental illness recovery is very person to person. It's, it's an individualized experience, so you gotta combat what you can first. For me, I needed. The clarity to understand how bad things were and that I needed treatment instead of my addiction. So once I got my diagnosis, so I got outta jail, I had a little bit of, you know, a stretch of sobriety going on because I got outta jail.

Kody: Mm-hmm. And it was harder to get access to drugs while I was in jail. But I got out, I went right back to using. Okay. During this time, I finally reached out to my mom and walked. My mom and my wife and I asked for help because I didn't think that I had schizophrenia, but I knew something was wrong with me 'cause I couldn't work, I couldn't do what everyone else did.

Kody: So I thought I had like a physical illness. Mm-hmm. So I asked to talk to a doctor. Little did I know that they were planning on, if I ever reached out, what they would do. They were able to get me into a doctor and then within two weeks I had a diagnosis, medication treatment, a psychiatrist like, and I travel all over.

Kody: I talk to patients all over the country. I know that two weeks is not a typical timeline. For someone to get access to the care they need. But they had planned for this and they knew what steps they needed to take if I ever reached out and asked for help. And so once I got the diagnosis, I got put on an antipsychotic immediately.

Kody: Mm-hmm. And it wasn't until I started getting clarity with my antipsychotic medication that I recognized that I was using drugs as just a way to do what. Medication was supposed to do and it wasn't like that's the problem is at the time of using, you think that it's helping you really do. Like that's, I don't think caregivers always understand that because drugs are, you know, it's a difficult conversation, talk about addiction, to talk about things like that.

Kody: But in the moment it feels like it's giving you brief moments of, of relief from your symptoms. Whether or not that's true, I can't say 'cause I was in. Literal psychosis. So it's, it's hard to know whether or not it actually was helping, but in my mind it was. I think what was actually happening was it was giving me very moments of, of like.

Kody: Relief from my symptoms. Mm-hmm. But it actually led to worsened symptoms, right? Darker symptoms. And so at the moment I thought it was helping, but once I got my diagnosis, I got treatment. I saw that like the medication was much more effective. It gave me a lot longer breaks in between symptoms. And although it didn't cure me, it.

Kody: Made my life more livable and I didn't need to use in order to get those same effects. So for me it was access to diagnosis and medication that allowed me to get sober. They happened at about the same time. Mm-hmm. That's probably not gonna be the case for everyone. That was just my own individual journey through my, my sobriety.

Serena: Right. And I appreciate you identifying, right. It's an individual journey and I, and I know that to be true and I think it's so helpful to hear as many about as many individual journeys as we can because one of those individual journeys is gonna resonate with someone and hopefully, you know, give them the courage to take the steps they need to get a diagnosis, a medication.

Serena: The stigma around medication use is real, and I really appreciate your willingness to, you know, step out there and name it for what it's, and identify the ways in which it helped you and, and I think the stigma stems from so many different. Things. I think a large part of it is fear, also a fear of being on a medication for the rest of one's life.

Serena: And, you know, if, if, if one finds coordinated specialty care, specialized care, there really is an effort within these clinics and in the, within these specialty services to help people find the right dosage of medication. That helps them to function at their optimal level, right? Like nobody wants to see a young person sedated and or right.

Serena: Uncomfortable or managing all the terrible side effects that can come with some of these meds. So it's, I, I, I wanna recognize that fear is wrapped up in stigma at all these different levels.

Kody: Yeah, absolutely.

Serena: You talk about peer support and gonna a meeting where you finally were able to sit. Hard journey.

Serena: Journey and a potentially a similar diagnosis. I think that is really, really crucial. We really try embrace that being positive thing, bringing people with lived experience together. At our clinic, we run a lot of groups, social groups, social cognition groups, relationship groups, just trying to bring people together to share their experiences and hoping that one can help the other in, in connecting, reconnecting, right with.

Serena: Peers and their lives. You prac, do you practice as peer sports specialists?

Kody: I, I am certified Uhhuh, I don't, I don't get as involved with it anymore just because of how busy I am with traveling. Right. And, and my advocacy. Mm-hmm. But I, I largely, I, I largely accredit peer support for my stability that I have today.

Kody: After my diagnosis, I really isolated, which is. Unfortunately, again, common in people with a severe mental illness to feel the need to isolate. Whether it's like I had a lot of embarrassment. I didn't wanna be out in public. I was afraid that I would've symptoms. Okay. So I, I isolated, and it wasn't until I went to a peer support group through nami, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, that I finally got to like, recognize that there were other people struggling just like I was.

peer support group meeting in: 2015

Kody: And I'm very passionate about what they do and how they help people, and not just them, but any peer run organization or peer support organization. I think. The work is so important, and like I said, although I don't do as much peer support now. Mm-hmm. For many years I was a peer, peer support facilitator.

Kody: I worked very closely as a peer support specialist. Mm-hmm. I have both of those certifications and it's largely what you know. Gave me hope. Mm-hmm. And helped me see that there was, you know, a future with this diagnosis. And it might not be what I had expected my future to look like, but there was something to look forward to.

Serena: Yeah, definitely. And I, and, and I appreciate you just even saying that you no longer practice as a peer support specialist, but that, that. Those trainings and that journey is instrumental to helping you, you know, do the work you do now. And I.

Serena: For those reasons, right? It, it, it's a community of people with similar lived experience and it gives you a set of tools that you can use for yourself to help others or just in life in general. So I, I think it's a really incredible path and we're lucky and super proud of large handful of patients at our clinic who have become certified and many who are practicing in clinical settings.

Kody: And that's, I think it's so important. I highly recommend it. Anytime I'm doing speaking events or I'm talking to peers, I, I can't say enough about peer support and how beneficial it is for not just hope, but inspiration and, and just for seeing how other people are getting through this diagnosis.

Serena: Mm-hmm. And, you know, going back to our conversation about systems and stigma, I am. Proud that our systems have recognized the value of peer support. Yes. And that peer support has become a professional path that individuals can pursue. I think the work that has yet to be done is that peers are compensated adequately for their work and on par with clinicians such as myself.

Serena: And I think that peers also deserve to be part of this healthcare system in which their services can be billed, because being able to bill for their services which we can't do in the state of Louisiana yet, would allow for, I believe, better compensation for peers, which they wholeheartedly deserve.

Kody: Yeah, this is, this is an ongoing thing I advocate for too, as a full-time mental health advocate. Early on when I started speaking, it's pretty common for speakers to be paid for, for sharing their stories and for sharing their expertise. But it, it's very hard as a, as a mental health peer support speaker to, to ensure that you're being compensated for the work you're doing.

Kody: So this was something I battled a lot early on. I'm, I'm very lucky. I also have a big social media following, which allows me to, to leverage that more. But not a lot of mental health speakers are able to do it full-time or be able to pursue it as a career because it's not something that you can really support yourself with.

Kody: And so I, I do know there are a lot of. Rules and regulations out there that make it difficult. But also I think we are seeing a change in this where patient voices are being asked in spaces they've never been before. I've been speaking at conferences that used to be exclusively psychiatrists and, and you know, doctors, and they're finally bringing in patient voices to, to really fill in the gaps that they're missing.

Kody: And I think that's crucial and I hope to see that continue.

Serena: I totally, totally agree, and if there's any advocacy work along the peer support lines in which you need some more voices, or voices in the medical field, I am happy, we are happy to join you or in any way that we can.

Kody: Yeah, absolutely.

Serena: It's just zero offer.

Serena: Okay. I'm going over the time I told you, but do you have a few more minutes? Yeah, of course. Okay. I have a question. This is something that we've, we've been trying to figure out how to enhance. Intervention. Right. So we have calm, clear answers to Louisiana Mental Health was, which is our psychosis early detection campaign.

Serena: And the goal of that is to help educate on symptoms, pathways to care so that we can get young people in earlier, ideally before they have a full psychotic episode, and prevent the hospitalization or that long, hard journey that you described. For people such as yourself who have a family history, first degree relative with a psychotic disorder.

Serena: I know there's more that we can do. Yes. And we're trying to figure out how we can better help those individuals and those families get the support they need early on so that they can be aware of these symptoms, these perceptual disturbances before they become. Disrupt is lost. Do you have any ideas about how to do that?

Kody: So a lot of what I would like to see changed isn't gonna happen at an institution level. It's gonna happen at a legislative level. So I, I've been doing a lot of advocacy here in my state of Wisconsin, but also trying to reach, you know, congress people, state senators, people on a national level, because I think a lot of the changes we need are things that are being created as roadblocks, right?

Kody: Mm-hmm. So this is just one example. I am now on a long acting injection. Mm-hmm. In the state of Wisconsin. You can't start someone on a long-acting injection, even if the psychiatrist feels like it would be the best fit. They have to fail several oral medications before they become able to take that, as you know, for insurance purposes.

Kody: Mm-hmm. So I think stuff like that, it's really frustrating. It's a small thing. Right? But if legislators saw like, hey. If we can get someone access to medication that may help them better. And once again, medication is an individualized treatment. Mm-hmm. I'm not a doctor, please don't sue me. And like the, the thing is I'm just like, we create so many roadblocks and it's even like in small rural areas, there might only be one psychiatrist who's booked out several months.

Kody: Mm-hmm. A person in psychosis, if they have clarity, they don't have several months to wait. We need to be able to get people in quicker. We need to make sure they can get the medication that would be the best fit for them. We need to make sure that if they get to a point where they're, they're starting to really struggle with insight, that they have the resources they need before it's too late.

Kody: So a lot of that. Unfortunately can't be done at an advocate level or at a clinician level. A lot of it is gonna come to legislative mm-hmm. Legislative levels. And that's why I really try to get other advocates to go into their state legislator mm-hmm. To, to really try to share their story because I've found and.

Kody: The state of Wisconsin, when I've been able to sit in front of congresspeople, when I've been able to sit in front of state senators or people representing my community, it's different for them. Having someone who can sit there and tell them what the experience is like and what would've helped them and what would've given them earlier access or earlier care.

Serena: Mm-hmm.

Kody: And I think. We can see is mental health and mental illness are one of the few topics that can be bipartisan supported. There's not a lot that we can say that about, but I will say, 'cause everyone, if you haven't been through it, you likely have a friend or family member who has been through it.

Kody: Right. And that's what I'm realizing as I talk to legislators, even people that I personally might not agree with, I'm recognizing that. They don't understand 'cause they might not have lived it. They might not have a direct family member living with it. Hearing it from a patient allows them to have more insight to why funding for resources like this are important and funding to access and care.

Kody: And a lot of it comes back to that. So. I, I, I wish I had a, a more straightforward like, answer for you, but that's where I think a lot of the fighting needs to happen right now. And a lot of the battles are, you know, taking place and that's where the, the change is gonna get made.

Serena: I totally agree with you.

Serena: So no need to apologize on that. And I think the, what you stated about being on a long-acting injectable, we have more than 50% of our patient population on it. It improves adherence. There's ease. I believe in the end there's almost less stigma. You're not having to battle that. Right. The reality of taking medication every day.

Kody: Yeah.

Serena: Is there, yeah. That's what I

Kody: always say about it too.

Serena: Yeah. So I to, I totally agree. And the last point, for real, for real, the last point is, you've mentioned this, the challenge of living in community

Serena: and.

Serena: You are getting me even more excited about the expansion efforts that we're in the midst of in Louisiana. We are expanding beyond New Orleans, getting to these further out, harder to reach places with fewer resources, trying to help people there access specialized care. So thank you for highlighting the need in those areas and for further inspiring us to do that work that is necessary and not.

Serena: Being done at the level it deserves. Kody, it was so great talking to you. I could sit here all afternoon, but I promised to let you go. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We need to get you down to New Orleans, and I'm gonna figure out a way to do that. One could be, we have our annual fundraiser happening on November 7th.

Serena: It's called In My Mind, and we feature people in recovery from psychosis. Yeah, it's an awesome aspiring event. If your calendar permits, we could talk about that. The other thing is I think your voice would be really well received in our clinic and in our medical school, and so I'd love to talk to you more about that offline.

Kody: Yeah, absolutely. And I am actually gonna be down there for my, only my second time to New Orleans, I believe Site Congress is down there this year. Okay, let's do that. Around

Serena: that. I can't remember what's down there, but something, it's either

Kody: Site Congress or the A PNA, which is the Nurse Practitioners Association thing.

Kody: One of those is down there. I know I'm scheduled to be in New Orleans at some point this year.

Serena: Okay. Let's email about it and coordinate to connect when you're in town.

Kody: Yeah, absolutely.

Serena: Alright. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your advocacy, and thank you for just being the awesome spirit. You are Kody Green.

Serena: Thanks for joining us at Reality Check.

Kody: Thank you again for having me.

Serena: Until next time, thanks for taking the time to get your reality check. And remember, psychosis

Ashley: is real, so is recovery. If you have enjoyed this episode or found it useful, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast from. And check out the website, calm nola dot.org

https://calmnola.org/

https://www.kodygreen.com/

https://redrockbranding.com/

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube