Keyrose Counseling

05/24/2026

World Schizophrenia Awareness Day

The majority of people diagnosed with schizophrenia suffer from anosognosia, a symptom of the disease.

Ano ( without) so ( self) gnosis ( awareness)

Lack of insight into one’s condition.

Anosognosia is…
Not denial. Not refusal. Not lack of cooperation. Not “ being difficult”.

It is a neurological inability to comprehend one’s condition.

Anosognosia affects between 50% and 98% of people with schizophrenia, about 40% of people with bipolar disorder, and more than 80% of people with Alzheimer's disease.

Disease requires treatment above all else. Treatment and healing begin with stability. Housing and basic needs must come first.

Families hands are tied by outdated laws and a system that keeps family members out, while demanding insight, participation, independence and cooperation that those with anosognosia are incapable of.

There is no liberty in being left ill on the street.

Leaving someone with anosognosia alone on the streets until they die is a cruel and unusual punishment for a disease. Civil rights and disability activists are well intentioned, but misguided and doing harm.

It’s time we listened to and included family members.

It is of the utmost importance to recognize the suffering and struggles of those affected. It is also important to ensure that those who need medical care receive it.

We do not let our Alzheimer's patients with anosognosia roam the streets. We speak for them. We care for them.

We must demand more humane treatment for people with anosognosia from severe mental illnesses.

As defined, anosognosia is not denial.

Anosognosia is a mental illness in which the sufferer is unaware of their condition. A denial of anosognosia's legitimate importance in the medical community and in our laws and policies is to ignore it. That is denial. Denial of the reality of anosognosia as a symptom of a medical condition.

We need to recognize anosognosia as a part of a legitimate medical condition and ensure that our laws and policies reflect this understanding. This will ensure that individuals with anosognosia can access the housing, care and treatment they need and are allowed the full support and advocacy of their families as part of their care.

Like Mine

05/23/2026

As we approach the Day of Pentecost, I have been thinking back to the beginning of Lent. I am struck again by how this arc of time that began with ashes will end with fire, that vivid image and symbol of the Spirit that comes to Jesus’ gathered followers. Pentecost comes to remind us, in part, that ashes do not have the final word, and that fire does not come only to consume. It comes also to bless, to call, to inspire, to give to us what we could never begin to imagine on our own. Here at the threshold of this new season, this blessing is for you, with gratefulness.

WHAT THE FIRE GIVES
A Blessing for Pentecost

You had thought that fire
only consumed,
only devoured,
only took for itself,
leaving merely ash
and memory
of something
you had believed,
if not permanent,
would be long enough,
enduring enough,
to be nearly
eternal.

So when you felt
the scorch on your lips,
the searing in your heart,
you could not
at first believe
that flame could be
so generous,
that when it came to you—
you, in your sackcloth
and sorrow—
it did not come
to consume,
to take still more
than everything.

What surprised you most
were not the syllables
that spilled from
your scalded,
astonished mouth—
though that was miracle
enough,
to have words
burn through
what had been numb,
to find your tongue
aflame with a language
you did not know
you knew—

no, what came
as greatest gift
was to be so heard
in the place
of your deepest
silence,
to be so seen
within the blazing,
to be met
with such completeness
by what the fire gives.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
janrichardson.com/books

Image: "What the Fire Gives"
© Jan Richardson
janrichardsonimages.com

05/17/2026

05/01/2026

Blessings on this Feast of St Joseph, The Worker