Trisha Paytas says they're not schizophrenic despite previously claiming to have the condition

25 August 2021, 15:32

Trisha Paytas says they're on medication for paranoid schizophrenia

By Jazmin Duribe

"I was just like, 'Well, I'm schizophrenic. I can hear voices, I'm schizophrenic. Check.' But I am in fact not."

Trisha Paytas has now said that they do not have schizophrenia after previously revealing they had been diagnosed with the mental condition.

The YouTuber is often open about having multiple mental health conditions. In 2019, Trisha was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Trisha then diagnosed themselves with dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder), introducing her subscribers to her alternate personalties, which ignited backlash. In 2021, Trisha said they were diagnosed with schizophrenia "twice" and had been taking medication for it.

However, on Tuesday (Aug 24), Trisha spoke with TV doctor Dr. Drew on their new podcast My Chemical Imbalance, where they discussed their mental health in detail, and said they are not actually schizophrenic.

READ MORE: Trisha Paytas now uses they/them pronouns after coming out as non-binary

"I don't know if I've been misdiagnosed because I'm on medication that treats schizophrenia, so for me I'm like, 'I'm a schizophrenic,' and he's like, 'You're not a schizophrenic,'" Trisha explained. "And I should have asked him to delve deeper because sometimes hallucinations go with borderline and a lot of borderline – this is something else that I was totally misinformed [about] – borderline was called borderline psychosis disorder or psychotic disorder."

They added: "Because I was referred twice to get this medicine for schizophrenia, I was just like, 'Well, I'm schizophrenic. I can hear voices, I'm schizophrenic. Check.' But I am in fact not."

Trisha then said that finding out that they are not schizophrenic was actually a "relief". According to the NHS, a common symptom of the condition is hallucinations. Trisha believes that becoming sober in December 2020 may have exacerbated their auditory and visionary hallucinations.

Trisha added: "I want to make that clear because I feel like I've said it and I kind of taken that on because I was like, 'You know what. This is what I am. There will be no bad stigma to schizophrenia.' I still feel that way, obviously, but that was more me convincing myself because I'm really like, 'I'm a schizophrenic, I could pass this to my children.'"

Fans soon called Trisha out for previously saying they had schizophrenia even though they did not, referring to tweets in which they confirmed they had the condition, and a TikTok Trisha posted earlier this year.

In the clip, Trisha said: "I actually never got officially diagnosed with anything until 2019 and that was after three mental hospital stays where I thought maybe I should get help and get an actual diagnosis. So I go to multiple therapists and most of them tell me that I'm BPD – borderline personality disorder – and they send me to classes and to do work books, etc. I do get a few that diagnosed me with multiple personality disorder and a few that diagnosed me with paranoid schizophrenia. Yes, I went to about 13 therapists in the course of six months."

They continued: "I do have borderline personality disorder, there's no medication for it, but I have recently been put on meds for paranoid schizophrenia so I've gotten my official diagnosis that I am also paranoid schizophrenic […] Because I don't look like I'm mentally ill, unless you've watched me for a while… you can not determine if someone is mentally ill or the severity of their mental illness just by looking at them."