What does it mean to be sane?

Our fifth support group meeting brought together both familiar and new faces. As always, each person arrived carrying their own experiences, yet before long our individual stories began to weave into something shared. One participant joined us for the first time and reflected on their experience of psychosis many years ago. Looking back, they realised that while they were living through it, nothing felt unusual. Their thoughts raced, their energy seemed limitless, and life felt full of possibilities. Only afterwards, when they found themselves exhausted and hospitalised, did they begin to recognise what had happened. Their story raised a question that stayed with us throughout the meeting: How do we know when we are well? Another participant spoke about living with a lingering uncertainty even years after recovering from psychosis. Sometimes a thought, an emotion, or an unusually productive day would leave them wondering, Is this simply part of life, or is something beginning again? There was no easy answer. Living after psychosis often means learning to trust oneself again, while also carrying the memory of having once lost that trust. It is a delicate balance between remaining attentive and not becoming imprisoned by fear. As we reflected together, the conversation gradually widened beyond personal experiences. Someone asked what sanity actually means. Is sanity simply the absence of psychosis? Or is it something much larger? We found ourselves looking at the world around us—a world marked by violence, loneliness, inequality, and suffering—and wondering why so much that causes harm has become accepted as ordinary. Sometimes people living with psychosis seem deeply affected by the pain of the world, while others appear able to walk past it without noticing. Perhaps sanity is not merely a state of mind. Perhaps it also has something to do with our capacity to remain connected to compassion. Throughout the meeting, another theme quietly emerged. Several people described lives spent caring for everyone except themselves. One participant realised they had always been the person who solved other people's problems but rarely spoke about their own. Another reflected on how difficult it had been to say "no," fearing that disappointing others might lead to rejection or conflict. Someone else spoke about becoming the peacemaker within their family, carrying responsibilities that never truly belonged to them. Listening to these stories, I found myself wondering how often we learn, from a very young age, that our worth depends upon caring for everyone else. Over time, it becomes difficult to know where other people end and where we begin. Perhaps healing is also the slow work of rediscovering our own boundaries. Not as walls that separate us from others, but as gentle reminders that our own lives deserve care too. We also spoke about feeling disconnected from our bodies. One participant described living "up in the air," untethered and uncertain, as though they had drifted away from themselves. Returning to the body—to breathing, walking, resting, or simply noticing the ground beneath one's feet—felt like an important part of recovery. Again and again, the conversation returned to something very simple. We all need love. Yet so many people living with schizophrenia discover that when they reveal their diagnosis, they receive suspicion instead of understanding, distance instead of care. It is a painful paradox. Those who have often endured immense suffering are frequently met with fear rather than compassion. By the end of the meeting, however, the atmosphere had changed. One participant said they felt optimistic about life again. Another shared that they had read about spaces like this in books but had never experienced one for themselves until now. Someone else simply said that the group felt like home. Those words stayed with me. Perhaps home is not always a place. Perhaps it is the experience of becoming visible after feeling invisible for so long. A place where we no longer have to explain ourselves before we are accepted. A place where we can think, feel, question, and simply be human together.

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