Every year, an estimated 100,000 young adults or adolescents in the U.S. experience a psychotic episode. Only 10-20% of them gain access to the holistic treatment approach recommended by the National Institute of Mental Health as the gold standard of care for early psychosis, due to lack of space or because insurance won’t cover it. After M graduated from high school in California, she got a job at a fast food restaurant making burgers. Her coworkers were chatting over the fryer one day when M got a weird feeling, like somehow they knew what she was thinking. It was like her coworkers could read her mind and were discussing her thoughts with each other. “I was like, are they talking about burgers or are they talking about me?” says M, now 21. NPR has agreed to identify M by her middle initial because she fears the stigma around her mental illness could disrupt her career path. There was one coworker in particular, a guy she had a crush on, and she was pretty sure he was watching her. She suspected he hacked into her phone so he could listen to her conversations, find out where she was and follow her around. If she was walking down the street, or hanging out in the park, she saw him. Her mom remembers M wanted to sleep with the lights on, repeatedly asking her through the night, “Mom, is someone here?” A crisis, a hospital stay, a rare referral One day, her mom said M got so paranoid, so scared, she locked herself in the bathroom and just screamed and screamed and screamed. Her mom wanted to call for help. But she didn’t have a job at the time. This was about a year into the pandemic, and the hotel where M’s […]