Hello there @xi1 and welcome to the forum ! 
I’ve read you and I see you.
First thing I want to say is that those “spiritual” people (including those “identifying as Buddhists”) saying these teachings are not meant for people suffering from Schizophrenia and other kind of mental illness are just completely lost and missing the mark. Like “yeah right, have compassion and skillful means for all beings and everything, except those people. Too weird. Not supposed to happen. Don’t wanna hear about it. Sorry, can’t do nothing for ya if you’re suffering from psychosis. Too bad for you! I’m sane, you’re not. That’s how it is.” - That’s as spiritual as it can get sometimes, and I’ve witnessed it and been in such a situation. I do not suffer from Schizophrenia myself, but I have and have been experiencing extremes states of mind in different ways for various reasons (although probably to the same extent as You did) and therefore can relate to what you’ve gone through, at least a little bit. And if not, at the very least, I feel you, and I do not see you as being different from me. I do not know you but I see you.
As Edward Podvoll puts it, WE ALL possess “the seed of madness” and I do believe that’s the actual reason why so-called “normal/sane people” (including, you know, “the ultra-spiritual” ones) are afraid of people suffering from psychosis. Because they’re afraid of the truth that, it could happen to them too. They think “people with psychosis are different from us, they’re not normal” so they’re afraid. But saying “they’re different” couldn’t be any more further from the truth. Because, the truth, once again, is that psychosis could happen to absolutely anyone. Because Everyone has a mind, and can technically undergo the same type of experience, under the same gathering of causes and conditions. Take any “normal” person who considers him or herself as perfectly sane, and give them LSD. I’m sure they’ll change their mind.
However and more importantly
“There is another seed within us, even more important than the seed of ego: it is the seed of sanity, a human instinct of clarity, present in everyone as a brilliant, clear awareness capable of spontaneously cutting through the self-deception of madness… Alongside and embedded within psychotic suffering, there exists always a potential Clarity and Openness of mind and heart.”
- From “Recovering Sanity: A Compassionate Approach to Understanding and Treating Psychosis”, an outstanding book.
For several years (especially during my teenage years), I was on the constant verge of derealization. I didn’t want to talk about it from fear of being given medication, so I was looking for answers by myself. It worsen around age 16. At age 17, along with the sudden arrival of a chronic disease (leading me to anxiety and depression), I developed PTSD (never diagnosed, but god I can tell I was matching the symptoms) because of something terrifying I saw online. Initially “just a bad joke” whose consequences turned out to be dramatic for some people, especially for fragile kids like me.
In spite of my fragility, because I needed help I couldn’t find where I was to heal - and couldn’t work through dreams for several reasons - I decided to work with psychedelics instead (Mushrooms, Ayahuasca and Tobacco mainly). I experienced states of sheer madness, lostness and fear. And words have so little meaning here. Those experiences blew me into smithereens, oftentimes more than once in a single night. But I also experienced these “Islands of Clarity” (another term Dr.Edward Podvoll used) interspersing the darkness. Pure, Absolute, Unadulterated Sanity, when I thought everything was lost forever. It never was. The light always is behind it all.
This led me to the yearning to learn about Mental Health. A burning desire to learn and help people suffering from such extreme mental states. Because I experienced it myself, and realized anyone could experience it. “How can we let people experience this and do nothing to help them ? What is the medical world/psychiatry doing to help ?” I started to ask at the center I was in: “What about people suffering from mental disorders ? What do you do about them ? How do we help them ?”
Towards the end of my journey in Peru, I had a ceremony that led me to lose my mind for three month. No assistance, no help from the center I had been in for so long and who “considered me part of the family” - in the words of the director (I was hoping to get a job there). It is through a lucid dream (a nightmare voluntarily invoked before bed in which I absorbed the trauma of the ceremony) that I regained sanity and balance. I was infinitely lucky to succeed. What about “all the others?”.
Ayahuasca - and other substances - are always deemed to be incredibly effective treatments for PTSD… I cannot deny it. But my question was and still is: “What about people with Psychosis? Or psychedelic-induced psychosis ? What do we do for them?” I asked someone at the Ayahuasca center I was in. This person just smiled in response, definitely not knowing what to say. And this really fueled me with anger, a sense of injustice and a burning desire to find answers.
So my interest for helping people suffering from extreme mind states has never left me. I started to gather a ton of information on the topic. I was looking for already-existing alternatives. The deep entrenched belief - especially held by the mainstream psychiatric system - that “psychotic people can never recover” is an outrageous aberration. It is false.
Professor Manfred Bleuder, who was director of the Burghölzli Hospital in Zürich said in a letter to Dr.Podvoll:
I have been much attacked within the last years as I have seen and described the recovery of many Schizophrenics who had been severely sick for long periods (…) The reason [of these attacks/critics] is: “you have made the wrong diagnosis.” In my opinion, this criticism is unrealistic and is harmful to our patients."
Edward Podvoll is one of my Hero. And, ha, so. Yes, he was a Psychiatrist who studied with none other than Chögyam Trungpa for years and underwent a 12-year Buddhist Retreat. He’s not a “small player” as we say in French… he founded the Contemplative Psychotherapy Department at Naropa University (always dreamed of it…) in Boulder, Colorado. (Andrew, Alan Wallace, Edward Podvoll, Medical Cannabis… Damn it, I need to fly there sometime! 
) And also, of course, he has founded - or co-founded can’t remember, the Windhorse Institute.
Anyway. I just want to say: I believe you can heal. I’ve read enough and learn enough on the topic, seen enough testimonials to believe it is possible. And I might not be a doctor, but I’ve learned an awful lot, which - and I am not ashamed to say this, nor do I pretend to know it all - some doctors, limiting themselves to what they’re taught at uni do not necessarily know about. And I can testify of that when it comes to, say, IBS and Diet. But that’s not the topic. At least the Doctor who said that wasn’t one of “those doctors”:
“Ultimately this book is about perceiving and nurturing islands of clarity, for in this way full recovery from psychosis has been accomplished and will continue to occur without aggressive or physically intrusive methods of treatments”
There’s also a ton of things, in addition to this, that can play a major role in healing psychosis. I’ve been reading a lot on the link between Diet and the Brain. It’s huge. It holds the potential to improve significantly the state of those who suffer from mental disorders.
Once again, I’m not making this up. Check out “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” by Dr.Natasha Campbell-McBride if you haven’t heard of it! She’s a MD with a degree in Neurology and Nutrition.
I was living not so far from a Psychiatric Hospital in Amiens (Philippe Pinel Hospital Center) whose reputation wasn’t so good… How funny when you know that:
“The father of modern psychiatry French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel (1745-1828), after working with mental patients for so many years, concluded in 1807: “The primary seat of insanity generally is in the region of the stomach and intestines” - And yet, the last thing a modern psychiatrist would pay attention to is the patient’s digestive system! We will discuss the scientific and clinical evidence pointing in the direction of gut-brain connection in schizophrenic patients”
Anyways, my point is there’s an actual relationship between Gut and Brain health.
There’s balance to find here. To reduce any disease to on aspect or another (“emotional/energetic” vs “biology”) is again, a dualistic view, I guess. I’m trying to figure things for myself (see this post!), and I’m realizing both have a role to play in healing. I don’t want to confine the answer to just one thing.
Okay. I think that’s it. There’s yet more to say and write, but that’s a good beginning already… I hope that what I’ve written is to any possible extent helpful or useful. If you wish to know more, anything I can share, the little I know that might help, it would be a real, real pleasure and joy for me to do so. If not (!) If what I’ve just said was… useless (because you already knew it! It’s totally possible… but maybe somebody reading this didn’t!), or I don’t know… Sometimes I’m just really too much, especially when I see someone suffering and that I do happen to know something that can help (e.g.: recently, I significantly helped a student suffering from IBS and my hairdresser who was suffering from Ankylosing Spondylarthritis to improve her state, just sharing the stuff I knew about diet and immunity. You never know what a haircut can lead to!). If that wasn’t useful, well, let’s just forget about it… but who knows, maybe it’ll help other people, so I’ll keep it as it is anyway 
But I couldn’t not say something. And I could say more ! But that’ll do for now.
I also know that @Andrew has worked with patients suffering from Psychosis. I can’t remember if he talked about it in his books (haven’t read them all… yet) but he talked about it in a Q+A one Thursday. I’d love to know more about it…
By the way, I think having a sense of Humor, Warmth and sense of Lightness is a sign of a real teacher. Definitely is awesome, and I’m glad you’ve found his teachings and this community… You’re welcome here. Sometimes, making a first step, sharing a story or a thought, opening up… can lead to beautiful Things.
I wish you the very best, and at the very least, I hope you enjoyed the reading and/or that you could find and feel some warmth in this message. It was meant to in be there!
And @_Barry Gratitude is awesome 
