When Michael Vargas Arango began dating his girlfriend Elizabeth Pella at Miami Dade College in Florida, he opened up about a lifelong condition: schizoaffective disorder — a mood disorder that involves schizophrenic symptoms like seeing hallucinations and hearing imagined voices.
“Of course I had to tell her this is happening to me: I hear voices. I feel presences,” the 22-year-old Colombian exchange student told NPR. “This is who I am. I can’t lie.”
Pella embraced Vargas Arango, but feared the reaction from their peers — and asked if they could just keep it between them.
Crushed by her response, he felt resolved to change the narrative surrounding schizoaffective disorder. That’s when he created the podcast “The Monsters We Create.”
“I’m not dangerous. I’m not crazy. And I’m not delusional,” he said in his podcast. “I’m just one more guy, with a mental health condition, living with it.”
In the podcast, Vargas Arango plays around with sound effects, echoes, and voice manipulation to create an immersive soundscape for his listeners. He also satirizes the misconceptions surrounding schizophrenia, creating “conversations” with the voices in his head “to make fun of the prejudice that people have” and diffuse it with humor.
After producing the podcast earlier this year, Vargas Arango submitted it to the NPR Podcast Challenge. Of over 500 student applicants, “The Monsters We Create” was hand-selected as the winner.
Today, Vargas Arango is open about his condition and treatment with everyone: his girlfriend, their friends, his family, and his podcast listeners. The fear and shame he carried for so long have dissolved completely.
”You need to be honest,” he said, speaking to NPR listeners — and also to his younger self. “You need to embrace who you are and what you’re living with.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2026 Mental Health Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image via Daniel Rubio
