We don’t know the actual cause of schizophrenia. We do know that schizophrenia is a brain disease, with concrete and specific symptoms due to physical and biochemical changes in the brain. It is an illness that strikes young people in their prime between the ages of 16 to 25. It is almost always treatable with medication and it is more common than most people think. It affects 1 in 100 people worldwide!
However, schizophrenia is not a “split personality.” Childhood trauma, bad parenting, or poverty does not cause it. It is not the result of any action or personal failure by the individual suffering with the disease.
Symptoms of Schizophrenia
Symptoms of schizophrenia are not identical for everyone. Some people may have only one episode in their lifetime. Others may have recurring episodes but lead relatively normal lives in between. Others may have severe symptoms for a lifetime.
Personality Change
A personality change is often a key to recognizing schizophrenia. Changes may be subtle, minor, and go unnoticed. Eventually, such changes become obvious:
- Loss of emotion, interest, and motivation
- A normally outgoing person may become withdrawn, quiet, and moody
- Emotions may be inappropriate (laughing in a sad situation, crying at a joke) or absent
Disorganized Thoughts
Thoughts are not clear or rational:
- Thoughts may be slow to form, come extra fast, or not at all
- Jumping from topic to topic
- Seeming confused or unable to make simple decisions
- False beliefs with no logical basis (delusions)
- Believing they are spied on, plotted against, all-powerful, invulnerable, or on a special mission
Hallucinations
Sensory messages to the brain from the eyes, ears, nose, skin, and taste buds become confused:
- Hearing, seeing, smelling, or feeling things that are not real
- Hearing voices, sometimes threatening, even ordering self-harm
- Visual hallucinations (seeing doors where none exist, colors/shapes changing)
- Hypersensitivity to sounds, tastes, and smells
- Distorted sense of touch (skin crawling sensations, floating, or feeling nonexistent)
Coping and Awareness
Someone who is experiencing such frightening changes will often try to keep them a secret. There is often a strong need to deny what is happening and to avoid other people and situations where their differences may be noticed.
They may exhibit fear, dread, panic, and anxiety. The pain of schizophrenia is further accentuated by the person’s awareness of the worry and suffering they may be causing their family and friends.
People with schizophrenia need understanding, patience, and reassurance that they will not be abandoned.