Tag: schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious, chronic, and often debilitating mental illness that can cause a range of challenges in many areas of life. Adding to this complexity is the stigma and misconceptions surrounding it, which often lead to discrimination against people with schizophrenia. So let’s take a look at six common myths about schizophrenia and the truth behind them.

People with schizophrenia are dangerous.

This is a sadly common and particularly harmful myth, and it often leads people to treat people with schizophrenia more harshly than others, offering them fewer opportunities for jobs and housing, and avoiding meaningful relationships with them. While some people with schizophrenia can be violent (just as many people without schizophrenia can be violent), it’s a small minority. One study found that only 23% of violent offenders with schizophrenia committed crimes directly related to their symptoms.

People with schizophrenia have multiple personalities.

This is another widely accepted belief about schizophrenia. This myth probably originated from the Greek word “schizo,” meaning “split.” While schizophrenia has a wide variety of symptoms, “multiple personalities” is not one of them. This mental illness is called dissociative identity disorder (DID), and is a separate mental illness in its own right.

Schizophrenia only includes hallucinations and delusions.

While hallucinations and delusions may seem like the more obvious symptoms of schizophrenia because they are the “positive” symptoms (more obvious signs of psychosis), a number of negative symptoms (absence or inadequacy of normal behavior) and disorganized symptoms (disorganized behavior affecting speech, motor, and emotional responses) are also symptoms of schizophrenia. These include disorganized or absent speech, low motivation, and flat, inappropriate affect or dysfunctional or disorganized behavior. If you would like to learn more about these symptoms, please see my previous blog on schizophrenia .

There are no treatment options available for people with schizophrenia.
There are certainly treatment options available for people with schizophrenia. Typically, antipsychotic medications are the primary treatment, but people with schizophrenia will also benefit from community support, psychoeducation, family therapy, and one-on-one psychotherapy. In most cases, the symptoms of schizophrenia may not go away completely, but they can become much easier to manage. However, there is a small group of people who make a full recovery; the chances of this are significantly increased with early intervention, especially around the first episode of psychosis.

People with schizophrenia cannot hold down a job, have meaningful relationships, or be independent.
False, false, and false. With the right support, many people with schizophrenia can find and maintain employment, develop relationships, and even live and care for themselves independently. In fact, research tells us that work helps people recover from schizophrenia. This sense of personal autonomy and empowerment is valuable throughout the recovery process. Getting this support can also help people regain good social functioning and trust in their ability to care for themselves.

People with schizophrenia have low intelligence.
While it is true that most people with schizophrenia have below-average intelligence, primarily because of their negative and disorganized symptoms, this is certainly not true for all people with schizophrenia. Some people with schizophrenia, especially those with fewer negative symptoms, have been shown to have average or above-average IQs.

If you or someone you know is experiencing schizophrenia, it is important to reach out to your family doctor or mental health professional for support. Although schizophrenia can be a difficult mental illness to live with, with appropriate treatment and support, many people with the disorder can live productive and meaningful lives.

I have schizophrenia indiscriminately, a mix of symptoms and emotional distress. I’ve always been “sick” for as long as I can remember. My first memory was a hallucination. By the way, that was the only person I was aware of talking out loud in between my visual hallucinations. I want to talk about the misconceptions about schizophrenia and how frustrating it is that we are portrayed in the media as Creepy Monsters and Super Freaks. Even my favorite TV show used the phrase “cuckoo for cocoa puffs” to describe a schizophrenic suspect two weeks ago. That really disappointed me.

And I’m a bit of a hypocrite about this, because I often refer to myself as “crazy” and I actually prefer my friends to say that in public instead of “schizophrenic.” But there’s a reason for that.

With all this mental health awareness, empathy, activism, and visibility; With all the hype for mental health medications and the popularity of therapy and self-awareness, it seems like no one has schizophrenia or wants to.

For example, I will mention some of the stereotypes that I would like to erase from the collective memory of the human race, not just as someone with a mental illness, but specifically as someone with schizophrenia.

Everyone with schizophrenia is a “religious freak” haunted by demons.

I have no “special relationship” with any God or devil. In fact, I don’t believe in a God or devil, but I do believe in a heaven for animals. I don’t think my illness has anything to do with my spiritual maturation over time.

You can always tell when someone has schizophrenia by the way they talk to themselves.

I don’t babble about my hallucinations. Side note: I don’t know. Sometimes I’ll have a constant auditory hallucination, but I don’t talk out loud about my visual hallucinations. They’re just there. I treat them like wayward ghosts and ignore them.

All people with schizophrenia are dangerous or violent.

I don’t have abnormal or unusually violent fantasies. Everyone has some darkness in them, mine is no darker than most. When I’m in a psychotic state, I always do more harm to myself than to others. In fact, when people with schizophrenia are violent, it’s usually because they have a history of other disorders, such as addiction.

People with schizophrenia don’t realize there’s something wrong with them.

While it’s true that 50 percent of people with schizophrenia are unaware of their condition or have anosognosia, this isn’t true for everyone. I know I’m sick.

When we’re angry, it means we don’t take our medication.

Medication doesn’t solve all problems, and psychiatric medications don’t work like aspirin. I take my medication seriously. I’ve worked diligently with my doctors over the years to get the best use out of my medication with the least side effects. I’ve gained weight from the medication, I’ve become a zombie from the medication, I’ve become worse from the medication. Yes, I took my medication today. Even if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have made a difference in the anger attacks I’m having right now. Sometimes people get angry, that’s all.

People with schizophrenia need to be protected from reality.

It’s okay to feel. I don’t have to be protected from the ugly, the disgusting, the sad things in life. Sure, I avoid shelter animal commercials when I can because they upset me, but mostly it’s because I don’t want to be sad when I watch the morning news. It’s okay to be angry, happy, a little hyper, a little depressed. Emotions are a natural part of life.

These things aren’t just true for me, they’re true for many people with schizophrenia to some degree. We don’t all sit in dark rooms listening to death metal, sharpening knives, and making eyeless collages of people from high school. Most of us are out and about, going to doctors’ appointments, taking our meds, trying to live a quality life.

I am very afraid of getting sick. More specifically, of being poisoned. I am also afraid of getting sick, but the fear of being poisoned is debilitating. Schizophrenia is exactly that for me: living in fear. I am afraid of many things every day.

At school, when we have a break in the middle of class and I have to go to the bathroom, I put my water bottle in my bag. Not only that, I memorize the exact location of the water bottle in my bag so that I can be sure it hasn’t been moved when I get back. I am afraid that my classmates will poison me. They have no reason to do so. I have not wronged them in any way. There is no reality where they go around poisoning people; they are good people. But, no matter how unrealistic this thought may seem, I cannot shake it. So, every Wednesday evening at around 7:30, I hide my water bottle in my bag and examine it very carefully when I come back from the bathroom.

I remember someone telling me that a friend of his had once been poisoned with LSD. Someone had stuck an acid tablet in his bald head and the poor guy was hallucinating for 12 hours. I got so scared when I heard that I wore a hoodie for months. When I go to coffee shops, I always choose a table in the corner so I can lean against the wall – there’s no one behind me doing that.

Earlier this week, I bought a ready-made salad from the grocery store. It wasn’t properly sealed. I took a few bites and became paranoid about it, thinking someone had poisoned all the salads. I threw most of it away and skipped lunch. The thought that I was going to start seeing something or get a terrible stomachache at any moment bothered me for hours. Of course, nothing happened. No one had poisoned the salads. There was just something wrong with the packaging.

If I step away from my drink for even a second while sitting at a bar, I can’t drink it.

My doctor and I have both found that I only get paranoid in this way in certain situations. For example, I can leave my water bottle on my desk at work all day and not worry about it. I think it’s because I trust the people I work with. So I don’t think I have to worry about having dinner with my family because I believe my family wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But I think about the people who aren’t as fortunate as I am, who don’t have the trusting environment that I do, who might have to worry about that. I want them to know that I know how they feel; that it’s a scary feeling. I want them to know that I’m sorry that they have to go through that. I know what it’s like to not trust your own mind to be unrealistic in real-world situations, and I don’t want that to happen to anyone.

Living in paranoia or fear is a part of schizophrenia that many people with this disorder have to live with every day. It’s uncomfortable, constantly wondering if someone is trying to harm you. The best we can do is limit our fear with coping mechanisms like putting your water bottle in your bag or choosing only the neatly covered salads at the grocery store. It’s important to raise awareness of what we’re dealing with so that other people can understand and empathize with why we do the things we do. Sometimes it helps to know that there are people who understand.