Understanding Schizophrenia
Does one really know what schizophrenia is? Some have this prejudice idea of how all schizophrenics behave; that they’re all insane and live in mental hospitals or on the street. Over all this is simply not true; schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality expressed as disorder of feeling, thought (as delusions), perception (as hallucinations), and behavior —called also dementia praecox (merriam-webster,2014).Schizophrenics have a hard time telling what is real and what is not, adults with the illness have abnormalities in about 20 brain regions ( Levitt, …show more content…
Besides, the likelihood of schizophrenia being passed on from parent to child is only 13%; but can affects men and women of every race and background. Even though, it’s mostly found in younger men around 15 to 25 years old (The Internet Mental Health Initiative, 2010). The causes are still up for debate; researchers say causes may vary from genetics since there have been family studies that suggest schizophrenia is strongly aggregated in families. Also in twins the risk of one twin getting the illness if the other twin already has it is about 48.4% (Kendler 1983). And also by stress, since many sufferers recall that they were in a period of high, prolonged stress leading up to their diagnosis:
I was in denial; I didn't think anything was wrong with me at all. I didn't actually realize that something was wrong until a very good friend of mine pointed out the possibility of schiz, after I lost a job. I was working at a good job for a large company and I started getting paranoid that the other staffs were trying to kill me. Looking back at it now, I see that it was a silly thing to be thinking... but at the time it was very real. …show more content…
Hallucinations are mostly known as hearing voices and seeing things; which are what everyone tends to think of when schizophrenia is mentioned. Delusions are believing that the hallucinations are real, which lead to irrational conclusions; "Sometimes I have the delusion that I've killed hundreds of thousands of people with my thoughts, or that someone has set off a nuclear explosion in my brain,” says Elyn Saks an associate dean and Professor of law, psychology, and psychiatry at the University of Southern California Gould Law School. Yet what one might not know is that there is more type of schizophrenia; it’s not just simply having hallucinations and delusions, which is seen more in paranoid schizophrenia. Don’t be fooled by the name, yes sufferers of paranoid schizophrenia usually feel as though everyone is out to hurt them. It’s actually the subtype that is the most functional in the ability to work and engage in relationships and is the most common (Bengston, 2013). Disorganized schizophrenia is, as one might think is a disorganization of the thought. Therefore disorganized schizophrenic have a hard time keeping a thought going and tend to not be able to focus. People with disorganized schizophrenia may have a hard time communicating, since they’re not able to control their thoughts. The last subtype is catatonic schizophrenic, which may just be one of the most disturbing forms of
Does one really know what schizophrenia is? Some have this prejudice idea of how all schizophrenics behave; that they’re all insane and live in mental hospitals or on the street. Over all this is simply not true; schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality expressed as disorder of feeling, thought (as delusions), perception (as hallucinations), and behavior —called also dementia praecox (merriam-webster,2014).Schizophrenics have a hard time telling what is real and what is not, adults with the illness have abnormalities in about 20 brain regions ( Levitt, …show more content…
Besides, the likelihood of schizophrenia being passed on from parent to child is only 13%; but can affects men and women of every race and background. Even though, it’s mostly found in younger men around 15 to 25 years old (The Internet Mental Health Initiative, 2010). The causes are still up for debate; researchers say causes may vary from genetics since there have been family studies that suggest schizophrenia is strongly aggregated in families. Also in twins the risk of one twin getting the illness if the other twin already has it is about 48.4% (Kendler 1983). And also by stress, since many sufferers recall that they were in a period of high, prolonged stress leading up to their diagnosis:
I was in denial; I didn't think anything was wrong with me at all. I didn't actually realize that something was wrong until a very good friend of mine pointed out the possibility of schiz, after I lost a job. I was working at a good job for a large company and I started getting paranoid that the other staffs were trying to kill me. Looking back at it now, I see that it was a silly thing to be thinking... but at the time it was very real. …show more content…
Hallucinations are mostly known as hearing voices and seeing things; which are what everyone tends to think of when schizophrenia is mentioned. Delusions are believing that the hallucinations are real, which lead to irrational conclusions; "Sometimes I have the delusion that I've killed hundreds of thousands of people with my thoughts, or that someone has set off a nuclear explosion in my brain,” says Elyn Saks an associate dean and Professor of law, psychology, and psychiatry at the University of Southern California Gould Law School. Yet what one might not know is that there is more type of schizophrenia; it’s not just simply having hallucinations and delusions, which is seen more in paranoid schizophrenia. Don’t be fooled by the name, yes sufferers of paranoid schizophrenia usually feel as though everyone is out to hurt them. It’s actually the subtype that is the most functional in the ability to work and engage in relationships and is the most common (Bengston, 2013). Disorganized schizophrenia is, as one might think is a disorganization of the thought. Therefore disorganized schizophrenic have a hard time keeping a thought going and tend to not be able to focus. People with disorganized schizophrenia may have a hard time communicating, since they’re not able to control their thoughts. The last subtype is catatonic schizophrenic, which may just be one of the most disturbing forms of