Schizophrenia: the Split Mind

Schizophrenia comes from the Greek term meaning split mind, which is just what it is. It is a personality disorder among other things. Along with having multiple personalities and/or personas, a schizophrenic person suffers from hallucinations, and what is called a forced internal perspective.

Treatment for Schizophrenia can be as simple as first base counseling, conventional group support and therapy. Not such as an intervention, but assistance in regular life. Rehabilitation centers, or rehab, are different than mental wards and the famous asylums, in that they are open environments where patients are on a campus that aren't isolated in cells. Cognitive therapy is basically thinking behavior where a doctor engages the patient with mental thought processing experiments, like puzzles. Behavioral testing is testing to see how the patient might react to different social cues, such as confrontations, dates, parties, and the like. Psych education is what helps determine how schizophrenia affects the person's mental capacity and ability to learn. As for medicines, they are conventional antipsychotic and anti-terror pills. (1998-2018 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)

However the symptoms don't seem as comfortable as the therapy. Like I previously mentioned a patient, depending on how sever it is, has hallucinations, or episodes in which they can go from any mood into a freak out. If it's not too severe episodes occur once in a long time, like a month or even a year, these are more easily cured. Continuous episodes have little to no chance of recovery. Schizophrenia has many causes. From stress during birth and growing up, physical trauma can cause ticks, and even psycho drugs, like acid or shrooms. A patient often experiences voices, which are echoed voices, and memories and thoughts that are turned audible. Impaired motor control, speech, and vision come when a patient's mid is too exhausted. When we think our brains our using muscles, when they get tired we have headaches. When a schizophrenic brain uses them too much they go into a haze. (1998-2018 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)

In 2002, the schizophrenia fiscal burden to the U.S. was $62.7 m. That's 20x the amount to pay for diarrhea. Schizophrenia is a disease that typically begins in early adulthood; between the ages of 15 and 25. Men tend to develop schizophrenia slightly earlier than women; whereas most males become ill between 16 and 25 years old. Most females develop symptoms several years later. Schizophrenia onset is quite rare for people under 10 years of age, or over 40 years of age. (1996-2010 Schizophrenia.com the Internet Mental Health Initiative)

Like I said before, Patients have a self-forced perspective about them. Patients think they are disliked; so they are entirely convicted in whatever comes into their head that is either a concept or belief pertaining to them. It is actually very much like Tourette's syndrome. Some with TS can see a cloud and a pretty girl and say something about her being fluffy; the thought was impulsively turned into words. Schizophrenia causes depression when a patient is in self-induced social exclusion, in other words they do not interact within society because of what they think is going on. This means they can refuse treatment, advice, and even the council of loved ones and friends. The stigmas of people towards patients with schizophrenia have the same input. It's common to think that people with the illness are incapable of being delightful or sociable because regularly they are not. The people that we notice have schizophrenia are the more sever ones, so when someone has a lesser case, we think they have the same incapability. But the ones with the lesser cases are just as normal as you and I, they have periodic episodes, are less inept to having relationships. They can much easily have goals and aspirations as well as attend education because they have a more able mental capacity than the less fortunate with more severe afflictions.

So in conclusion, schizophrenia is a major mental affliction yes. But when we look at diseases and sickness, we tend to see HIV/AIDS at the top of lists. Schizophrenia is often categorized into depression, anxiety, autism, and Alzheimer's. Because of its spectrum of intensity, it is often overlooked when someone has tics, mental trauma, and is only present and we become aware of it when a person has grown to be mature (teen years when we are able to develop a conscious and make decisions, this usually occurs when our frontal lobe develops).

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