The truth about Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is the most misunderstood mental disorder, it seems to conjure fear and prejudice and sufferers have to deal with a great amount of prejudice. The condition is often criminalised, mostly because of media portrayal and a general lack of understanding about what Schizophrenia is and how it effects it's sufferers. Educating people about the condition is vital to tackling the stigma associated with it.

Schizophrenia is a long term mental health condition that can cause a range of different psychological symptoms. These include:
Hallucinations: This is when people see or hear things that don't exist. The most common hallucinations are auditory (hearing voices) these voices are usually critical of the sufferer.
Delusions: These are unusual beliefs or ideas that are not based on reality and would seem impossible to anybody else as they often contradict the evidence. These can include delusions of grandeur, such as believing they are famous and delusions of persecution which is the belief that people are 'out to get them.'

Doctors often classify Schizophrenia as a psychotic illness, this means that a person cannot distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.
The onset of Schizophrenia is usually earlier in men, being most common in the late teens and early twenty's. It tends to occur later in women, being most frequent in the late twenty's and early thirty's.

There are a number of misconceptions surrounding Schizophrenia and it seems that there is a general lack of understanding creating a sense of fear. These are a few of the misconceptions:

People with Schizophrenia are violent.
Sufferers of Schizophrenia are no more violent than anyone else. The only reason they may be is if they forget to take their medication, they are under the influence of drugs and use them regularly or, they have a history of violence and are generally violent people. This misconception has often been portrayed by the media, but the fact is, people with Schizophrenia tend to be anxious, passive and fearful of people and the outside world.

Schizophrenia means that people have multiple personalities.
This is not true. This is a separate disorder that is not the same as Schizophrenia. Split personality is known as Dissociative Disorder. The word 'Schizophrenia' derives from the Greek word meaning  'split mind' with reference to the split in personality that Schizophrenics often experience.

You can't recover from Schizophrenia.
Not necessarily. Although Schizophrenia is what is known as a chronic mental health condition, with the right treatment people are often able to improve and recover over time.

This is an interesting video showing what it's like for a sufferer of Schizophrenia, it highlights the voices that they hear and what they say. Imagine hearing such things all the time, it easy to see how people would struggle to cope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYHVbLLO2bU