Neurotype

#1 WHAT IS SCHIZOPHRENIA? ↓

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects less than one percent of the U.S. population. When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation. However, with treatment, most symptoms of schizophrenia will greatly improve and the likelihood of a recurrence can be diminished.

It is a multidimensional condition that arises from a number of variables. A combination of environmental, genetic, and physiological factors may alter the brain’s structure and chemistry, potentially leading to schizophrenia; however, the reasons why people move through the phases of schizophrenia remain unclear.

Defining Key Words: Psychosis: A set of symptoms characterized by a loss of touch with reality due to a disruption in the way that the brain processes information. This involves thoughts and perceptions being disturbed, and difficulty understanding what is real.

Delusions: Fixed false beliefs held despite clear or reasonable evidence that they are not true. A delusion where a person believes they are being harmed/harassed by another person are most common.

Hallucinations: The experience of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, or feeling things that are not there. They are vivid and clear with an impression similar to normal perceptions. Auditory hallucinations are the most common.

Disorganized Thinking and Speech: Thoughts and speech that are jumbled or do not make sense. This can manifest in switching from one topic to another or respond with an unrelated topic in conversation. It can be severe enough to cause substantial problems with normal communication

Positive symptoms (those abnormally present): Hallucinations, such as hearing voices or seeing things that do not exist, paranoia and exaggerated or distorted perceptions, beliefs and behaviors.

Negative symptoms (those abnormally absent): Impaired emotional expression, decreased speech output, reduced desire to have social contact, reduced drive to initiate and persist in self-directed purposeful activities, and decreased experience of pleasure.

Disorganized symptoms: Confused and disordered thinking and speech, trouble with logical thinking, and sometimes bizarre behavior or abnormal movements.

#2 MISREPRESENTATION IN MEDIA ↓

The complexity of schizophrenia may help explain why there are misconceptions about the disease. Despite the origin of the word, from the Latin meaning "split mind," schizophrenia does not mean split personality or multiple personality. Most people with schizophrenia are not any more dangerous or violent than people in the general population and may, in fact, be more vulnerable to being the victims of crimes. While limited mental health resources in the community may lead to homelessness and frequent hospitalizations, it is a misconception that people with schizophrenia end up homeless or living in hospitals. Most people with schizophrenia live with their family, in group homes or on their own.

It is one of the conditions that the general public views most negatively. A commonly observed trope in TV and movies represents schizophrenia as criminal and violent. (Think Norman Bates in Psycho, Mr. Cleg in Spider, or any of the dozens of characters from shows like Criminal Minds' endless carousels of violent depictions of madness and neurodiversity.) Horror, thrillers, and true crime often frame mad people as villains whose motivations are blamed on conditions like schizophrenia, which perpetuates the idea that people who have those conditions are a danger to others.

Shows like Criminal Minds, which follow a procedural format where a new weekly suspect is pursued by federal officers and caught by the end of the episode, are chock full of exaggerated depictions of schizophrenia. The formulaic approach of Criminal Minds made the show easy to watch, but to keep viewers from getting bored, it had to continue to shock them with more and more gruesome stories. Crimes committed by supposedly schizophrenic people ranged from cannibalism to necrophilia.

Mad and disabled people are actually more likely to be victims of violence rather than the perpetrators of it. And in a study in which 46 mad people were interviewed about the stigma they have experienced, people with schizophrenia reported more verbal and physical abuse than any other group in the study.

#3 PHASE 1—PRODROMAL ↓

This is the first stage of schizophrenia. It occurs before noticeable psychotic symptoms appear. During this stage, a person undergoes behavioral and cognitive changes that can, in time, progress to psychosis. The early stage of schizophrenia usually involves nonspecific symptoms that also occur in other mental illnesses, such as depression. Up to 73% of people with schizophrenia reported experiencing the prodromal stage before they develop the characteristic symptoms. Symptoms of this phase include: social isolation, lack of motivation, anxiety, irritability, difficulty concetrating, changes to normal routine, erratic behavior, poorly formed hallucinations

#4 PHASE 2—ACTIVE ↓

In the active or acute phase, people with schizophrenia exhibit characteristic symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. Active schizophrenia, or active psychosis, involves symptoms such as: hallucinations, delusions, confused and disorganized thoughts, disordered or jumbled speech, excessive or useless movement, wandering, mumbling, laughing to oneself, apathy or numbing of emotions

#5 PHASE 3—REMISSION ↓

In the active or acute phase, people with schizophrenia exhibit characteristic symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. Active schizophrenia, or active psychosis, involves symptoms such as: hallucinations, delusions, confused and disorganized thoughts, disordered or jumbled speech, excessive or useless movement, wandering, mumbling, laughing to oneself, apathy or numbing of emotions

#6 SOURCES & EXTRAS ↓

Sources:
- What is Schizophrenia
- How Schizophrenia is Misrepresented in TV and Film
- What to Know About the Stages of Schizphrenia

Extras:
- Fist-hand Accounts of people's experiences
- What Schizphrenia Feels Like
- Are Schizophrenia Simulations Accurate?