Symptoms of Schizophrenia.
Back To Personal Experience of schizophrenia
Some of the more severe symptoms of
schizophrenia – for instance thinking the neighbours are persecuting them –
sometimes involve drawing the curtains to stop them spying on them or perhaps
crawling underneath a window so to move around, go to the toilet etc. This is I
think a very graphic example of what schizophrenia can be like but there are
many other symptoms some of the most common of which are described below.
Another common symptom is the thought that people are talking about one self.
Quite often we might get the idea some one is calling you – which turns out to
be a mistake – and we say `I could have sworn I heard … etc.' This is all
the more beguiling when the actual as opposed to the imagined voices manifest
themselves in the same way. What I think can sometimes give the lie to this is
the frequency of such instances – some people with schizophrenia hear voices
eighty per cent of the day.
You are paranoid yet life still goes on around you seemingly as normal. This is
a paradox which is sometimes difficult to explain but is perhaps best described
by the admittedly rather vague notion that it has an air of unreality about it.
This takes the form of a rather vague subjective feeling but non the less is
probably the most accurate account for me.
You can also remember a time before – when you did not think like this. This
seeming paradox may sometimes be explained by some sort of reason or cause
however. The longer such an illness goes on however the harder it is to remember
what life was like `back then. 'How ever what does seem to stick in the memory
is the abrupt change which begins with the start of the illness, though
sometimes the onset can be very gradual.
Not all the such symptoms are a direct result of psychoses how ever. If some one
smiles it could be thought that they are laughing at one self etc. Some such
beliefs can thus be challenged by other equally plausible explanations to gain
some `insight'. The difficulty is that we must know which ones are straight
forwardly psychotic and which are mistaken interpretations - even though they
may seem to fit the facts. Sometimes things can seem real until we question
them.
The experience of schizophrenia generally seems fantastical to people who do not
suffer from schizophrenia, to the point that delusional beliefs are comical as
they defy common sense. A little thought however can reveal how insipid such
beliefs really are. Take for example the very common idea that people are
persecuting you. In the mind of a person suffering from schizophrenia the
persecution of Jews – which occurred some where so very close, so civilised
and so very culturally similar to Britain as Germany – could be taken as
evidence. There are many other examples in the West such as the brutal purges by
Stalin in Russia, not to mention the treatment of British POW's by the Japanese
etc etc Indeed it was the British who invented concentration camps.
Another related and typical to schizophrenia , is the belief/thought that some
one is trying to kill them. This again is something that is not impossible
however strange it may seem to other people, and indeed any such allegation is
certainly taken very seriously by the police if it is reported to them. But here
again look at the frequency of murder mysteries and police drama in the media
and of actual such acts in society. All this again magnifies any thought of
conspiracy, plotting, ill will or harmful intentions etc.
Another common symptom of schizophrenia is the thought that people are
talking about them on the television or radio. This often seems to confuse
people who have no experience of the illness – how can the script of soap
opera or the lyrics to a song be directed at some one in particular when that is
not what the words say or the person is not named or otherwise identified. The
answer is simply that we relate to the lyrics in songs or the characters in
dramas and that is how they directly or indirectly seem to be about oneself
despite the fact that they are also about every one else as well.
It is like that any one who has a long term experience of schizophrenia has also
experienced one or more of these symptoms and also the confusion and perplexity
this entails. As the psychiatrist in A Beautiful Mind with Russel Crowe pointed
out – the nightmare of schizophrenia is that we are unable to distinguish the
real from the imagined.