Schizophrenia: 7 Things You Didn't Know About Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a critical mental illness that causes the person to lose touch with reality. Hallucinations characterize it (seeing or he...

Schizophrenia is a critical mental illness that causes the person to lose touch with reality. Hallucinations characterize it (seeing or hearing things that aren't there), disorganized speech (switching between topics that do not correlate), withdrawal (no motivation or participation in day to day activities), and delusions ( paranoia of someone controlling them, false beliefs or trying to kill them) symptoms.

There are higher chances of people not knowing and understanding about it all. How one with schizophrenia are crazy, violent and harm the ones surrounding them. Usually, schizophrenics don't come for help because they feel ashamed of their illness.

Here are seven things should know about schizophrenia:

# 1 People with schizophrenia are not violent 

People with schizophrenia are likely to be a sufferer of violence. In a psychotic episode (when their senses heightened, and their delusions and hallucinations become extreme), a person having schizophrenia is more likely to harm himself than the ones surrounding him. Though, when suffering an episode, they can damage their surroundings area, throw the items in the room around, punch the wall, and ultimately hurting themselves. However, the interruption of another person may help the person suffer from schizophrenia to calm down (it can make them regain awareness of what is real). Schizophrenia is a lifetime illness which can only be made easy by the love and support of their loved once. So if you have someone who has schizophrenia and going through this phase, try to support the sufferers through it and remind them that it is not real. It can help.

# 2 People having schizophrenia are not disabled to perform daily tasks

Due to the cruelty of the illness, it is usually believed that people with schizophrenia cannot perform daily responsibilities and should be kept under examination in a mental hospital. This is as wrong as it gets. Yes, a person having schizophrenia may find it difficult to do day to day work, but with the right medications and treatment, they can perform daily tasks and have the ability to beat people too.

# 3 People with schizophrenia are very creative

John Nash was a Nobel Prize-winning mathematician who had this disorder.  A Beautiful Mind, The movie, represents his journey from schizophrenia to greatness. People having schizophrenia have a hard time with everyday life and can be weakened in the active stage of the disorder, but this doesn't make them any less productive or disable their abilities. It is shown that there are similarities in the thought process of people with advanced creativity and schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia also give higher result in the tests of creativity.

# 4. Schizophrenia isn't untreatable 

Yes, schizophrenia isn't curable, but it can be treated to have a minimum effect on the life of a person.

# 5 People with schizophrenia are not "crazy"

The delusions that a person with schizophrenia suffers from where he is sure of people plotting against him, or trying to kill him or someone commands him can seem odd in the eyes of a common person. During the active stage of the disorder, the person with schizophrenia can even refuse to accept the evidence of anything happening otherwise than what they believe. Suffering from visual (seeing things that aren't there, which are trying to harm them), tactile (feeling spiders crawling up their skin or feel bugs), auditory (hearing voices that others can't hear, telling them to harm themselves), hallucinations can make it very hard for people having schizophrenia to distinguish between what is real and what isn't.

# 6 Schizophrenia isn't easily spotted

If you are a stranger to the disease and don't have anyone who has actively reached out to you about the condition, chances are you not know if your friend has schizophrenia or not. In public, people with schizophrenia have mastered the art of giving no reaction to their hallucination and actively ignore it. Though, other behavioral symptoms can point out to schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia often have a slow and dragged speech. They frequently repeat their sentences and words and have a disorganized speech wherein they jump topic from the topic without making sense. When the inactive phase, they can withdraw from people entirely because they might be paranoid about people poisoning them.

It is best not to be scared about the illness as the one having schizophrenia isn't likely to harm you at all. A little care and treatment might not only help but improve their case, and even they can lead a happy and healthy life. It is essential to support people with schizophrenia through their illness, and with a little love, everything is conquerable!