What images comes to your mind when you hear the word schizophrenia? To most of us this will be of random, violent people, or “split personalities”. While it’s important to be delicate with such issues, there are two crucial points to clarify, they are; it is not multiple personality disorder, and schizophrenia is far more likely to cause victim rather than offender of violent acts.
In reality Schizophrenia is a serious, long term disease of the brain that affects, and impairs, an individuals thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, and though it is impossible to describe what the condition is like to experience daily, it is clear that moving away from technical definitions of such an affliction will better allow one to try and appreciate what it would be like to live through it.
The Noise: Hallucinations and Sensory Overload
Picture yourself alone in a silent room attempting to read, only to be consistently greeted with criticism regarding every single thing you are doing. For many suffering from schizophrenia this is life, their hearing voices is considered a symptom known as hallucinations, which is the belief that something can be seen/ heard/ felt without an external factor.
While some people may hallucinate and see things (visual hallucinations) and feel things on their skin (tactile hallucinations) the most common form are hallucinations that involve hearing, commonly know as auditory hallucinations, or as more generally known, the feeling of ‘hearing voices’.
To the hallucinating individual the voices are as loud, clear, and definite as any human speaking directly to them, which must surely be draining, trying to block out a voice which you are alone in hearing, particularly if it is critical, imperative or a distraction. There is clearly a significant cognitive process involved in separating what is shared reality with our external world, from what reality is being conjured by the brain.
The Weight of Beliefs: Delusions and Paranoia
Another symptom is delusion. Delusions are firmly held beliefs that are untrue, regardless of the amount of contradictory, logical evidence present to suggest they are untrue.
A day to day symptom of a delusion could be an overriding paranoia an intense, frightening belief that someone is following them, their neighbours are plotting against them, or the television is displaying codes or messages only for them.
Think how incredibly frightening and draining that could feel, being in a situation where they feel entirely in danger while others around them can tell them that they are not.
They would be totally alone because their world would not be the same world as the world of those around them.
Although it’s ‘positive’ symptoms (the extra feelings or actions) like hallucinations and delusions that tend to get most of the attention, the ‘negative’ and cognitive symptoms are often the ones that pose the biggest problem for people living their daily lives.
The term ‘negative’ essentially means there’s a decrease or loss of normal function, what is happening in their day-to-day life.
The feeling this often creates during their daily lives is like wading through extremely thick, invisible fog; they might have avolition the lack of motivation to perform everyday tasks, such as bathing, preparing food or simply getting out of bed.
It’s important to note that this is not a laziness issue, it’s a disorder within the reward system in the brain.
They might also present with a “flat affect” where there’s no change in facial expression or tone of voice, which makes it difficult for others to relate emotionally.
Cognitively, their thoughts might seem jumbled up; a conversation could be like trying to catch leaves in a gale they slip away, become tangled up, or cease entirely in the middle of the sentence; known as “thought blocking”.
The Daily Marathon
With all these internal battles, it is sometimes like training for a marathon just to attend class, work or just to get a persons’ laundry done. People use enormous amount of energy throughout their day “reality testing.”
This requires asking people who they are closest to and are the most trustworthy what their thoughts/feelings are compared to their friend’s to see what is real.
The stigma of this condition may force people to live in a sort of closet, not admitting their problem to anyone out of fear of being seen as a freak or being ridiculed. This can be almost as impairing as the disorder itself, creating an ever-decreasing support system when one needs it more than ever.
Yet with all of these overwhelming hurdles, it’s absolutely vital to frame this reality with hope. Schizophrenia is highly manageable.
Careful administration of antipsychotic medications, coupled with psychological treatments such as CBT and appropriate psychosocial supports allows for the vast majority of people living with schizophrenia to find ways of quieting the cacophony and lifting the fog and living rich and fulfilling independent lives.
Learning what it’s truly like to have schizophrenia is the first step to providing the compassion, patience and support that can help turn a bleak reality into a brighter one.
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