Even if you yourself are suffering from any psychological disorder, you can still find other disorders rather mysterious. That is why you can easily imagine the way mentally healthy people are seeing other people with psychological problems, let alone those unfortunate ones ill with schizophrenia. There are so many stereotypes regarding mental problems and a great fraction of them is related to schizophrenia.
Not only do the majority of people have no idea about the real symptoms of schizophrenia, but they also tend to be rather scared by schizophrenics. There is nothing strange about that since a great number of popular books and films doesn’t stop amusing us with creepy stories about schizophrenics who are depicted there as either insane geniuses or not less insane criminals. Yet, the truth about this illness is absolutely different.
Schizophrenia is not a rare illness
Although schizophrenia seems to be a rather rare illness especially if you compare the frequency of its occurrence to other mental disorders, actually, it is not such a unique condition as you might imagine. For example, according to statistics, there are 264 million people living with depression around the world. At the same time, there are around 20 million people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Of course, the difference between these numbers is large, however, schizophrenia is not regarded a rare illness even by doctors themselves.
Many countries have special lists of conditions considered to be unique which usually use such a criteria: if the malady is present in not more than ten people in one hundred thousand people, it is regarded as an officially scarce illness. Schizophrenia is not one of them.
Multiple personalities is not typical for schizophrenics
One of the most favourite portlets of the people suffering from schizophrenia created by film producers and authors of books is that these people are tend to have multiple personalities. Unfortunately, this popular belief have made many people biased about schizophrenia.
In the reality, not only are multiple personalities not typical for schizophrenics, but also this symptom doesn’t have anything to do with schizophrenia in the first place. Several personalities is a feature of people suffering from dissociative disorders.
People ill with schizophrenia are not dangerous
One of the worst myths about schizophrenia is the one telling us that people suffering from this mental condition are dangerous. This is far from the truth and it is important to understand it since even some specialists tend to believe in this stereotype. At the same time, the people with the schizophrenia symptoms are fully aware of such a stereotype and it makes them resigned from the diagnose which doesn’t let them to receive appropriate treatment. The diagnose of being ill with schizophrenia can make it difficult for people to find a job or start studies. In some countries, they might be not allowed to vote during the elections as well.
In the reality, aggression is not a necessary characteristic of schizophrenics. Many of them are not aggressive at all. Furthermore, those who are aggressive, are aggressive to themselves in the first place. These people are prone to harm themselves rather than do anything bad to others. Finally, those people who really turn out to be aggressive, are usually aggressive because of their personality in the first place which is not related to the illness itself.
Schizophrenia is not caused solely by genes
Like with many other mental conditions, it is rather difficult to say what exactly triggers schizophrenia in people.
Undeniably, genetic predisposition has an important role in the development of the illness in a person, however, it is definitely not the only factor causing the problem. Furthermore, having the genes of schizophrenia doesn’t mean one will be ill with it at any point of life at all.
At the same time, schizophrenia is not solely caused by any traumatic event, however, it can also have a great impact on one’s brain health. Yet, in all likelihood, schizophrenia is a result of a mixture of several factors including both genetic predisposition and stressful events happening in the life of a person.
Schizophrenia can be accompanied by unique behaviours of patients
Although some of the schizophrenia, symptoms are quite widespread, people can still develop some unique behavioural patterns.
The typical symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations such as the voices in one’s head or seeing faces which do not exist in the reality. People are tend to suffer from paranoid ideas being sure that someone is watching them or even making them think the thoughts they are thinking and are sending them secret messages. Since these symptoms are adding new experience into the life of schizophrenics, they are called productive or positive symptoms.
Yet, the behaviour of such patients can be absolutely different if they, on the contrary, start losing their senses and become rather apathetic.