What is Schizophrenia?

First of all schizophrenia is not just a psychological problem. It is not the persons fault if they have this disease. It is not caused by the influence of outside forces on the person with schizophrenia. It is not a split personality. It is not caused by drug and alcohol abuse.

It is a biological disease caused by a breakdown in the bio-chemistry of the brain. Through much research scientists have discovered and proven that schizophrenia is a real physical disease just like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or any other physical disease that plagues mankind.

The disease originates inside the brain. It is thought that the limbic system (part of the brain that involves emotion), the thalamus (the part that has to do with outgoing messages) and other areas of the brain are responsible for schizophrenia.

It is thought that neurotransmitters, particularly the dopamine, and serotonin are responsible for the symptoms of schizophrenia. These neurotransmitters carry messages from the receptors of one brain cell to another. There is an over-activity of these chemicals. For some reason there is too much of these chemicals and they don't bind properly to the receptors. As a result the messages get all scrambled up and this is what causes the symptoms.

What are the symptoms? There are different types of symptoms. The two major types are positive symptoms and negative symptoms.

The positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorders. A person can experience both visual and auditory hallucinations. They will see things that are not there and they will hear things that no one else can hear. For example a person might see a friend of theirs in front of them and carrying on a conversion with them when in reality they are not there.

Delusions are false beliefs that defy reason. No one can convince the person that they are not true. Your just wasting your time trying to convince someone with delusions that what they are believing is not true. An example of a delusion would be someone that thinks that God and Satan are living inside of them battling for control of their mind. There is a battle between good and evil and one of them is going to win.

Thought disorders affect the way that the person organizes and processes their thoughts. Their thoughts get disorganized. They don't flow in a rational and logical manner. They get all mixed up. You can tell this symptom when the person tries to carry on a conversation. Their words don't flow in a rational and logical manner. It sounds like jibber jabber.

Negative symptoms include lack of motivation, blunted feelings, and depression.

Lack of motivation is when the person just has no get up and go. They cannot get interested in anything in life, and don't have any energy to do anything. This symptom is viewed by people as laziness.

Blunted feelings is when the person is not able to show emotion either with hand motion or facial expression. They appear to other people as not being able to show or feel emotion. This does not mean that the person does not have feelings. In fact their feelings might be more intense than other peoples but are just not able to show them. These blunted feelings might even be more observable as the disease progresses.

Depression is a common symptom among those with schizophrenia. A person with schizophrenia feels hopeless and helpless. There just isn't any hope of things getting better now or in the future. Their life is ruined and will never be the same again. Everything looks bleak. Many people with schizophrenia get so depressed that they attempt suicide and roughly 10% succeed.

But due to research there is hope for people with schizophrenia. Through scientific breakthroughs in research better medications have been developed that are able to combat and control the positive symptoms.

These same medications are also able to combat and get rid of the negative symptoms so that the person is able to function in life.

The foundation of treatment is medication but there is more. Through psycho-social treatments people with schizophrenia can live a life of meaning, purpose, and become productive members of society.

There is hope.