Schizophrenia

Seriously no silly WATMM responses here, would like to know if anyone is suffering from the disorder or knows anyone who is. Have to write an essay on it soon, before you say anything I am not relying on WATMM members to bail me about of this essay.

Thanks.

troon

lol

Thanks guys.

I've known quite a few. Schizo affective, paranoid schizo. What's your question?

Lived with a schizo effective girl for a few months. (hell)

Experiences with them, just general behaviour patterns, whether this person shown positive (hallucinations e.t.c) or negative symptons (social withdrawal e.t.c.)

if you can wait i'll type you up some good examples and stories. I'm at work atm, so it'll be an hour or so.

My brother is a paranoid schizo. He thinks people are scheming against him constantly. He thinks satellites are watching him. He can't even watch television because he gets messages and thinks they are trying to get him to do things. It's a sad illness really.

My uncle refused to go into his house one day because he was afraid the plastic products would kill him. He packed a 100% cotton pillow case full of supplies and ran off into the woods. Fortunately he showed up the next day. A few months later, his wife kicked him out of the house because he wasn't taking his meds. The police found him walking by the highway. They arrested him for not cooperating with authorities or something, because he responded to all of their questions with "I'm Santa Claus." That's all I know.

  On 1/11/2010 at 10:21 PM, Brandi_B said:

if you can wait i'll type you up some good examples and stories. I'm at work atm, so it'll be an hour or so.

Look forward to it.

where's iriaraririri?

where's sinicalypse?

where's rambo?

I've got Aspergers if that counts

i suffer from paranoid schizophrenia with positive and negative symptoms but i'm not going to do all the work as me some questions and maybe i can help

Yes, Aspergers is the same disease as Schizophrenia.

I've got a runny nose, so ask me anything!

  On 1/11/2010 at 11:21 PM, 277: 930-933 said:

Yes, Aspergers is the same disease as Schizophrenia.

I've got a runny nose, so ask me anything!

Trolled!

  On 1/11/2010 at 10:45 PM, impakt said:

I've got Aspergers if that counts

  On 1/11/2010 at 11:21 PM, 277: 930-933 said:

Yes, Aspergers is the same disease as Schizophrenia.

I've got a runny nose, so ask me anything!

Whether you really have Asperger's or not, impakt, it is very different from schizophrenia. I would like to know how you came up with that comparison, anyway.

LOL

Alirght. So...

Person 1 -

I consider a good dear friend. He has struggled all his life and now he seems to have found some form of (safe) balance with meds and spirituality. He believes that he has a direct connection with his guru (who is long dead decades before my friends lifetime). He talks to him constantly. In fact he wont say ANYTHING without asking his guru's approval first. He also does whatever his guru tells him. Yes, he would in fact kill if his guru told him to which is what landed him in a psych. hospital the1st time*. Casual conversation with him for less than 2 minutes, or out in a market somewhere, you likely wouldn't suspect much other than he's an odd guy. 2+ minutes clearly there is a lot going on in his head and it's quite noticeable. He is very impulsive, but controls it well (imo, judging from impulses he has resisted). He does not appear to be talking to himself all the time, and he is very aware that his "guru" is in fact the main thing in his schizo. diagnosis. But knowing makes no difference really.

He is a very very, sweet, and sensitive person. But he does not follow the rules of "personal space" and often gets in way to close with people he does and doesn't know well. It can be a little awkward and usually someone has to tell him he's weirding the other person out (male or female). However, he is QUITE AWARE of these common social barriers, and he thinks that they are worthless and shouldn't exist and it makes humans less human (which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I still practice common decency).

There is a lot to him, but the thing that stands out the most is that he is really smart. Not rain main smart. But quite intelligent, understanding things he knows little about very quickly and always willing to listen and learn and converse w/o letting his very strong beliefs hinder the conversation.

If you ever ask him about his guru, prepare to stand there for a couple hours while he rambles at 200 miles an hour. He also says the meds that he is on slow him down and he is usually faster.

*note from above. His guru told him to kill his pet dog he had for years (and loved). He took it out to a random slab of concrete in the middle of a field, picked the dog up, and slammed it on the concrete as hard as he could. He told his parents, they called the cops. He spit on the cops when they came to get him and later tried to kill himself while in the hospital. There was maybe a 2x2 or tiny window in his room and he rammed himself repeatedly against the wall until he broke his glasses and bruised his entire body. He was trying to jump out the window.

Most stories he's told me I believe. Why? He doesn't, and can't lie. I have tested this in various ways. He absolutely can NOT lie. His guru will not let him.

....more to come gotta take a break

my friends brother has this

he once tried to kill his dad and his brother (my friend) with a knife and he actually cut my friend in the neck nearly missing his vital arteries

he was hospitalized for a few days but he's ok now

anyway he (the brother) was a pretty normal person untill he was about 23 and got into a drunk driving accident and went to jail for almost killing 2 other people in the car

after he got out he started hearing voices in his head

they told him to kill people that tried to steal or rape and he became delusional

he then started to think his own family was doing these bad deeds (or something like that)

that's about all I can recall from the story in a nutshell

i just read this really interesting article the other day called "the americanization of mental illness". it talks about how the u.s. is americanizing the worlds concept of mental illness and about how thats changing the manifestation of mental illness in other countries. some schizophrenia related bits-

  Quote

NOWHERE ARE THE limitations of Western ideas and treatments more evident than in the case of schizophrenia. Researchers have long sought to understand what may be the most perplexing finding in the cross-cultural study of mental illness: people with schizophrenia in developing countries appear to fare better over time than those living in industrialized nations.

 

This was the startling result of three large international studies carried out by the World Health Organization over the course of 30 years, starting in the early 1970s. The research showed that patients outside the United States and Europe had significantly lower relapse rates — as much as two-thirds lower in one follow-up study. These findings have been widely discussed and debated in part because of their obvious incongruity: the regions of the world with the most resources to devote to the illness — the best technology, the cutting-edge medicines and the best-financed academic and private-research institutions — had the most troubled and socially marginalized patients.

 

Trying to unravel this mystery, the anthropologist Juli McGruder from the University of Puget Sound spent years in Zanzibar studying families of schizophrenics. Though the population is predominantly Muslim, Swahili spirit-possession beliefs are still prevalent in the archipelago and commonly evoked to explain the actions of anyone violating social norms — from a sister lashing out at her brother to someone beset by psychotic delusions.

 

McGruder found that far from being stigmatizing, these beliefs served certain useful functions. The beliefs prescribed a variety of socially accepted interventions and ministrations that kept the ill person bound to the family and kinship group. “Muslim and Swahili spirits are not exorcised in the Christian sense of casting out demons,” McGruder determined. “Rather they are coaxed with food and goods, feted with song and dance. They are placated, settled, reduced in malfeasance.” McGruder saw this approach in many small acts of kindness. She watched family members use saffron paste to write phrases from the Koran on the rims of drinking bowls so the ill person could literally imbibe the holy words. The spirit-possession beliefs had other unexpected benefits. Critically, the story allowed the person with schizophrenia a cleaner bill of health when the illness went into remission. An ill individual enjoying a time of relative mental health could, at least temporarily, retake his or her responsibilities in the kinship group. Since the illness was seen as the work of outside forces, it was understood as an affliction for the sufferer but not as an identity.

 

For McGruder, the point was not that these practices or beliefs were effective in curing schizophrenia. Rather, she said she believed that they indirectly helped control the course of the illness. Besides keeping the sick individual in the social group, the religious beliefs in Zanzibar also allowed for a type of calmness and acquiescence in the face of the illness that she had rarely witnessed in the West.

 

The course of a metastasizing cancer is unlikely to be changed by how we talk about it. With schizophrenia, however, symptoms are inevitably entangled in a person’s complex interactions with those around him or her. In fact, researchers have long documented how certain emotional reactions from family members correlate with higher relapse rates for people who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Collectively referred to as “high expressed emotion,” these reactions include criticism, hostility and emotional overinvolvement (like overprotectiveness or constant intrusiveness in the patient’s life). In one study, 67 percent of white American families with a schizophrenic family member were rated as “high EE.” (Among British families, 48 percent were high EE; among Mexican families the figure was 41 percent and for Indian families 23 percent.)

the whole article-

link

oops double post

http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/002967.html

Scientists: stronger link between cat virus and schizophrenia

You'll get an A+ now.