Unfortunately, mental problems — illnesses and disorders of various kinds — remain a taboo topic. People are still afraid to talk about it, and they are also afraid to seek help when they suspect problems with themselves. Mental illness continues to cause stigma and horror. Schizophrenia causes extremely negative feelings.
To thoroughly understand the problem, it is worth starting from the very basics. What is schizophrenia? It is a chronic mental illness that needs to be treated, and the sooner the illness is correctly diagnosed and the sooner help is started, the better.
The word «schizophrenia» itself has a Greek root — it comes from the words «schizein», which means «split», and «phren», which means «mind». Anyone who thinks that schizophrenia is a split personality, commonly known as «split personality», is mistaken. It is not the idea behind the disease. It has more to do with the gap between what you do, think and feel.
Thus, there is a disintegration of the personality and problems with daily functioning. The patient cannot really assess himself, nor his immediate environment, nor the surrounding reality. For this reason, the schizophrenic slips away more and more from the real world and begins to live in his own, away from people and everything that surrounds him.
Most often, young people are affected by the disease — more than half of people get sick with it before the age of thirty. The chances of getting sick in men and women are equal — gender does not play a role here. On the other hand, the risk of developing schizophrenia is about one percent.
When to sound the alarm
It was not possible to determine the exact causes of schizophrenia. People caring for this person indicate the following factors:
- Genetic — if one of the parents or siblings is diagnosed with schizophrenia, the likelihood of developing schizophrenia increases to six and nine percent, respectively. In turn, if both parents suffer from this disease, the likelihood that the child will also develop schizophrenia is 46 percent.
- Biological and somatic diseases, problems with pregnancy, problems with childbirth, cerebral hypoxia.
- Psychological — constant stress, mental overload, traumatic events that you have witnessed or participated in — all this affects the mind and can lead to the development of the disease.
- Environment – The environment influences and shapes people. This cause mainly affects people who, due to the environment in which they grow up and family predispositions, have a chance of getting sick.
- Social — schizophrenia can develop as a result of traumatic experiences or upbringing in childhood, which shapes and affects consciousness also in adulthood.
Remember that while genetic factors are important, they are not always the main culprits. Therefore, even if there was someone in your family with schizophrenia, this does not necessarily mean that it was because of them that the disease affected you or another loved one. The development of schizophrenia is also influenced by a number of other factors that are not always affected. It is impossible to accurately and reliably state why someone develops schizophrenia – the reasons for this can be very complex. They also depend on the individual predispositions of a given person.