About various mental disorders today, with the air of an expert, only the lazy does not write and enthusiastically does not read. Agree, a very exciting topic, especially if every second has bipolar disorder, panic attacks or trendy OCD. Mesophobes, sociopaths, introverts and people with original alter egos are now clearly on their wave. And we’re not talking about people who actually suffer from these problems. We are talking about those who flaunt an unusual, but always easy «fool», often justifying their lack of education. But schizophrenia, as it was, has remained a kind of taboo. It is difficult to admit that you have schizophrenia, it is even more difficult to remain adequate in the society of a person with such a difficult and, by the way, incurable diagnosis.
Was there a boy?
Believe it or not, the world is full of people who think that schizophrenia is just a myth. There are even quite scientific publications by supporters of the antipsychiatric movement, which arose in America back in the 60s of the last century. In these works, a very conditional concept of the norm is reasonably explained, they say, if it has not yet been possible to normalize the human psyche, then what kind of mental deviations can we talk about? And who, in fact, determines this norm and by what criteria? Not only that, social conspiracy theorists compare the likelihood of mental illness with the likelihood of witches in Medieval Europe.
Let’s be objective, this approach looks very strange, but it also has its own rational grain. The symptoms of one of the most complex and mysterious mental illnesses — schizophrenia — are so diverse and difficult to structure that unprepared people really experience confusion and even fear. And experienced psychiatrists sometimes have difficulties in diagnosing.
In this situation, fear is one of the main reactions: the patient is afraid to realize his diagnosis, relatives are afraid of the difficulties of coexistence with such a person, but the society does not hesitate to hang labels, exacerbating the situation.
When should guard?
The main and most stable criterion for recognizing the disease is a dissociative disorder. The psyche of a healthy person has a single “structure”, it is integral. But in patients with schizophrenia, there is a splitting of mental activity, all mental functions work, but they work out of order, inconsistently.
Let us give an example: such a complex function as thinking is a combination of emotional and content components. If you notice that a person reacts inadequately to situations, and his emotions do not correspond to the reality of what is happening, are paradoxical and inappropriate — you should pay attention to this.
A person can speak out inappropriately, act like manners where it is completely unnecessary, perform unpredictable and logically inexplicable actions, deny the obvious. In the company of such an interlocutor, any healthy person becomes uncomfortable, something constantly unsettles, catches attention, distracts. It is easy to guess that something strange is happening to a person.
Alice in the Mirror
As the disease progresses, it forces a person to go into a different reality, only understandable to him, to break habitual ties, refuse to communicate, and lower the bar of requirements for himself and others.
It is noteworthy that the feature that modern pseudo-introverts are so proud of, namely, the lack of need for communication and the feeling of comfort in solitude, is just one of the signs of a schizophrenic disorder.
No, schizophrenics may well be socially active people, but they contact others only as needed and do not get pleasure from such communication — they are simply not interested in it.
Such people also do not observe subordination, they do not care how old the interlocutor is, what his social status and position are. The range of behavioral deviations here can be quite large — from inappropriate playfulness to emphasized formality, from outright fawning to aggression and detachment.
It’s getting harder and harder to talk to these people. They are not at all interested in whether you listen, what you think about what was said, how you react to his words. His speech is monologue, monotonous and continuous.
By the way, people with progressive schizophrenia do not understand jokes, they are not touched by irony and sarcasm, they are not offended by sharp remarks addressed to them.
It is important to remember!
Of course, all of the above combined helps an experienced psychiatrist make the right diagnosis and help a person. But individual manifestations of the situations and processes described by us may well turn out to be individual character traits and shortcomings in education. That is why, even if you notice some unusual features in a person, you should not immediately hang a label on him as a patient, hastily retreat and, moreover, broadcast your assumptions to outsiders. All you can do is delicately and timely draw the attention of the person himself and his loved ones to the problems that have arisen. Leave the rest to the professionals. They certainly can help.