What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a long-term mental health problem which affects your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
If you have schizophrenia, you may have a range of different symptoms which include hallucinations, delusions, confused thoughts and a change in behaviour. Young people who have schizophrenia may find it difficult to tell the difference between their own thoughts and reality. Schizophrenia is known as a psychotic illness because people experience hallucinations and delusions. Schizophrenia is not about having a split personality.
Hallucinations
This is when you see, hear, feel or smell something that isn’t really there. Hearing voices is the most common hallucination and the voices may say nasty things or tell you to do something that you don’t want to do. The voices are real, not imaginary, but are created by the mind so other people wouldn’t hear them, which can be confusing for the person experiencing it.
Delusions
A delusion is when you are completely sure about something that isn’t true to most people. You may be convinced about something although you may not be able to reason why, you “just know” and other people think you have misunderstood what is happening. It is as though you see things in a completely different way to other people or other people are not taking you seriously.
An example of a delusion is that you may think your family is against you when they are not, you may feel the television is trying to send you a message or aliens are talking to you or you may feel you have special powers. The delusions may be linked to the hallucinations, you may explain hearing voices by thinking that you are being tracked or spied on by someone. Sometimes you may have paranoid delusions where you feel that the government is spying on you or that a girlfriend or boyfriend is cheating on you but you may not be able to explain why.
Muddled thinking
You may find it hard to concentrate or find that your thoughts wander to other things. You might not be able to concentrate on a film storyline or read an article all the way through without thinking about other things. You might find it hard to study or work and your thoughts skip from one idea to the next and they may not be connected. Your thoughts may become misty or jumbled up and other people may not be able to understand you which can be frustrating.
Being controlled
You may feel that your life is being controlled – that someone else is putting the thoughts in your mind and you may feel like your body is being taken over, like you are being controlled. This is why some young people with schizophrenia think that the television or the government is trying to control them while other people may put it down to witchcraft.
Negative problems
Young people with schizophrenia may experience what are referred to as ‘negative symptoms’ which means that because you can’t concentrate, you can’t be bothered to go out or wash and keep yourself clean. Your family and friends may tell you to pull yourself together or ‘man up’, but you just can’t. You may lose interest in things you really used to enjoy doing like hanging out with friends, a particular hobby or even going to school or college.
Young people with schizophrenia may experience some or all of these symptoms.
About 1 per cent of people have schizophrenia at some point in their lives and most people develop symptoms between the ages of 15 and 35, although they could start at any time. It is not known exactly what causes schizophrenia although you are more likely to have it if one of your parents has schizophrenia. It can also be caused by brain damage, drugs and alcohol, stress, family problems or a difficult childhood. It is the most common serious mental health problem and can be treated with medication.
Schizophrenia is misunderstood and the two most common misconceptions about schizophrenia is that people with it have ‘split personalities’ or that they are violent. Most studies confirm that there is a link between schizophrenia and violence but this is often exaggerated in the media.
The next section has more information about how to get help.
.
...I destroyed some of my clothes. I took them off and I took them downstairs and threw them away. I was hearing voices. The voices were telling me to do things.”
Getting help
If you think you have symptoms of schizophrenia, it is important to get help as early as possible. Because hallucinations and delusions can feel real, you may not realise there is anything wrong even when the symptoms are quite severe. People around you may suggest you get help.
It's important to remember that schizophrenia can be treated, get help now