NAMI Mercer County

Families Meeting the Challenge of Mental Illness

schizophrenia

Supporting Schizophrenia

By

Angelina Villalva, NAMI Intern

This summer I’ll be going into my third year of college, and when I reminisce on what it was like going into my first year, I can still remember how much more stressful it was to be starting out than to be returning. For a lot of incoming college students, their minds are teeming with anxiety for a million things at once. If you list it all out, you have to balance the pressure of taking harder classes, learning how to get to those classes, trying (and slightly failing) at making friends, joining clubs, learning the campus layout, living with a roommate, and maybe figure out who you are and what you’re doing with the rest of your life. All at 18. And a month after high school graduation. 

With all of those things bouncing around, the very last thing that any freshman would ever expect or be prepared for is to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. 

To clarify, I did not get diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, it would come as a surprise to many that schizophrenia has a track record of appearing amongst college students. Does this mean that all college students are prone to developing schizophrenia? No, not at all, in fact schizophrenia affects only 1% of the U.S. population. So, while the numbers might not be super small, they aren’t super large either. Nonetheless, it is still important to be aware of the symptoms and the signs of developing schizophrenia, especially since it arises in college students who may not have experienced or had the space to focus on their mental health. 

Most people are familiar with the basic overview of schizophrenia. We think of characters like Norman Bates and Donnie Darko, deeply disturbed and deeply affected by their deluded perceptions. In the movie Shutter Island, Andrew Laeddis/Teddy Daniels is stuck in a never-ending loop of psychosis, constantly tormented by his own head. While it is true that individuals afflicted with schizophrenia commonly deal with hallucinations and disorganized thinking, it is deeply ignorant to say that they are dangerous or that they are unable to be treated. 

Symptoms of schizophrenia are commonly grouped into 3 kinds: positive, negative, and disorganized. Positive symptoms refer to things that are abnormally present in an individuals life, while negative symptoms refer to things that are abnormally absent. Disorganized symptoms generally reflect behaviors and perceptions that are confused or disordered. 

Positive Symptoms: 

  • Hallucinations (hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, or feeling things that are not there) 
  • Delusions (fixed false beliefs that are held despite clear evidence that they are not true) 

Negative Symptoms: 

  • Lack of appropriate affect (unexpressive face, flat affect)
  • Poor motivation
  • Social withdrawal 

Disorganized Symptoms: 

  • Disorganized speech (word salad, loose associations) 
  • Unpredictable or inappropriate emotional response
  • Behaviors that appear bizarre

Schizophrenia tends to run in families, but others are prone to developing schizophrenia if they have one or more of these risk factors: 

  • Life experiences (living in poverty, stress, or danger)
  • Pregnancy and birth issues
  • Taking psychoactive/psychotropic drugs as a teen or young adult

Depending on the symptoms displayed, the severity of treatment may differ between individuals with schizophrenia. Typically, treatments involve a combination of both antipsychotic medication and psychosocial interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Stigma still persists among individuals afflicted with this disorder. As I stated earlier, schizophrenia is not dangerous. There are treatments available, and just as it is with any mental health disorder, the earlier it is addressed and the more support given, the better people tend to fare. 

As I’ve gone through these 12 weeks of posting, it has become more and more obvious that whether you are afflicted with a mental health disorder or not, whether you know someone who is or not, simply showing up and spreading kindness can go a long way. We don’t always need to understand to show support, and simply being a good listener can take someone from hurting to healing. 

I leave you for the last time with this final quote, a text sent to me today from one of my closest friends.

“We are all living this life together, and I’m so happy that we can be with each other and support each other through the ups and the downs.” 

Resources:

Citations: