Schizophrenic people are brave. Here's why
The message I would like to convey in this post is that people with schizophrenia are extremely brave and resilient. These are the reasons why: It is a widespread idea that people suffering schizophrenia "are not there" and "won't remember what is going on". This is not true at all; it is only a common misconception that promotes physical abuse to them, discrimination, and a tremendous lack of human empathy for people with the disease. The truth is that people with schizophrenia are already in great pain, suffering with anxiety, and fearful. But their IQ is still intact. Most of the time, they also know that their behavior is strange to everyone else.
People with schizophrenia will give strange reasons when asked about their delusions. However, every test has shown that they are just as smart as the average population (this means that most of them will have an average intelligence, whilst some will be better and others worse). So, people with schizophrenia do know what is going on, and they need compassion and understanding, calm, and a safe space. Their desires are understandable: to have a job, to be able to relax, to be liked or loved, to see their family. Any of these things will be more challenging than usual to them, because of their illness but also because of the stigma.
In my mind, I feel as if some of these patients have been buried alive. Nobody will acknowledge their credibility (they have lost all epistemic validity), and they won't be given the chance to do anything by their own means. Their own mind is producing enough suffering, and on top of that, they have to endure being feared by society.
So, think about it in this way: besides having hallucinations haunting them constantly, having to deal with the medication's side effects, the worries of their friends and family, the constant fear of being locked in a hospital, discrimination and abuse, they still sit down next to you in the bus, calmly, trying to live their lives unnoticed. I would definitely call that courage.
I took the image from the facebook page "Time to change", which is doing a great job against stigma and discrimination against people with Mental Health conditions. It features the opinions of the blog "Loner's lifestyle", written by a person with schizophrenia that is tired of the constant misunderstanding of the illness. Here's the link to the latter:
https://lonerslifestyle.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/how-to-piss-off-a-schizo/
I love your blog. Psychology and mind are my two areas in philosophy. As a person with schizophrenia, or rather schizoaffective with bipolar symptoms, I have to say everyone that does have it has a different version of it. There are positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are hallucinations, delusions/paranoia etc... The negative symptoms that are so common are a cognitive decline and flat affect. The cause of schizophrenia is unknown, there's a lot of ideas if it came from a parasite that lives in cats (which is why pregnant women can't change cat litter), or hereditary (my father has it) etc... One theory is that it's an autoimmune disease that begins to trim away at one's neurons, which would explain the cognitive decline some people have due to the illness. Mine struck my junior year at college, which, thank heavens, didn't effect my cognition. However, people with sz often go through a lot of stress which affects the hippocampus and can affect memory, which would mimic cognitive decline too. Like you said, it took all my courage to complete my degree. And you're right about the side effects with the meds. Sometimes they can be worse than the illness itself. :) Looking forward to more of your posts!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comments and insights, Stephen! It's a real pleasure to know someone like you, who has achieved so much under very challenging circumstances! I try my best to challenge the stigma,and I hope that one day we can make a change, all of us, working together. :)
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