Definition

Cultural Stigmas

When you think of schizophrenia, what comes to mind? That "crazy" person sitting by his/herself on the bus mumbling to no one? Russel Crowe cast as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind? The former Arkham patient Harvey Dent antagonizes for information about the Joker in The Dark Knight? Schizophrenia, and mental illnesses as a whole, have a huge stigma attached to them in our society. People often use the word "crazy" to describe anyone acting out of our cultural norms such as not making eye contact, invading another's "personal space," or having a conversation with some one or some voice that you and I cannot see or hear. The reality is that millions of people around the world suffer from schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses, and for every person it is a learning process of how to deal with and manage symptoms, medication side effects, and psychotic episodes. Unfortunately many do not have the support or ability to access resources for help and are helplessly living in an altered reality seeking quick fixes to handle symptoms such as illicit drugs or alcohol. 

I would like to help relieve schizophrenia, and all mental illnesses, of this stigma. I would like to help others realize that every "crazy" person is his/her own person with an individual story and a difficult illness that he/she has to deal with on a daily basis.

What is schizophrenia?1

The word "schizophrenia" comes from the Greek words schizein (to split) and phren (mind). This is extremely misleading and would cause a person to believe that someone with the illness has a split personality. Schizophrenia is DIFFERENT from multiple personality disorder.* The illness was named as such with the idea that a person experiencing a psychotic episode has a "split" between cognitive and emotional perception.

Schizophrenia falls under the category of psychosis. Simply put, psychosis is when a person experiences an altered sense of reality that others around them do not experience. During a psychotic episode, this person will not realize that those around him/her are not seeing or hearing what he/she is experiencing. A major characteristic of schizophrenia is concrete thinking as opposed to abstract thinking, and it may be difficult for a person suffering from psychotic symptoms to multitask or follow instructions by their intended meaning. Other symptoms of schizophrenia are broken down into two categories, positive and negative, based on how they affect certain characteristics of the person's actions, behavior, and thought processes (symptoms will be discussed in depth later).

I believe that it is extremely important to remember that with schizophrenia, as with all mental illnesses, this is a pathological condition of the human body just as are congestive heart failure, arthritis, and kidney stones. As stated by Gail W. Stuart:

Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental brain disorder. No one thing causes schizophrenia. It is the end result of a complex interaction among thousands of genes and many environmental risk factors [...] a complex neurobiological disorder of brain neurotransmitter circuits, neuroanatomical deficits, neuroelectrical abnormalities, and neurocirculatory dysregulation (355).

References:

1: Stuart, G. (2013). Chapter 20: Neurobiological Responses and Schizophrenia and Psychotic Disorders. In Principles and practice of psychiatric nursing (10th ed., pp. 344-375). Maryland Heights, Mo.: Elsevier Saunders.

*Multiple personality disorder is a dissociative disorder where various, distinct personalities occur within one person