When we hear schizophrenia, we often associate it with violence, hospitals like in the title picture, and incapability of making decisions. When in fact, people diagnosed with Schizophrenia are more susceptible to becoming victims of violent and nonviolent crimes, not the other way around. Schizophrenia has a rate of less than 1% in the United States. The low prevalence of the disease and its media portrayal are what lead to many misconceptions about Schizophrenia. For many of us, we may never meet a Schizophrenic, let alone get to know them. For me, I had no previous experience with Schizophrenia before this work experience. I won’t describe much in detail for privacy reasons, but some lessons I’ve learned might have value to those who are as absent in experience as I was.
In short, my responsibilities included aiding in medication administration, working on life skills with clients, and paperwork documenting every bit of the process. As you can imagine, I was more than a little nervous stepping in the first day. I had no clue how any of them would act, would they be paranoid all the time? Violent? Unresponsive? I learned very quickly in my first few days that many of these expectations hold no basis in reality, however, some do. In a way, these shows how the media and my socializing took something real, hallucinations and delusions (known as positive symptoms) and made it into a character of violence and unpredictability. My first few days were quiet and I was able to talk with the clients with no incident. My initial impressions were that they were normal in every observable way, they just needed to be watched over to help with their treatment.
Unfortunately, not long after I started, I was introduced to one of the biggest challenges of treating Schizophrenia, patient medication compliance. It was not our place as staff to force medication upon anyone, so when someone wants to refuse their meds, they absolutely can. It might seem mind-boggling to us to deny medication that keeps away hallucinations and delusions, but the side effects of these antipsychotics are dreadful. The side effects paired with the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, which currently aren’t targeted by treatment, lead to some nasty combinations resulting in things like a lack of emotion, social isolation, and an inability to experience pleasure. The lack of pleasure strikes me, especially when described to me by a person experiencing it. What would life be like with blunted emotions? No motivation and no way to feel pleasure? It sounds miserable, almost like another mental disorder’s symptoms being generated by this one’s medication. I can see why they might refuse medication.
Seeing a client go off his/her meds for a day or two sheds light on what these symptoms and side-effects mean to a person. Right after they get off medication, for the next 24 hours or so, the client feels amazing. The side-effects are removed and their symptoms haven’t had time to resurface. They’re super happy, talkative, productive, and funny. It seems like their real personality actually begins to show through after the cloud of antipsychotics is removed. This positive result in their psyche is what they desire, and I would too. A day break to feel happy, or really any emotion instead of blankness. A day away from the monotony of no feelings. As you may have guessed, these break doesn’t come without a cost. Without a doubt, the next day or that night, symptoms will return. It’s possible other illnesses symptoms return first, like mania, because they almost all have other diagnoses. Regardless, eventually, the hallucinations will return if they had them before.
A symptomatic client is unpredictable, but not threatening. There are certainly cases where an individual will have a hallucination that will cause them to react violently and lash out, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. In my experience, a symptomatic client was never, ever outwardly violent. However, my clients were looking to transition into independent living. They have a pretty good handle on what their illness is, but even when they lose their grip on reality, they maintain the same nonviolent tendencies that they had when feeling normal. They might say that they heard me tell them or another client/staff to kill themselves, or they might be paranoid of everyone around them, but I have never been scared for myself or others when around them. After everything, I believe I can understand and empathize better with those with Schizophrenia because my experience has allowed me to see how normal they really are. It’s scary on paper, but it’s just another mental illness afflicting someone like you or me.
My Experience With Those Afflicted With Schizophrenia
