As the National Institute of Mental Health says, “Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. People with schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality. Although schizophrenia is not as common as other mental disorders, the symptoms can be very disabling.”
Okay, so schizophrenia is complicated, and people today sometimes don’t take the time to educate themselves on mental disorders like this one. Even the basics of schizophrenia are misconceived, and that’s why I think writing about common misconceptions is beneficial to everyone. Many assumptions can present themselves when talking about mental illnesses because simply, its tough stuff to understand!
Probably the biggest misconception of schizophrenia lies in itself. If you google what “schizo” means, you find “split” and if you type in “phrenia”, it means “mind”. People who like to define words based on their prefixes or suffixes can possibly misinterpret what this mental disorder really is. When most people think of “split-mind” you may think that there is two minds or two different personalities presented, but that’s wrong. People that have schizophrenia sometimes have episodes of hallucinations and this is misconceived as a different separate personality, but this is something different called Dissociative Identity Disorder .
In many cases, people will think schizophrenics are violent and that violence goes hand in hand with this mental disorder. Well, according to Schizophrenic.com, media over exaggerates criminals who happen to have schizophrenia, thus, associating violence and crime to schizophrenia. The NIH states that violence correlates highly in schizophrenics who had “childhood conduct problems”. More on that is found here.
The third misconception to mention is that once you get schizophrenia, there is no going back. Multiple sources I found break this and states that there is no return to “normal life” in only select individuals with this disorder. Rethink.org states that 30% of people with the disorder have a lasting recovery, and a man by the name of Howard Trachtman had recovered from schizophrenia, check his story out.
In my opinion, these three misconceptions are crucial to understanding even just the tip of the iceberg to schizophrenia. Defining a word is one the most common things to google. The word crazy typically goes with schizophrenics and I argue that crazy implies violence, thus, creating a misunderstanding. Finally, the general public understands the brain and its disorders are difficult to understand. They are “incurable” to many people and not so obvious like your blackened lungs from long-term smoking use leading to lung disease. Understanding there is still hope for individuals with schizophrenia or family and friends who live and communicate with schizophrenics is important and typically misconceived. Maybe our treatments aren’t the greatest now, but they will be. They will be. Disorders in the brain are going to need to involve a multi-factor mechanistic drug because its not as easy as just shutting off a signal or two up in the brain—there is too much association in the brain at the molecular level.
Here’s a short video that covers some misconceptions I mentioned as well as some others.
Common Misconceptions of Schizophrenia
