Schizophrenia in the World Today
Introduction
Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness, and is probably the most distressing and disabling of the severe mental disorders. The first signs of schizophrenia typically emerge in adolescence or young adulthood. The effects of the illness are confusing and often shocking to families and friends. People with schizophrenia suffer from difficulties in their thought processes, which lead to hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking, and unusual speech or behaviour. All these symptoms mean that people affected with the illness become limited in their ability to interact with other people, and often withdraw from the outside world. Contrary to popular belief, people with schizophrenia do not have 'split personalities', and the great majority of people who suffer from schizophrenia are not dangerous to others. People with schizophrenia are far more likely to be victims of violence and crime than to commit violent acts themselves.
Most people with schizophrenia suffer throughout their lives, thereby losing opportunities for careers and relationships. As a result of the lack of public understanding about the disease, people with schizophrenia often feel isolated and stigmatised, and may be reluctant or unable to talk about their illness. While the availability of new treatments with fewer side effects has improved the lives of many people, even now, only one person in five can be said to 'recover' from the illness, and one in ten people with schizophrenia commits suicide.
Of all the mental illnesses, schizophrenia is probably the most difficult for everyone involved. Patients clearly suffer great disruption to their lives. However, families and friends may also be deeply affected, due to the distress of seeing the effects of the disease on their relative, and as a result of the burden associated with supporting the patient. Coping with the symptoms of schizophrenia can be especially difficult for family members who remember how active or vivacious a person was before they became ill. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, some people still believe that schizophrenia is caused by poor parenting or weak will power. This is not the case. Schizophrenia is a complex illness, which is thought to be due to a number of different factors acting together. These factors seem to include genetic influences, trauma (injury) to the brain occurring at or around the time of birth, together with the effects of social isolation and/or stress. Other effects may also be important, but no one factor can be said to be the cause of schizophrenia. Rather, each of these factors is thought to increase the risk that a person may develop symptoms.
Schizophrenia affects between 1 and 2% of people during their lifetime. Schizophrenia is found all over the world, and rates of illness are very similar from country to country. Schizophrenia is the single most destructive disease to young people. Men and women are at equal risk of developing the illness. Whereas most males become ill between 16 and 25 years old, most females develop symptoms between ages 25 and 30. Medications and other treatments for schizophrenia, when used regularly and as prescribed, can help reduce and control the distressing symptoms of the illness. However, some people are not greatly helped by available treatments, or may prematurely discontinue treatment because of unpleasant side effects or other reasons. Even when treatment is effective, persisting consequences of the illness (such as lost opportunities, stigma, residual symptoms, and medication side effects) may be very difficult for patients and may prevent them living a normal life.
Substance abuse is a common concern of families of people with schizophrenia. Since some people who abuse drugs show symptoms similar to those of schizophrenia, people with schizophrenia can be mistaken for people 'high on drugs'. People who have schizophrenia often abuse alcohol and/or drugs, and may have particularly bad reactions to certain drugs. Substance abuse can also reduce the effectiveness of treatment for schizophrenia. Stimulants (e.g., amphetamines and cocaine) can cause major problems for patients with schizophrenia, as may PCP or marijuana. In fact, some people experience a worsening of their schizophrenic symptoms when they are taking such drugs. Substance abuse also reduces the likelihood that patients will follow the treatment plans recommended by their doctors.
The most common form of substance use disorder in people with schizophrenia is nicotine dependence due to smoking. The prevalence of smoking among people with schizophrenia is about three times that in the general population. However, the relationship between smoking and schizophrenia is complex. Although people with schizophrenia may smoke to self medicate their symptoms, smoking has been found to interfere with the response to antipsychotic drugs, so patients who smoke may need higher doses of antipsychotic medication.
FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA
Abraham Lincoln
The revered sixteenth President of the United States suffered from severe and incapacitating depressions that occasionally led to thoughts of suicide, as documented in numerous biographies by Carl Sandburg.
Virginia Woolf
The British novelist who wrote To the Lighthouse and Orlando experienced the mood swings of bipolar disorder characterized by feverish periods of writing and weeks immersed in gloom. Her story is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.
Lionel Aldridge
A defensive end for Vince Lombardi's legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960's, Aldridge played in two Super Bowls. In the 1970's, he suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for two and a half years. Until his death in 1998, he gave inspirational talks on his battle against paranoid schizophrenia. His story is the story of numerous newspaper articles.
Eugene O'Neill
The famous playwright, author of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Ah, Wilderness!, suffered from clinical depression, as documented in Eugene O'Neill by Olivia E. Coolidge.
Ludwig van Beethoven
The brilliant composer experienced bipolar disorder, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.
Gaetano Donizetti
The famous opera singer suffered from bipolar disorder, as documented in Donizetti and the World Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century by Herbert Weinstock.
Robert Schumann
The "inspired poet of human suffering" experienced bipolar disorder, as discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.
Leo Tolstoy
Author of War and Peace, Tolstoy revealed the extent of his own mental illness in the memoir Confession. His experiences is also discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Inner World of Mental Illness: A Series of First Person Accounts of What It Was Like by Bert Kaplan.
Vaslov Nijinsky
The dancer's battle with schizophrenia is documented in his autobiography, The Diary of Vaslov Nijinksy.
John Keats
The renowned poet's mental illness is documented in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Broken Brain: The biological Revolution in Psychiatry by Nancy Andreasen, M.D.
Tennessee Williams
The playwright gave a personal account of his struggle with clinical depression in his own Memoirs. His experience is also documented in Five O'Clock Angel: Letters of Tennessee Williams to Maria St. Just, 1948-1982; The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams by Donald Spoto, and Tennessee: Cry of the Heart by Dotson.
Vincent Van Gogh
The celebrated artist's bipolar disorder is discussed in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb and Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Van Gogh.
Isaac Newton
The scientist's mental illness is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.
Ernest Hemingway
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist's suicidal depression is examined in the True Gen: An Intimate Portrait of Ernest Hemingway by Those Who Knew Him by Denis Brian.
Sylvia Plath
The poet and novelist ended her lifelong struggle with clinical depresion by taking own life, as reported in A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of Sylvia Plath by nancy Hunter-Steiner.
Michelangelo
The mental illness of one of the world's greatest artistic geniuses is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.
Winston Churchill
"Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished," wrote Anthony Storr about Churchill's bipolar disorder in Churchill's Black Dog, Kafka's Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.
Vivien Leigh
The Gone with the Wind star suffered from mental illness, as documented in Vivien Leigh: A Biography by Ann Edwards.
Jimmy Piersall
The baseball player for the Boston Red Sox who suffered from bipolar disorder detailed his experience in The Truth Hurts.
Patty Duke
The Academy Award-winning actress told of her bipolar disorder in her autobiography and made-for-TV move Call Me Anna and A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness, co-authored by Gloria Hochman.
Charles Dickens
One of the greatest authors in the English language suffered from clinical depression, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb, and Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson.
vincent van gogh
information on schizophrenia
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