What is schizophrenia? what is the best way to overcome it?

Question

what are the causes of having schizophrenia? can schizophrenic people live a normal life? what are the chances of having another attack?

Answer 1

"Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has been recognized throughout recorded history....

People with schizophrenia may hear voices other people don't hear or they may believe that others are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. These experiences are terrifying and can cause fearfulness, withdrawal, or extreme agitation. People with schizophrenia may not make sense when they talk, may sit for hours without moving or talking much, or may seem perfectly fine until they talk about what they are really thinking. Because many people with schizophrenia have difficulty holding a job or caring for themselves, the burden on their families and society is significant as well.

Available treatments can relieve many of the disorder's symptoms, but most people who have schizophrenia must cope with some residual symptoms as long as they live. Nevertheless, this is a time of hope for people with schizophrenia and their families. Many people with the disorder now lead rewarding and meaningful lives in their communities. Researchers are developing more effective medications and using new research tools to understand the causes of schizophrenia and to find ways to prevent and treat it....

Like many other illnesses, schizophrenia is believed to result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors. " (NIHM)

Answer 2

Schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance in the brain, usually dopamine, one of the neurotransmitters.
Yes, people with schizophrenia can live normal lives. I work at an agency helping the adult mentally ill, and A LOT of them are high functioning, have jobs, or go to school. Did you see "A Beautiful Mind"? That is a perfect example of paranoid schizoprhenia. In fact, that is a true story and John Nash, even though he had paranoid schizophrenia, went on to win the Nobel Prize.
One doesn't have "attacks" of schizophrenia. It is a chronic condition that cannot be cured but can be treated with antipsychotic medications. One thing that can cause schizophrenics' symtpoms to worsen is 1. Not taking the meds 2. Extreme stress 3. Anxiety
One important thing to remember about people with major mental illness is that they derseve our compassion and respect just as much as everyone else. They do not attack others unless they are extremely symptomatic, and even then, maybe not. I hear constantly from my clients how they feel stigmatized in society because of their illness.
I hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

Schizophrenia: is a mental disorder caused either by chemical imbalance of neurotransmitter in the brain or maladaptations to one`s environment.

A person with the disorder can live a normal life through support groups; from the family and community where the person lives. It is vital for the schizophrenic to be integrated to his normal life.

With the support from family, medications of THORAZINE AND AKINETON, psychological support, and monthly medical attention from a psychiatrist, a relapse can be prevented.

Answer 4

Schizophrenia is a brain chemistry imbalance and you need a psychiatrist to diagnose and treat this disease. People who have it can live normal lives but they need to take their medications.

Answer 5

As I understand it, it is basically lithium deficiency, and easy to cure these days. My father spent most of his life in the back wards of the state hospital before this was discovered.

Answer 6

SCHIZOPHRENIA , IS A MENTAL ILLNESS WHERE ..YOUR SYMPTOMS ARE : HEARING VOICES , SEEING THINGS THAT DON'T EXIST , PARANOID , DELUSIONS , BEST WAY TO OVERCOME IT IS THROUGH THERAPY PLUS MEDICATIONS , CAUSES ARE SHIZOPHRENIA IS UNCLEAR , YES YOU CAN LIVE A NORMAL LIFE , YOUR CHANCES OF HAVING IT IS UNCLEAR

Answer 7

schizophrenia is a mental disorder wherein the person who has it becomes paranoid and most of the times he attacks people.
go to a psychiatrist.

Answer 8

Schizophrenia and its related disorders present as mental health diseases/illnesses, characterized by hallucinations and or delusions. You start believing things that don't exist in reality and which are false, so your thinking and hence speeking often becomes distorted.

Despite some conventional wisdom, schizophrenic symptoms can and do disappear over time with proper treatment and therapy from a psychiatrist, a supportive network, a strong Christian/religious belief system and a job(s) engaged in at some time. It does not have to be a life long illness and the more you heal the more outward focused you become with less emphasis on worry and destructive obsessive thinking.

Depending on the severity and/or time of diagnosis can affect the recovery time and return to normalcy. It is considered by many health care professionals as one of, if not the major mental health disease (alongwith other types of psychosis and including mania).

Mental Health diseases have comon onset and can deteriorate to greater severity. So that a depressive episode undiagnosed and untreated early can spiral downward and into manic-depression given certain psychological orintations within the individual, at whatever age wheras acute clinical anxiety, with/without phobia(s) undiagnosed and untreated early can spiral downward and into schizophrenia also given certain psychological orientations within the individual again at whatever age. However the potential to successful recovery and restoration to optimum health including tapering off all medications, is a collaborative effort with the individual eventually making more independent decisions in this case and the physician(s) less over time. The electrochemical recovery, brain structure anomaly and any pharmaceutical unaddictions however do take time to manifest completely and should be approached with an attitude of confidence and patience as well as the guidance and supervision of qualified mental health professionals preferably very experienced psychiatrists/clinical psychologists.

I know, I have walked this road for years successfully I might add yet with many challenges, particularly clinical depression in the early years of treatment and also with phobia and anxiety for years above normal levels for which I lacked even the coping skills or courage to share with anyone in my teenage years. As I began to seek semi-profesional help at my University, counselling was discontinued as eventually I became more religious and Christianity came into my life. It still remains so although I have become less 'religious' and I hope a more 'balanced' person. Today 20 years later, schizophrenic type symptoms no longer present and have not for almost 14 years . I am also tapering off an anti-psychotic medication I have been on for 14 years while remaining temporarily on another newer substitute medication and hoping for the best. I'm also tapering off a 'beta blocker' I've been on for about 3 years. The wait is excrutiating at times and I've been told by several health care professionals that I'm not yet ready to do my own thing where tapering off my medications are concerned.

Nevertheless, I'm increasingly a more independent person as I was as a child although spiritually greatly helped through words of prayer as well as on a belief system based on the thoughts of Jesus Christ, the InCarnate God . These thoughts expressed in the Bible continue to help me with my cognitive therapy and coping skills along with other cognitive therapies, exercise, entertainment, relating, diet and relaxation as well as the feed-back of my support network. Christainity provides me with a dynamic sense of communication between myself and a benevolent Supreme maker, who is all knowing, all present and all powerful whose son 'in the flesh' it is recorded did and does supernatural things 'bringing health to the body and healing to the bones' to all who trust in him and his good will expressly. I daily continue to receive strength, peace, hope, faith and joy so although I'm not yet off my medications I continue to believe and am convinced that one day this whole episode will be all over, and my joy restored normal and bubbly as it was with me in early infancy I am told. In the meantime I will continue to become a stronger, happier person despite this early tendency toward mental illness and its' actual presentation in my life.

What I'm also sure of (and my fiancee says it's true) is that people meeting me for the first time do not easily pick up notions of illness or unusual behaviour with me (for I act and present normally, work as a teacher of both tertiary and secondary level courses, psychology, sociology and research methodology) and my situation has drastically improved even quite recently. Hope this helps some and good luck.