What is it like to know someone with shizophrenia?

Question

Has anybody personally known a person suffering from schizophrenia.Or has anyone experienced it?
What are they like? How do they behave?Is it possible to tell just by talking with them,that they have a problem?

Answer 1

I had a friend years ago who suffering with it. He always felt like someone was going to come and tie him up and take him away to do experiments on him. He was shy, and was like a teddy bear when he was having a good day, but his not so good days, he yelled alot, wanted to fight, and would look at me weird as if he didn't know me. I imagine everyone who suffers with it can exhibit different tendencies, but it is definitely one of those problems that I had to be careful around as not to accidently provoke the darker part in him.

Answer 2

Schizophrenia is an over used term but true schizophrenia is tragic for the person and the family/friends.True Schizophrenics are often quiet or distracted often and may struggle with words and display strange emotion,such as smiling while viewing a car accident or becoming angry if they did not hear a question correctly.Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between schizophrenia and bi polar.This takes knowing the person for more than a few months.One case in particular that proved schizophrenia for someone I know is his voice would actually change.Some days it would be a quiet voice,others there was a normal pitch but a slight accent.After knowing him for years I could deal with him according to his voice on any particular day.The quiet voice was quite a sad person,the accent voice was an angry person but more adventurous.We all have many facets to our personalities but true schizophrenics seem to only have 2-3 modes and they don't change.We might like opera and country music depending on our mood but a schizophrenic will like music according to personality and not be willing to listen to varied.My dear friend liked alternative whether he was quiet or angry and liked no other kind of music.This pretty much shows you a schizophrenic personality,if they don't change key factors according to mood.

Answer 3

What is it like? It can be exhausting.
A person can have schizophrenia and be a very nice, intelligent person. But there are little quirks that can be tiring.
When the schizophrenia is not being properly treated, the person can be rather hard to live with in the long run
There is quite a variety in behaviour, as there are several types of schizophrenia. This mental disorder involves a certain element of separation from reality. One form of schizophrenia is paranoia. However there is also simple schizophrenia, and another kind starting with an "h", which involves childlike behaviour.
Can you tell by talking with them that they have schizophrenia? Sometimes, you can guess. you can generally tell that they have some kind of a mental disorder, but it takes a specialist to know it is schizophrenia.

Answer 4

When my boss's wife would have bouts of schizophrenia, this nice sweet, reasonable person would become fixated on some unimportant detail of her life. At this point she would become anxious and upset beyond what might be considered a normal level of upsettness. Her fixation would cause her to do and say things that were very unreasonable. At the store I would answer 20+ phone calls in a day with her on the other end of the line. There was no reasoning with her, and no calming her down. She would be frantic, making all sorts of accusations that were unfounded. Her use of English was intact but her voice became shrill and tearful. Her perceptions and reasoning and conclusions were all outside of reality and her emotions were out of control.
I could understand why my boss lived in a different house with their children, for his own peace of mind, although he was a very understanding and patient man. During this lady's times of remission the two of them had a cordial relationship, and would often go out to eat together.

Answer 5

The answer to your last question is NO! Many who have schizophrenia paranoia and are on medication can lead pretty normal lives. Schizophrenia is not a single disease but a spectrum of disorders. Type "schizophrenia" into Yahoo! web search and a number of informative links comes up. Wikipedia has a good summary.

I am schizophrenia paranoid (DDD) and if you want know more about them first hand just look up the questions and answers on my profile or e-mail me with your questions.

Good luck in your search, good mental health, peace and Love!

Answer 6

It's absolutely terrifying. Not in a personal safety sense, but in worry for that person. Of course I should've been worried, because my friend ended up shooting 4 people before he killed himself, killing 2 of them--3 of the 4 were policemen, and both of the dead.

The version in question was paranoid schitzophrenia, and it was like talking to a caricature of a person. Obvious delusions were gospel, and reason had no effect whatsoever. If I managed to convince him that some paranoid fantasy couldn't be true, it just meant 'they' had gotten to me or tricked me.

I kept thinking that I should've been able to come up with a brilliant solution that might've broken the fantasy world apart, but after reading about such afflictions I'm pretty sure that there was almost no chance of words having the slightest effect. True schitzophrenia has a chemical cause which requires medicine to treat. Now that even chemically diagnosed cases of schitzophrenia can't be committed, it's up to the individual to take their medicine.

My friend didn't, and 3 lives ended because of it, including his.

Answer 7

Depends on the individual. Someone on the proper medication, no drugs, no smoking, no alcohol, some therapy, good family can do very well. Some people with the illness with help can be very productive, healthy and normal. With some bad breaks and drug addiction a person with the illness can be very detached from reality and not normal at all.

Answer 8

People with schizophrenia have a brain disease and i have had a couple of friends with the illness.

They have some life difficulties, and the drugs they need to take can cause problems -- tiredness, and sometimes even feeling like a zombie.

It's not a fun illness, and you can do a yahoo search on schiz to find more info.

take care.

Answer 9

.Often you hear voices and you can't help but think they're real.......sometimes they are hateful....also some become very paranoid,,,,,,,voices tell them people are trying to kill them...Their behavior is odd, often bizarre....sometimes frightening to others..sometimes they talk to the voices they hear... they can have hallucinations of all 5 senses 1.seeing things often people who aren't there. 2. hearing things most often voices that are very annoying and can be frightening..3 smelling things that aren't there 4 feeling things on them like bugs or snakes.5 tasting things like gas or bleach. these are just a few symptoms. there are many more....some more common than others....schizophrenia can be devastating.......medication can and often does help a lot......a person who is who has schizophrenia will always have it and always need to be followed up by a psychiatrist....... the future is much brighter now than in the past....education of mental illnesses is essential!!

Answer 10

Yes, I worked with a guy who was schizoid. He was a very nice guy, but was spiraling downards.

When Dave took his meds, he was relatively normal. They controlled the auditory and even visual hallucinations, and relieved his depression. But he didn't like them because he said they made him feel like he wasn't himself (apparently a common complaint of people taking pscho-active medications).

When he didn't take his medications, he became very withdrawn, and tended to suffer auditory hallucinations (voices telling him to do things), and even a few visual hallucinations (visions). He would wander off by himself, with a glazed expression on his face, totally wrapped up in his own world.

Talking to him was incredibly frustrating at those times because he would barely acknowledge your presence, and when he did respond to your questions, it was usually monosyllabic ("yes" or "no"), or completely off the topic. Often the response was delayed by a minute or two, as if it had to sink in first.