Living With Schizophrenia (Part A) – Cause and Symptoms

I am not writing on how to deal with people suffering schizophrenia. There is plenty of material on that topic. The following is about caring for self: while you are still aware that you are schizophrenic or have doubts you may acquire the illness.

How To Identify Schizophrenia and Control

Before I proceed, please be aware I am not a subject matter expert/guru in mental science, neither did I study medicine. The following is based on my own experience with the disease combined with that of my mom. As I am coping good enough to run own business, I thought I should share the following as it may help people in preparing for the disease.

Remember there is no cure for schizophrenia, you need to suppress the symptoms and stay determined not to sway into the virtual world your brain starts creating for you.


You will need to:

1. Be on watch for symptoms;

2. Stay strong enough not to let the illness take over;

3. Understand how to get help in dealing with the symptoms to prevent the illness from spoiling your life...

As long as you are able to suppress the symptoms, you are winning over schizophrenia. We will talk only about this part - winning over the illness that may take you into a whole different, personal world that does not exist anywhere in reality. We will talk about the two points listed above and in course, discuss the best methods to stay secure.

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The most common reason is acute depression that leads to loneliness where a person may start developing alternate behaviors. In other words, the person starts withdrawing from the society to create her or his own world where she/he finds solace and security.


In such cases, though you see and hear others in the society, you still carry your own world with you and use that world to view the real society. That way, you feel better when dealing with others. You assume you are different, that others won't understand you and things like that.

Alternatively, you become defensive. There is nothing wrong in being defensive but in this case, it is overly. You are hurt easily by smallest comment that may not directly be related to you. This may lead to aggressive behavior in many who start preparing mentally to escape or fight anything that they think is coming their way.

Another common reason how a person may acquire schizophrenia is the fear instilled in people by their parents/relatives and/or peers when they were still in developing mode (when the brain was still learning to comprehend the surroundings - including sounds and shapes).


In most cases, this happens when you are a kid. Many parents, unknowingly, instill different types of fears into their kids - fear about supernatural forces; fear of diseases and things like that. Rarest of rare cases, as most people overcome such fears in later stage of life but in some cases, the fears make a permanent mark.


Mom is an example and I will share how fear was planted in her brain in a later blog. Anyway, this leads to OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) where you feel the need to perform certain tasks again and again to feel secure.

The tasks can be anything, as simple as holding on to your mobile phone tightly. You keep it on the desk and you start feeling insecure. Just an example! The OCD leads to depression and suspicion (you start suspecting the motives of people around you and often believe they are out there to harm you). 


Another symptom is excessive sleeping - which is not directly related to the disease in question but can be viewed with other symptoms to reach a conclusion.

As shown, healthy parents in row 2 (left) can produce affected child as the parents belong to affected grand-parents!

The third reason is obvious - if any of your parents have the illness, chances are you might get that too. Note that I used 'you might' and NOT 'you will' so there is little to fear in this case.

There was an example of computing hereditary diseases probability using pea plants' generations when I was in high school. Can't recall it completely but it said something like one in three siblings of the next generation can be affected.


The gene stays dormant in the other two and may appear in their offspring (again 1 ratio 3). 

You may be the lucky one not affected by the genes but still, you should stay alert to identify any signs that may be leading you to schizophrenia.


Mental science is much different than the physical science and nothing can be guaranteed.

Let us just collect the points I marked in red above. They are symptoms of mental illness. Not each one means schizophrenia. It can be any type of mental disorder - as simple as anxiety disorder. But if too many of these points are visible in a person, the person needs help to deal with schizophrenia.


Here are points to note:

The above deals with how to identify schizophrenia and its symptoms. The next two parts in this series will explain how to keep a watch on the symptoms and control the disease from taking over your senses.

Link To Part 2:Living With Schizophrenia (Part B) - Identify Symptoms, Get Help

Link To Part 3:Living With Schizophrenia (Part C) - Controlling and Precautions

"In memory of Nirmala, the kid who never grew up".

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