What do you think causes schizophrenia?

That thread is 5 mins old. Go away Stormfront fatty.

R1 Not a fatty and what does stormfront have to do with anything you raving loon?

I think trauma or abuse in childhood. He mentioned that his father did not like him.

Registering as Republican.

I think it is a very physical disease. Sure it can be triggered by stress, drug abuse or illness, but I suspect it's an auto immune disorder, like arthritis or diabetes. It's a sad thought that your brainless immune system decides to attack the very organ that makes you, you.

I read somewhere once it was related to living in filth while pregnant. I believe it's genetic, like Aspergers

I don't think "schizophrenia" IS a single disease.

Take two people... one who's always been organized & efficient, and one with severe ADHD who's ALWAYS struggled to keep their life together. Now, make both of them equally paranoid, or convinced that everyone is in some grand conspiracy to do bad things to them.

Person #1 might just come across as "odd", or maybe as "absurdly religious". They might become an ardent doomsday prepper or conspiracy nut, but nevertheless manage to keep their shit together & remain functional.

Person #2 will probably have their life totally collapse around them absent a PROFOUND support network.

In the past, person #2 would be diagnosed with "disorganized schizophrenia", and person #1 might not have been diagnosed with anything at all. In reality, they both have equal "schizophrenia", but in person #2, it's just one of MULTIPLE problems. In person #1, it's their ONLY problem.

R7 That's a very interesting theory. I have read that schizophrenics have profound problems with organization.

I thought it’s totally genetic and biological. More like hemophilia than Lyme disease. Seems like anyone I have known or heard of who was diagnosed had some family history of serious mental illness.

My little brother got it from eating nothing but spaghettios between the ages of four and eleven.

I think certain people are pre-disposed to many personality and mental disorders by way of genetics but environmental factors during childhood (abuse, neglect, malnutrition) cause them to actually have the disease/disorder.

Bad genes.

I'll stick with current science and research for $1000, Alex:

[quote]Research suggests a combination of physical, genetic, psychological and environmental factors can make a person more likely to develop the condition.

[quote]Problems with certain naturally occurring brain chemicals, including neurotransmitters called dopamine and glutamate, may contribute to schizophrenia. Neuroimaging studies show differences in the brain structure and central nervous system of people with schizophrenia. While researchers aren't certain about the significance of these changes, they indicate that schizophrenia is a brain disease.

This would also include traumatic brain injury to certain portions of the brain.

Very interesting question OP! Like R13 said, there seem to be different causes. Genetic factors. Abuse in early childhood (emotioal and physical) plays a major role. Double bind situations. I'd recommend to read about Wilhelm Reich and his approach; according to him there are cases of schizophrenia that can be "cured" (opposed to the mainstream idea that schizophrenics need to take psycho-pharmaceuticals for the rest of their lifes). Do you, by any chance, happen to speak German? There's a very fascinating lecture by Bernd Senf.

R14 unfortunately, I don't speak German but I will try to find a translation. Thank you!

My brother wasn't abused and he's schizophrenic. I think it's his genes plus casual acid use.

R16 In cases like this I wonder if the chicken or the egg came first. Did the drug use help cause the schizophrenia or did he turn to drugs as his mind started to go?

I think people are simply born with the schizophrenia flaw in their system.

I know a young guy, 30, who is severely schizophrenic. He was completely normal until about age 15 when this terrible shadow began to take him over more and more. Nothing traumatic had happened to him, it just came out of the blue. He is now on strong meds and has to be supervised at all times. Has bouts of violence and even attacked a policeman. Very short attention span like a child. Very sad case.

I have a friend from a book club who's schizophrenic. In some ways a very delightful, intelligent, pleasant older woman. But without the slightest provocation she can start talking about the CIA spies out to get her, her decades- long affair with Mc-Cartney/Lennon (she's an old hippie), and the serial abuse that she has suffered at the hand of almost every male she has ever known. I have no doubt that she was truly sexually abused at some point, because too many of her stories ring true, but the veil between reality and fantasy is blurry. It's a shame because she's very insightful in group when she's "on". I also happen to know she's a big pot- head which doesn't help her paranoia at all.

Childhood abuse.

OP, are you calling in from 1958? Schizophrenia, like bi-polar disorder and all of them are neurological diseases. They are not "caused" by having a drunken father or potty training too late. And there is no way to prevent them if a person is predisposed.

Marijuana.

R21 if the cause were solely genetic ,than identical twins would have schizophrenia at the exact same rate, but they don't.

I have twin brothers. One has schizophrenia while the other does not. It’s a horrible, horrible disease.

Some things are just in the genes.

it's a virus.

yes, you can catch crazy.

Genes plus recreational drug use. The depression/bipolar gene runs in my family, and the relatives that did a lot of mood-altering recreational drugs ended up with various forms of fairly severe mental illness, severe enough that it affected their day to day lives. The ones that didn't were mostly able to manage.

Person 1: outgoing and happy until meeting up with a guy who was a heavy pot smoker and smoked pot with him daily. Bipolar went completely out of control and was fired from job after job and became homeless. Ended up hospitalized and stabilized, and now has a job and is doing much better. Pot Guy is now out of their lives.

Person 2: Very heavy, daily drinker for decades with lifelong issues with depression. Has spent their entire adult life on anti-depressants.

Person 3: no drugs, but hit menopause while in a very stressful marriage. Bipolar which became more and more severe over the years, especially after menopause. It's like they turned a corner and fell off a cliff.

All have kids with depression and other mental health issues.

What I've learned from watching this slow motion train wreck over decades is, if you have mental illness, don't have kids. There's a very strong history in the family of virtually every family member having chronic depression. At best. And typically, the worst doesn't come out until the person hits their forties or fifties. A lot of these people were fine in their twenties and affected later. They had their kids, seemed healthy, and surprise! suddenly mom or dad went off when they hit middle age, or menopause.

Same thing for most people with age related heart disease, cancer and other age related illnesses. I think people don't think of mental illness of being the same as physical illness as often as they should. A lifetime of beating up your body invariably results in illness. Your genes determine what type of illness it's going to be.

My theory is that when someone carries the genes for these disorders, something about taking mood altering recreational drugs, or drowning in stress, or other activities that alter one's hormonal or chemical balance, like pregnancy, menopause, stress, disturbs their delicate balance. Once that balance is disrupted, it's very difficult to get it back.

I had my first bought with depression in college, went on some Zoloft, and basically went on with my life. In my early thirties, did the marriage/kids thing, and all of the sudden grandma (mine) announces the drop-down ugly secret that her m9ther was bi-polar/the town drunk, had to be institutionalized and was eventually found dead of suicide out of a four story building with a bottle of booze in her hand. At the same time my own metal-illnesss exploded into bi-polar, and eventually one of my children would be diagnosed with autism, the other with bi-polar like me. Of course I love my kids like all get-out, but looking back, not sure I would have put them through all the misery they've been through. Now It's our daily ritual to take our meds together just like vitamins, I teach them meditation and we're working on starting some yoga. It's a life-time commitment to their mental health I've taught them. That being said, their upcoming adolescence and inevitable exposure to illegal drugs scares the shit out if me.

I'm convinced that vitamin malabsorption might play a factor. I suffered from chronic B12 deficiency from a side issue. When my levels dropped to rock bottom, it was like something out of Jacob's Ladder. Word salad. Hallucinations. Paranoid delusions. Got checked out and was so dangerously low in B12 that I needed shots. All of these issues slowly reversed themselves over several months. The doctor explained that B12 deficiency can totally mess you up mentally and that it's also suspected in some dementia cases. What's frightening is that if you let it go too long, there's permanent damage.

I'm not saying that chronic B12 deficiency by itself will cause everyone to go schizophrenic. Like some have said, there's genetic predisposition and other factors (like trauma and stress). However, given my experiences, I'm convinced that it could play a part in schizophrenia.

What I've learned from watching this slow motion train wreck over decades is, if you have mental illness, don't have kids

Ugh. You are bumming me out R27, but you are right. My grandfather committed suicide as well as my brother. Various aunts and uncles (and my mother and myself) have had various moderate to severe issues over the years. It is sad but true.

Google Syd Barrett. It’s thought that acid use, stressors from pressure to being a pop star, to strobe lights as being factors for schizophrenia. But then, many people think he also suffered with aspergers. Also schizophrenia usually occurs between the ages of 18 to 22 for males. I know, my twin cousins were diagnosed in their late teens. Sadly, they are now both dead.

Too much dopamine and multiple lifestyle factors.

The double bind theory

The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.

Interesting - I’ve always thought of it as genetically based but kicked into gear by drugs - especially LSD, mushrooms or X. Weird to read so many with the same opinion.

R30, I never would have thought that thirty years ago, but I've now seen all these people age and have one crisis after another. Their love lives are really affected. Many of them picked very unstable or abusive partners. By the time they hit around fifty, they are financially unstable, have health problems due to unstable employment and neglect, can't get insurance or hold a job or keep a roommate or partner, and they end up either alone or in a situation where they're dependent on others for stability and the people they've picked to provide that stability aren't stable themselves.

The older you get, the less bullshit potential partners are going to put up with. When I started seeing the third generation (that I know of) mirroring the same behaviors, and I know what seems like millennial angst to others is really the set up for a lifetime of misery, I just realized it was extremely fortunate I didn't have kids.

Not everyone who is diagnosed Schizophrenic does drugs. A lot of the time the first onset is caused by stress. Combined with a Predisposition genetically (there is a tendency for it to run in families) it leads to full blown Paranoid Schizophrenia. That is why the first “break” for many happens in college or for the young adult in their early 20’s, when they are away from home and facing the pressures of young adulthood for the first time. And you have to differentiate what y’all mean by “Schizophrenia”. There are diffrent forms of it. More common then “Paranoid Schizophrenia” is Schizoaffective disorder, a combo of Schizophrenia w/Bi-polor and/or depressive tendencies. This is such a serious topic for a bunch of random anonymous people to speculate about. Leave it to the doctors & the gay guys on here should be chatting & gossiping about Britany & Madonna or whatnot, I’m pretty sure 99% of you are NOT qualified to speak about this subject & as some lone who actually had Schizophrenia I’m finding most of the answers to be offensive. Schizophrenia is a complex disorder & not every case is the same.

R37 stfu, no one's pulling out prescription pads and writing scripts for anyone here, we'll discuss whatever we damned well feel like discussing.

R37, a lot of it is probably genetics combined with growing up with the extreme stress and trauma of having a mentally ill parent.

This is what it's like: having a parent who quits or is fired from job after job, only holding a job for a few days, weeks or months, is always broke, is getting one eviction notice after another. Not enough money for food. The parent refuses to seek help or everyone is fed up and there is no more help. They can't keep to any routine or keep a steady legal address so they can't get food stamps. The other parent is done and they wash their hands of the ex spouse and sometimes the kids too. They just want out. The house is a mess. The parent is a hoarder or everything is dirty. Dirty dishes and other kinds of dirt you don't find in a normal household, like uncleaned cat boxes and the cat shitting all over the house, or empty food wrappers thrown on the floor everywhere. They sometimes act out their rage and frustration by damaging household items.

The parent is easily offended and set off at the drop of a hat. They fly into rages, screaming because a television commercial reminds them of something at home they're angry about, or they see a late notice from the utility company and scream about it for hours. How dare they send this, for example. They are fighting with every clerk in the supermarket, the boss, and everyone else. No one can tell them they're wrong. No one can tell them they need to shut up or they'll lose their job.

The kids are shuffled from one place to the next. They never see anyone they know. The parent is paranoid and hides them, fearful someone will find out they're neglecting or abusing their kids. They're told not to tell the grandparents, in-laws or anybody else how bad it is, or to ask for help. Asking for help will only lead to trouble, they are told. Often the kids are told to lay low and not do anything to attract attention, so they seem obedient and quiet to strangers. They never tell anyone what's going on. After a few tries of asking for help and nothing being done, only to be left to face the rage of the parent alone, they learn to shut up.

It's like being raised in the eye of a never-ending tornado. It's a perfect blueprint for creating mental illness. Anyone who thinks it's a mystery how this type of upbringing contributes to mental illness needs to be out of the medical field or any government job having to do with welfare or childcare. But so many people in these fields either have no clue, or refuse to intervene.

Now, as an adult, I realize how mental illness contributes to this type of behavior, that the person isn't really trying to be difficult or unpleasant, they suffer from overwhelming fear of treatment or intervention and this is the result. Even as a teen I understood it. But when there is no escape, it doesn't help much to know why this is happening. My siblings left home very young.

My dad worked at UCLA in brain research. He designed all the equipment to take brain waves etc. They started on schizophrenia In the early 60's. They never found a cure but what they found is that the neurotransmitters (little hairs in your brain) that move info are not working right. It is almost always heritable and biological. It is a Physical disease.

My family doesn't have the greatest mental health track record, schizophrenia hit my brother in his second year of college. His stress was no worse than mine or our third brother. There has to be an individual brain component to the whole thing.

My brother lives in a group home and barely manages life...it is all smoking and drinking coffee. Why him and not me? My other brother is a closet case and attempted suicide at least twice, but he judges the schizophrenic as crazy.

Truth be told, I miss my schizophrenic brother like you miss a dead person or someone with dementia. He isn't the same, but damaged is better than no brother. I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.

Elementary teacher here. I had a student 4 years ago who was diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia. The poor kid suffered terribly. He was taking so much medicine just to function on a daily basis. One of the smartest kids I ever met. Eventually, his family couldn't deal with it and he was sent to an institution.

R38, you were very rude to R37.

Because this is the Datalounge, R43. Are you new?

R38 I actually have Schizoaffective disorder & it’s offensive to ME, To be speculated on where MY ILLNESS came from. I have never touched drugs & ive had loving parents, similar to many Schizophrenics that I have encountered over the years. I have many friends also diagnosed with the disorder who have similar backgrounds, loving parents, no drugs involved. Perhaps when the OP picks a sensitive subject you should learn to deal with the backlash. Some of us deal with this disorder in our daily lives.

Sorry R38 I’m also R37

It is not caused by abuse or drugs. The onset is always mid to late teens to early 20's the same age kids usually are doing drugs so a lot of people confuse it the two. It is 100% genetic and often skips a generation. So if your grandparents have it and your parents don't it doesn't mean you won't get it.

R37/45 this is the internet, get over it. You think there's no people whose illnesses are not only wrongly speculated on, but even mocked on here? You're not special.

I think there is a hereditary factor, ie Marilyn Monroe had it and so did her mother Gladys Baker. It his both of them when they hit their 30 s.

Offended guy, you're a whiner.

I think of it like this: my brother has schizophrenia and we are made of the same stuff. He did recreational drugs and smoked, I didn't.

Once, I took a prescription and heard voices, was paranoid, etc. I immediately stopped taking it and never had another symptom.

We are probably both predisposed. Maybe you fell and hit your head or whatever (and never touched drugs) but the chance of getting it was always there. I'm just lucky that it hasn't happened to me (I'm 44).

I know this is DL and we all are supposed to be snarky assholes, just wanted to say my heart goes out to posters here who either suffer from this, or have loved ones and or family that do. It sounds like a living hell. Wishing you all any and all forms of peace,

Yes. Everyone stuff your opinions and hurt. This is a great thread. It's an inherited trait just like say, polycystic kidneys. Your DNA is like a lottery. Some siblings even have more of German or Irish genes than their full blood siblings. The percentages vary regarding certain traits. Siblings who are not on the autism spectrum but have a sibling who is, so often have children on the spectrum.

Know a guy whose sister snapped in a high school math class with sudden onset. Right there in class. The cops and ambulance came to the school. She's been in a group home for decades. The most dangerous sub type, paranoid schizophrenic. His mother was adopted but she has the insidious type of schizophrenia. Out of the four, two kids are normal but some of their children got hit in late teens. The original guy^ is your typical schitzotypal with magical thinking, crystals and tarot cards to the extreme. Not for entertainment. He also has that mincing gait on top of being highly queeny.

You can't blame this on lifestyle choices or stress. Same goes for being born gay or straight. You're born with it.

R52, I had a doctor make an interesting comment to me once, not about mental illness, but about ulcerative colitis, which I had a severe form of at the time. He said everybody has certain genetic markers for certain illnesses. In one family it's cancer, in another family it's heart attacks or whatever. A particular family member may live a relatively healthy or stress free life and maybe they never get it, or maybe they get a mild form of it. Another family member may take poor care of themselves or have a lot of stress and they get a more severe form. Of course some people don't obey that rule of thumb, but in the majority of cases, the odds are for it.

But, he said, it was pre-determined when that person got sick what type of an illness it was going to be. The guy with the heart attacks in his family wasn't going to get MS, the guy with arthritis in the family wasn't going to get brain cancer or whatever. He said the 160 pound brother who exercises isn't going to be the one that gets the heart attack, most of the time, it's going to be the 300 pound brother that never exercises. Or the 300 pound brother gets the heart attack at age 30, the healthy one gets it at 70. But they get heart attacks and not something else because that's what runs in the family.

As you age, you are more and more likely to get a genetic related illness. That's normal. It's when you see a two year old getting sick that you know it's really largely a genetic disease, not wear and tear or environment related, unless someone has been dropping that kid in a vat of poison or something. So if you have sick kids in the family, it's very likely it's genetic. They haven't had time to get sick from the environment in most cases.

A reminder to be grateful that we only have constant depression and anxiety in my family. Unhappy but not severely mentally ill. Be grateful - and sympathetic to those who suffer and their families.

Too much sex or not enough. Just experiment what works for you. I'm excluding the OP because I'm assuming unpleasant physically. OP should masturbate alone and try not to bother anyone. No one cares.

A second cousin recently died, and her son told me she was schizophrenic. I was shocked, because aside from a brief breakdown and hospitalization in the early 90s, she seemed mostly normal to me. She was a very sweet person with lots of friends. Supposedly she heard voices. She was married with kids and worked after they grew up, and mostly led a normal life. I'm wondering if it was schizoaffective disorder rather than full-blown schizophrenia. Are there fairly mild forms that aren't too disruptive with medication?

R55 Oh dear was someone "triggered "? Methinks there is a little projection going on. No need to join the discussion, I'll let you get back to wanking off, while raging against the world.

r56 Why would you ask DL about complex mental issues and conditions Are you just desperate for attention? Keep a diary and get a pet. Learn to sing and take up a hobby like knitting. This is my life advice to you. Don't expect too much - you are obviously *special*

R58 The poster was casually asking out of curiosity, it wasn't an in depth medical discussion. You're not particularly bright are you?

Schizo is overused in psychiatry to refer to disorders that are very different. A Schizoid personality for example, is not "schizophrenia light," it is an entirely different thing. And social conditions have become so brutal ithe traditional diseases are sometimes hard to diagnose. For example, we now know that the CIA, FBI, etc. do experiment on civilians psychologically, so not everyone who believes that "they" are out to get him or her is mentally ill. Similarly the brutality of the social media world has made many youngsters retreat into a fantasy world with very little contact with reality.

Well - I'm bright enough to use Google for medical questions/info ... and not a bunch of strangers on gay a site.

And you realize what you read in Google is what multi-level marketers want to sell you, 90% of the time, because you're a tech savvy dude R61, not some schizo who can't tell reality from fiction right?

r61 I guess that you are the OP and this all important to you but you sound like a really silly person.

My nephew became a schizophrenic after he and a friend dropped acid every day for a month. His buddy came out of it ok, my nephew has been ill for 35 years. My sister now worries about what will happen to him when she can no longer care for him. There have been times when I have worried about never having had any kids. Then I remember him.

R50 I am not a man, I’m a woman. And you are an asshole. I didn’t fall & hit my head or so drugs. It’s a genetic illness, unfortunately it skipped jackasses like you & your brother got the short end of the stick. R51 I appreciate DL posters like you. & the other people on this post who aren’t complete assholes & at least understand it’s completely a genetic disorder. It’s like why family member gets cancer & another doesn’t. Nobody deserves to get Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective disorder. Twins can grow up in he same environment, fuck around both with drugs & only one gets it.

I agree with the commenters who say it’s genetic with a (sometimes) environmental trigger.

My husband had a friend who was a brilliant, funny, talented, handsome man. He was so charming. And rather suddenly, in his 30s, he went off the deep end. He dead seriously announced that the government had a remote control device to shock his scrotum randomly. And he went downtown to FBI headquarters to complain about it. Long story short, we don’t know what happened to him, but I suspect he’s homeless now.

My mother has a friend who was always a little scatterbrained but very fun and warm. Probably when menopause hit, she started with the crazy conspiracy theories and became crazy religious. There was a lot of mental illness in her family. Her brother was a famous “character” a few towns over, with a scary high IQ but a voluntary vagrant. Her sister committed suicide, as did a niece. My mother thinks it was all the drugs she did in the 60s, but she was pretty normal in the following decades. (My mom blames everything on recreational substances). Sadly she died of cancer.

Menopause seems to be a trigger for some people who already have a genetic component. People’s hormones change at that time, so I’m wondering if that has something to do with it.

A lot of this stuff will be known in decades to come, we’re just putting it together now.

I would think menopause would be too late.

It’s so rare to get Schizophrenia in your 50’s. Wtf Menopause? Drugs? Falling on your head? Bad parenting? Are you guys serious? It’s a genetic disorder that starts in the womb. There have been studies that show toxins the mother ingest while pregnant contribute to it. Most babies with Schizophrenia are born in Spring because they are pregnant over the winter, when women get the most sick. The disease lies dormant until stress or drugs or whatever knocks it loose, usually in the person’s early late teens to early 20’s. For women it generally happens later than men , what is called a “ first break”. Drug use can cause a “ first break” but the tendency is always there.

The tendency for Schizophrenia is always there. Rarely do women or men get it in their 50’s, it is so, so rare to get it that late. If they did, the prognosis is almost always worse for later-in-life Schizophrenia. If your friend is going crazy during Menopause she probably is having a nervous breakdown more likely, or just dealing with really bad monopause.

My two-cents. I schizophrenics are born and not made. However, being conditioned in a positive, supportive environment, versus an abusive, indifferent, neglectful environment, Is a leg-up despite the viciousness of the disease.

Is The Government Spying on Schizophrenics Enough?

R67 I was thinking hormones also. Because it hits young men, at least, during their sexual peak in late teens early 20s. And it often lessens in severity as they reach middle age. Hormones have a lot to do with immunity, depth of sleep (unconscious mind), mood, and sensitivity to pain.

R65, no one is suggesting that there is no genetic component at all. What a number of posters are saying is that for people with genetic components, there appear to be triggers that can set off an episode for a person whose illness previously lay dormant.

A lot of diseases have genetic components that are complicated by environmental or health factors. For example, if you have cancer run in your family, having smoked three packs a day for years isn’t automatically unrelated to your getting cancer. It’s double jeopardy.

R69, I don’t know that my mom’s friend was schizophrenic. She was not diagnosed.

All we know is that she was a lovable creative kook and at a certain age - her 50s - she was getting messages directly from Jesus. He was talking to her a lot. And she started aggressively proselytizing about how the government was going to round us up into concentration camps and microchip us and they already have us under surveillance, etc. She was very intense and aggressive about it. My mom had to stop talking to her because it’s all she ever talked about anymore.

I know it’s not common for older women to become schizophrenic in middle age. Maybe she just had a psychotic break. Whatever it was, it was extreme. But not a surprise because there was a lot of mental illness in her family and she had a bad childhood. Hopefully she’s at peace now. She was cool before the sickness took over.

But none of you seem to get what Schizophrenia IS. When, for example, someone mentions that Menopause May csuse or trigger it, what you are probably talking about is Post-Menopausal psychosis NOT Schizophrenia. Psychosis is a SYMPTOM of Schizophrenia. it is one of many, many symptoms, because there are different types of the disorder & not everyone has the same symptoms. psychosis does not = Schizophrenia which a particular disorder. So you can’t expect me not to get angry when I keep hearing the same thing repeated over & over on this thread & yet here I am, someone who actually has the disorder. & no one is hearing what I have to say...

DL psychiatrists, while I've got you on the line: I can't stop worrying about the birds outside. I run various sprinklers (on wifi, from Alexa if I'm home or from my phone if I'm away) for about five minutes four or five times a day (it's been around 110 degrees). Three times a day I throw out apple, tomato, or strawberries. I have other things to do, but it's hard for me to think about anything else if I think a bird outside needs something.

Am I just a nice person or am I fucking crazy?

R76 They could also have early onset alzheimer's.

Bipolar disorder and menopause are related.

It's a fact, not crazy talk, that the government has us all under surveillance.

This is very anecdotal but I have met three women who had brothers who were schizophrenic. Each woman was an extreme narcissist, perhaps had narcissistic personality disorder. I've wondered if that was just their coping mechanism for growing up in a household with a schizophrenic... That they had to be completely self-focused and think they were the greatest person on Earth.

R76, Im interested in your persoective and experiences, if you feel like sharing.

Do you live alone or with family? When were you diagnosed? How aware were you, that you were suffering from schizophrenia?

Again, only if you're comfortable sharing. Best wishes to you, regardless.

R81, I wonder about that too. I know several women with bipolar mothers and their narcissistic tendencies are off the charts. They’re not just conceited or selfish, their brains obviously work differently than other people’s. It’s like a type of tunnel vision. Every conversation inevitably comes to, “other people were on fire in front of me, but I didn’t notice because it wasn’t happening to me.” It’s like they don’t notice half of what’s going on.

Maybe it’s a genetic component combined with environment.

My cousin has suffered from Schizophrenia since her late 20s. When I say suffer I truly mean in. Her life has been literal torture for decades.

She is never without her auditory & visual hallucinations . Every second of every day.

I don't have time this morning to go into all she's been through.

As far as the cause of this awful disease, many now think it's caused by a virus.

My sister has schizophrenia. She started showing signs of mental illness in her early teens (OCD and anorexia), then had a complete psychotic break in her early twenties. We do have a lot of mental illness in our family, so I certainly believe it could be entirely genetic. She did also have a head injury in childhood (which she herself blames for her illness).

It's a horrible, horrible condition. She is tormented by voices saying awful things to her and about her. Medications have terrible side-effects. She was a brilliant, artistically talented, kind, sweet and lovable child. We were very close. It's like that sister was stolen from us and the changeling that was left has just shadows and fragments of the sibling I remember.

How do you mourn a loved one who's technically still here, but not?

Just reading this thread makes me realize we have to have a revolution in mental health care not just regular health care accessibility/affordability. It's the 21st Century dammit, and besides moving past the medieval Dark Ages stigma of years past we not only need to reduce the suffering of others, but need to get serious about being pro-active about the HUGE impact untreated Behaviral health issues have on our society: See school shooters and Megalomaniac in the White House. I mean really- the brain is an organ just like any other one in the body- of course people are going to have both minor and major health issues around it-i some which could be considered acute while others deemed chronic. Burying our heads in the sand will do no good. Ok , I'll get off my soap box now...

Would you rather have schizophrenia or cancer? Take the DL poll!

Elyn Saks is a Dean and Professor of Law, Psychology, Psychiatry at USC and a MacArthur Fellowship winner. She graduated from Vanderbilt, Oxford, and Yale Law School. She also lives with schizophrenia (diagnosed in her early 20s.) She wrote about it in her award-winning memoir. She was told early on by someone in the medical community that she would die young, never marry ( she's married), and never hold a job. While she does take medication now, she attributes some of her success to analysis ( which has been "proven" to not help schizophrenia. She is currently researching people with psychosis and hallucinations who are high-functioning.

[quote] Elementary teacher here. I had a student 4 years ago who was diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia. The poor kid suffered terribly. He was taking so much medicine just to function on a daily basis. One of the smartest kids I ever met. Eventually, his family couldn't deal with it and he was sent to an institution.

What country do you live in? Because you can’t permanently institutionalize a mentally ill person in the US unless they’ve committed a crime and are found mentally ill. Then they can go to a hospital for the criminally insane. But if you haven’t committed pretty heinous crimes, you get bounced back home after a few weeks or months in a hospital psych ward.

[quote] This is very anecdotal but I have met three women who had brothers who were schizophrenic. Each woman was an extreme narcissist, perhaps had narcissistic personality disorder.

Wow. My husband’s brother is schizophrenic and his sister is an extreme narcissist. She picks fights with other women over nothing, behaves horribly in restaurants and says terrible things to needle people. Like if she knows someone is a certain religion or ethnicity or political belief, she’ll start shit talking those topics in front of them. She would do this to her parents friends when they were visiting and her parents never once told her she was out of line. They didn’t even notice it. I mean, the woman is a fucking monster and her parents were completely blank at recognizing her ability, capacity and desire to cause trouble. I only see her at funerals of people in her now, and I bring my own car and leave ASAP while my husband socializes after the service.

R77, buy a birdbath and a bird feeder. If you can afford it, a water feature like a small pond or fountain. Then the birds can take care of themselves. You can research bird feeding and get into birdwatching to direct your energy to doing someth8ng acceptable & fulfilling. Different birds like different foods and different feeders. Find out what they are.

Which reminds me, I have to go put nectar in my hummingbird feeder. I made the nectar this morning with boiling water & sugar and was waiting for it to cool down.

Very interesting topic. I just had coffee with a neighbor who is a pharmacist. Which doesn’t make her a doctor, but she knows something about drugs.

She mentioned schizophrenia in relation to gut flora. She also believes that hormonal birth control affects it. Says that many of her customers who take hormonal birth control are on gastro and mood modifying drugs as well. And Diflucan at least twice a year. She also said that she’s gotten to know what drugs people are on just by having conversations with them; their affect and speech patterns.

Not that this comment is all about schizophrenia. But she mentioned it and now I’m hopped up on caffeine.

R84, not sure if there’s a definitive and proven link, but there’s a suggested association between toxoplasmosis and schizophrenia.

It’s a quick and easy read.

The “crazy cat lady” trope might have a basis in science.

NATURE (flaw in brain synapses) plus NURTURE (overwhelming stress during a certain time period). You need both in the right combo to become a full fledged schizo.

R92 that is interesting about the pharmacist, but what are gastro drugs?

Thank youfor the link, R88. My library has her book so I'll read that. I look forward to her research into high functioning people with schizophrenic disorders like my late cousin.

I think this thread shows that there are a lot of people that are just not healthy enough to have kids. A lot of suffering could be avoided.

I wish we could have a serious conversation as a nation about people with bad genetic markers not having kids. It isn't even discussed. Far too many people with really serious genetic disorders don't even consider not having a pile of kids. We ought to be trying to put healthy kids into society. This isn't the nineteenth century when nobody understood anything about this and there was no birth control.

R97 If you even bring the subject up you will be met with screams of "Eugenics! ". The truth is that not only do the children of the mentally ill tend to wind up unhappy, their parents do as well. I have yet to see a mentally ill person be "healed " by having children but the media constantly pushes the whole parenthood as redemption narrative. Mentally ill women, in particular, tend to become worse after becoming mothers.

R98, I think a lot of that has to do with pregnancy hormones. A lot of pregnant women suffer from depression after birth, some can get pregnancy psychosis. There have been famous cases where the new mother started hearing voices and killed her kids. A lot of them would have been fine if they'd never had kids.

Personally I think it's worse if it's an older mother. Women don't suddenly go into menopause at age fifty. Their hormones gradually slow down over years. Next time you're on a bus or train and you're standing up, look at the hairlines of women from above. After I started losing hair at age 35, I started really noticing this. Almost every woman over forty had a thinning hairline. It was really noticeable after I started looking. That's the beginning of a woman's hormones slowing down.

Going from pregnancy hormones to a new lifetime low hormones over a short period can't be good. Women are biologically supposed to start having their kids pretty young, then have a bunch, it's just not practical any more.

R60, go get checked out. Focus on thyroid levels.

The greedy, lazy FBI run by village idiot types are doing psychological experiments on people?😂 oh, get help R60 you poor thing. Aawww.

I can't say with any degree of certainty what causes this horrific mental malady, but I can say with absolute certainty that frequent visits to DataLounge definitely compound your schizophrenia.

🌹 Roses Are Red

😞 And Violets Are Blue

😵 I'm Schizophrenic

😨 And So Am I

“Our data suggest the possibility that up to 14% of schizophrenia cases would not have occurred if influenza exposure during early to midpregnancy had been prevented," write the researchers.

[quote]...men aged 35 and older are 0.27 percent more likely to have children who eventually develop schizophrenia, compared with men under 35.

[quote]Margaret was emotionally abusive to Terry. Rebuked by her for some misdemeanour, he smirked out of nervousness. Margaret said ‘go on, laugh again’, and he nervously did so. She smacked him across the ear and said, ‘that’ll teach you to laugh at me’. Such abuse is the single strongest childhood predictor of schizophrenia - more so, even, than sexual abuse...

[quote]”Our study is an illustrative example suggesting that a dietary sensitivity before birth could be a catalyst in the development of schizophrenia or a similar condition 25 years later.”

[quote]Infections and other inflammatory problems in the pregnant mother have long been associated with a greater risk for schizophrenia in the child but, the Swedish and U.S. researchers say, this is the first study that shows how a mother’s food sensitivity may potentially lead to the development of the disorder.

An uncle of mine has two kids that are schizo (different mothers) he used to do steriods and was a competitive body builder in his twenties.