About Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is an intense mental disorder from which an individual suffering from the illness experiences: hallucinations, confused, paranoid and delusional ideas, and in extreme cases, emotional void or confusion between reality and imagination.
Often mistaken is that the term schizophrenia indicates an individual whom imitates a number of personalities, commonly known as 'split personality syndrome.' Although this may seem apparent in an individual whom is known or suspected of having the illness, there is arguably, no such thing. Reasoning there lies in the logic fact that we are all humans whom all only have one mind one soul. There may be many different traits to any one's mind, yet we all still only have one. That's not to say that the schizophrenic person doesn't hear voices in their heads, i know for a fact that some do, but that does not indicate another personality.
The voices that a schizophrenic hears may come directly from the sub-conscious mind and can be related to something the individual is either obsessed with or lacking. This is due to the fact that the individuals conscious mind is not able to perceive their obsessions realistically nor capable of portraying certain humane qualities. Hence the subconscious works naturally to get a message through to the person. Seeing as schizophrenia causes tremendous mental instability, these messages from the sub-conscious which most of us refer to as intuition, are perceived as voices. Essentially a schizophrenic person lacks basic human intuition, and the vacancy of such a humane quality results in one of the differences between a 'normal person' and someone whom suffers from a mental illness. Although this theory may be true in some cases, it is also true that the voices that some schizophrenics hear, are nothing but a hallucination of their imagination. In which case the individual is likely become quite paranoid.
I know of a person with the illness whom is adamant that the lyrics of certain songs are directly for his ears only. This person believes that the certain lyrics contain special secret messages of some kind that contain vital information, specially for him. This is the type of delusion \is what you can expect from schizophrenia sufferers. The center of a schizophrenic persons delusions remain the same although types of the illness vary, the center always being themselves. A delusional focus on ones self may cause one to become progressively selfish. The individual that i mentioned is particularly selfish. Why wouldn't he be? In his own mind he is some kind of 'chosen one' whom considers the rest of us to be nothing more than a messed up society of sheep.
It is one thing to be self- centered, quite another to be selfish, and a completely different game altogether to be self-consumed. In the case of the schizophrenic person, at least one of these undesirable traits will be present. In the worst cases the traits as listed in order above may serve as progressive steps to result in one unfortunate individual. Again, back to the individual i mentioned, his self-consumption has become so extreme that he can't hold down a job for more than a few weeks. This individuals life has become a vicious cycle of: Getting some mundane job, IE: KFC, Burger Fuel, road-works. He will show up for work for the first entire week because it's a while since he's had some income, that good stuff (money), seems pretty sweet for a week or so. After a week or 2, this persons attendance to work will begin to falter rapidly. This individual and many alike, care little about aspects of reality such as showing up for work. They'll go when they feel like it, and WHEN they get fired, their attitude is 'oh well, that's so and so's problem.' The person we are discussing here, upon getting fired, he will then go get the benefit so he can go back to sitting in his room alone, where he can focus on his thoughts. Until he either decides to attempt to get a job , or work and income find one for him and force him to go. If you are reading this because you have, or think you have this illness, then don't let this be you, this sort of pattern leads to a very unhappy life.
Reasons why a schizophrenic person may try to avoid reality are generally out of paranoia, although there will be the odd one whom simply does not want to mingle with society because they believe that they are some kind of 'chosen one', hence, much too special for regular people. Schizophrenic paranoia is usually based on ones own delusional perceptions of religion, culture, race and social views. A schizophrenic person is likely to have strong ideas about such subjects and may feel threatened by difference of others, or have an irrational fear of being harassed by others when in a social situation because of these differences.
Being someone whom has had first hand experience with a schizophrenic person, I would strongly advise against attempting to help these people. This illness can get quite intense, so it's best to leave the help up to the professionals for this one.
