Schizophrenia: Myths, Misconceptions, Hearsays

It's better to make things clear right away rather than beating around the bush. So here it is:

Much of what we hear and tend to believe about schizophrenia is intended to deceive, a fact highly unlikely for an illness ranking so high in public consciousness. The reason behind is a low collective understanding, leading to a myriad myths and false assumptions, which consider schizophrenics to be the carbon copies of each other. On this context, we may also put forth a quote by Ken Duckworth (MD; National Alliance on Mental Illness) - "It's hard to generalize about people with schizophrenia and it's extremely complicated. No two people with schizophrenia are the same."

The most pervasive of myths about schizophrenia is it gives rise to split personalities, a misconception based on a schizophrenic's inappropriate reactions to certain situations. Whereas, a split personality is a relatively rare dissociative disorder that breaks down the usual integrity of a single personality and makes two or more independent personalities emerge. However, in reality, split personalities do not symbolize schizophrenia; they indicate an onset of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Falling back on Mr. Duckworth again: "Split mind refers to the mismatch between thought and feeling. A person may be telling a very sad or distressing story while smiling, or may be afraid of things that are completely mundane."

The second misconception is marking schizophrenics as dangerous elements. The blame goes chiefly to those women (God only knows how many other things they are afraid of, including dogs; I'm a dog owner and once I faced a lady who threw boiling water on us) who consider the media (to be more precise, movies and TV shows) to be the next big thing after the bible. A reality check reveals a nominal percentage of schizophrenics are prone to ferocity because they themselves are afraid of the outside world (it's the same case as in with the biter dogs) or if under the influence of some psychotic drugs; others always withdraw under schizophrenic symptoms. However, the majority of such ‘violent' schizophrenics are suicide-prone, which stays their last option to escape the ‘violent' world. Coming down to statistics, it's only 5 percent that fit the ‘violent' category. So the point is, schizophrenics consider themselves to be in greater danger than the general ‘sane' population, whose bouts of occasional anger (riots, for example) inflicts more damage on other people and the society.

The last (but not the least) myth about schizophrenics is that they will never get any better and are destined to meet their dooms. But fact remains that today's intense symptoms may fade (and they do fade) and significant number of schizophrenics recover completely every year, with or without a treatment.

So what were Mr. Duckworth's endnotes on the subject? Let's hear it in his words: "The media are partially responsible for how we perceive schizophrenia. American media has contributed to mass confusion about it." His survey on the American newspapers dug out a large number of articles (around 28 percent of all that were consulted) that used schizophrenia and schizophrenics metaphorically to denote the recent erratic behaviors of the weather, the stock market and even the performance of local football teams, instead of referring to the illness proper. Should there have been a more sensitive (and sensible) portrayal of schizophrenia as a disease, the complex (read confusion) majority of people bear in mind regarding this disorder would in no time have changed into something as interesting as the Oscar-winning film - A Beautiful Mind.