There are many ways to describe Joe of Salt Lake City, Utah — he is forty-two years old. He is a brother, a son, a friend, a student, and a patient with schizophrenia.
Joe attributes his enhanced ability to function to better compliance with his treatment. Now able to better control his symptoms, he is aiming towards finishing the goals he and his treatment team have set. He feels he has also arrived at the point where he no longer describes himself according to his condition. In other words, Joe is not a “schizophrenic” — he is simply a person who lives with schizophrenia.
Joe and other people who are competently living with schizophrenia demonstrate the need for better understanding about the mental illness that affects 2 million people in America — more than the combined populations of North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming — and yet still remains widely misread by the general public.
As stated by The Mental Health Research Association, “schizophrenia is a severe, chronic and generally disabling brain disease. While the term schizophrenia literally means ‘split mind,’ it should not be confused with a ‘split,’ or multiple, personality. It is more accurately described as a psychosis-a type of illness that causes severe mental disturbances that disrupt normal thoughts, speech and behavior. Schizophrenia is believed to be due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors.”
The severity of schizophrenia is different in each person, and symptoms may vary over time. These symptoms may include delusions (false beliefs, such as the feeling that the FBI is following you), hallucinations (such as voices that insult you or tell you to do something), disorganized thinking or speech (such as speaking without making sense or inventing words), irritation and decreased emotional expression, which could also be known as flat emotional effect.
A number of very effective medications known as antipsychotics have been developed to treat these symptoms of schizophrenia. However, because people with schizophrenia often don’t believe they are sick — a condition known as poor insight — they resist taking medications. According to Dr. Robert Conley, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, having an option that takes the daily focus off the need to take medication can help move patients toward recovery. “For example, we are seeing significant success with long-acting injectable medications that allow patients to think less about taking their medication and more about how they define themselves outside their illness and the goals they have for returning to their families, their jobs and their communities,” says Conley.
According to The Mental Health Research Association, with appropriate treatment, symptoms can usually be controlled, and most people with schizophrenia can lead fruitful and fulfilling lives. Treatment is believed to be most efficient when it is started early in the course of the illness.
Overall, as I’ve said previously, I desire to give hope (and help!) to those whose loved ones are suffering with such an overwhelming illness. When my mental illness first began, I was young, and my parents were constantly worried. Now that I have an effective treatment plan, and have accepted my illness, my family and I can be at peace knowing that I’m truly taken care of. I am also, most importantly, now at peace with my illness knowing I am not only taken care of, but that I am loved.
“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” - Mother Teresa
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