I am writing this article to try to help people who are wondering if they have schizophrenia. And so if they have to go see a psychiatrist.
In which case to consult a psychiatrist
The first thing to say is that if you are suffering from your thoughts, your worries, your paranoia, you should go see a psychiatrist. Indeed in the vast majority of cases there are treatments that work well. Even extreme problems and for schizophrenia too, which allow you to return to a normal state or at least much more serene.
If you have a sudden change in your thoughts, your psyche, for no real reason (e.g. no longer sleeping, becoming euphoric, becoming very depressed, having paranoid fears), it you have to go see a doctor quickly. It can be a sign of a pathology that will not last but that will put you in danger during the period when you have this disorder.
There may be other situations where you need to see a psychiatrist that I’m not listing here.
Fear of the future or fear of seeing a psychiatrist?
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If you think you have schizophrenia, and you don’t yet have treatment, you may be afraid to see a doctor for a thousand reasons: fear that he takes you for a madman, fear of being locked up, fear of not being able to stand his gaze, etc. . Know that the treatment that the doctor must prescribe removes these fears in the vast majority of cases, so you can resume a normal life.
I was afraid of being locked up if I testified to my ideas: know that people are not locked up like that, either they have to be extraordinarily aggressive , whether we hit people, whether they have hallucinations that could lead them to hurt themselves, one don’t lock people up for hallucinations that let the patient control his actions. Finally, if ever someone is locked up by force, as soon as the treatment works, they are let out after one or two weeks, you will not be hospitalized for life.
Schizophrenia symptoms:
DSM IV (book of psychiatry) criteria are as follows:
To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, three criteria must be met:
Characteristic symptoms: two or more of the following symptoms must be present most of the time during a period of one month (or less, if symptoms improve with treatment):< /p>
- delusions;
- hallucinations;
- disorganized speech, which is a manifestation of formal thought disorder;
- significantly disorganized behavior (e.g. dressing inappropriately, crying frequently) or catatonic behavior;
- Negative symptoms: reduced emotional expression, abulia.
Social or professional dysfunction: for a significant part of the time since the onset of the disorder, one or more of the areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relationships, care that one s ‘applies to oneself, are notably below what they were before the symptoms.
Long duration: the signs of the previous disorder persist for at least six months. This six-month period must include at least one month of characteristic symptoms (or less if symptoms improve with treatment).(wikipedia)
My explanation of these symptoms:
I will describe the symptoms of schizophrenia as I understand them, thanks to my experience and my medical studies.
- Delusions: it can be the intuition that people risk hurting us for no reason, for example, the too frequent and too intense fear that friends, colleagues, policemen might harass us. It can also be formalized in scenarios, for me, I had the intuition that humanity lived in a virtual world (like in the movie Matrix) which would cause our suffering. For my part, I was aware that these ideas had nothing to do in my mind, however I could not remove them.
- Hallucinations: Seeing or hearing or smelling, by touch or smell, things that obviously do not exist,
- Disorganized speech, which is the manifestation of a formal thought disorder: The person has difficulty formulating sentences, and explaining to others what they are thinking. In my case, I didn’t necessarily realize that my speeches were hard to understand, but I think they were.
- Significantly disorganized behavior (e.g. dressing inappropriately, crying frequently) or catatonic behavior (consists of not being able to move and other symptoms).
- Negative symptoms: reduced emotional expression (one no longer expresses one’s emotions too much or if one does so it is forcibly), abulia (having much less will to do things)
NB: it only takes two or more of these symptoms to establish schizophrenia
Here, I can make mistakes in my interpretation, but I think I’m fair enough.
Explain paranoid and hallucination symptoms if you have them to your doctor. It is above all these symptoms that make it possible to make the diagnosis of schizophrenia and therefore which will allow you to have treatment.
There may be many other symptoms present in your schizophrenia and yet not described here. This is not proof that you are not schizophrenic 🙁 . For example, I had the impression that I was completely abnormal, extraterrestrial and different from the others. Which made me suppose that it was not schizophrenia and yet if.
If you see your doctor and tell him that you think you have schizophrenia and he doesn’t believe you because schizophrenics don’t know they are schizophrenics, tell him that you don’t. is false, word of me who follows schizophrenic.
Good luck to you