This is to help writers who want to write about characters with mental disorder. Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, schizophreniform disorder, brief psychotic disorder.
Schizophrenia affects a person's perception and thinking process, causing them to have dysfunctional and deviant behavior, meaning that the person is departing from usual or acceptable social norms. It is characterized by a lose of touch with reality and disorganized behavior. The victim will have hallucinations and delusions. There are five types of hallucinations such as gustatory, visual, tactile, olfactory, and auditory. People with Schizophrenia tend to have auditory and visual hallucinations, but also tactile too. Schizophrenics tend to have more dopamine receptors than the average person, which may be the cause for the hallucinations.
Warning signs Depression, social withdrawal Hostility or suspiciousness Deterioration of personal hygiene Expressionless gaze inappropriate emotional responses Hypersomnia or insomnia Forgetfulness and unable to concentrate Using word salad by using loose association, neologisms, repetition of words, and clang.
Positive Symptoms "Positive" meaning add affecting normal behavior Hallucinations Delusions Confused thoughts and speech(word salad) Trouble concentrating Jumpiness, repetitive movements, and/or catomia
Negative Symptoms Negative and cognitive Emotionless Withdrawal Neglecting own needs Bad memory Trouble paying attention Disorganization
Schizophasia aka word salad is characterized by unintelligible and confused jumbling of words and pattern of speech is incoherent babbling and excessive talking that may follows rhyming and other sound associations rather than meaning.
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Delusions These are some delusions schizophrenics may have Persecutory delusion, believing that someone is out to get you Grandiose delusions, believing you are somebody else, an important figures or someone famous such as Jesus or Hitler Delusions of reference, believing that a event has a special and personal message to you Delusions of control, believing that your thoughts and actions are being controlled by someone else such as the government or extraterrestrial life forms
Causes Genetics Drugs that increase the level of dopamine in the brain such as cocaine or Adderall Pregnancy and birth complications Exposure to a virus during infancy Brain development Physical or sexual abuse
Triggers Stressful events such as bereavement, losing your job or house, divorce, break up, and/or abuse(emotions, physical, and sexual)
