March 18, 2012
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Schizable
This post, and others like it, are inspired by the @autisable blog. I will, periodically, write a blog about my dealings with the illness known as Schizophrenia. I will be telling it from a consumer’s point of view. I’m not a doctor, don’t think I am one. All I know is that I’ve been dealing with this illness for about five years and I know firsthand what it is like to live with it.
I wanted to do a whole introductory post, but when I logged onto my netscape account an article caught my attention and I thought I would share it with you.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/schizophrenia/the-stigma-of-schizophrenia.aspx?xid=aol_eh-emo_2_20120312_&aolcat=HLT&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl14%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D144272
I will also post the main point I want to get across about this article in case you don’t feel like reading the whole thing:
And I quote: “A recent survey undertaken in 2008 by NAMI reveals the depth of the stigma surrounding schizophrenia. While the survey found that 85 percent of people understand schizophrenia is a medical illness, and most of those people recognize treatment can enable people with schizophrenia to live independently, there were some dismaying results:
Only 43 percent of respondents said they would tell their friends if they had schizophrenia.
Twenty-seven percent admitted that they might be embarrassed if a family member had the illness.”
So my questions for you relatad to this first of many Schizable blog entries are these.
1. Are you on the Schizophrenia Spectrum?
2. Would you be embarrassed if a family member had the illness?
Thank you for reading this.
-Shadowrunner81
Comments (23)
They say I’m schizoaffective bipolar type, but I’m not. I don’t have anything but temper tantrums due to a lack of emotion or the oddness of it. It was disturbing at first. I recently had an IQ test, which helped my self-esteem. I only scored a 116, but I was just happy that I broke 100. That was my goal. Do you know your IQ? I’ve been asking everyone.
1. I don’t think so
2. No
I don’t know much about it, though.
I look forward to your other posts on this as I think it’ll be good to educate people, including myself.
1. I am getting close.
2. No way, I would own it.
@Colorsofthenight - I do but I don’t share it with people. Is your lack of emotions due to the medication(s) you take?
@Megabyyte - It is a seriously misunderstood illness. There will be posts about it so keep an eye out every once in a while.
@Crying_In_Color - If you ever need to talk about it feel free to message me. If you really think you are ‘getting close’ then I would suggest seeing a licensed psychiatrist.
1. nah.
2. of course not.
why are people afraid to admit they have an illness? it’s not like it can usually (if at all?) be helped, right? I would even think it would help people to better understand why one is who they are. I don’t know, though.
Interesting post, though. Makes me want to learn more.
@Stephnalamx - “why are people afraid to admit they have an illness?” Read the article.
1) not as far as I know
2) no, I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I would probably learn all I could about it if a family member I cared about had the illness.
However, what most people know about schizophrenia is frightening, like serious epilepsy can be frightening to those who aren’t used to it. Cancer is frightening and was stigmatized for years. Knowledge and understanding beat out fear. It helps to raise awareness.
1. I am not
2. I am not sure, I haven’t been put in a situation like that yet.
1. No
2. After taking a few minutes to research this.. not at all. I have a curious personality and I love to interact with people. I wouldn’t be embarrassed for anyone because I spent half my life being embarrassed about myself. There’s no reason to waste time being embarrassed about those who you love.
1. I haven’t been formally diagnosed with anything, but I display a lot of symptoms of a lot of disorders– I’m frankly a little hesitant to jump into relating myself to any of these disorders because I don’t want to be defined by them, and I think that a lot of time diagnosis is kind of ‘arbitrary’ in some ways, but I do relate to a lot of the (mostly negative) symptoms of schizophrenia, to answer your question with far too many words!
2. I’m not sure whether I could say I’d be embarrassed or not. I wouldn’t be ashamed of them personally, but I do know that society would probably judge me and my family for it needlessly, so I probably would act and feel in a way that could be interpreted as “embarrassed.” I don’t judge it so harshly myself, if that’s what you were getting at.
I mostly bring up the vague connotations of embarrassment in myself because people who responded to the study you mentioned might have felt similarly unsure– I do agree there is a lot of stigma surrounding schizophrenia, but I’d be careful interpreting a lot of these percentages. For instance, “Nearly half of those polled wouldn’t want to date a schizophrenic person, even if the person was in treatment” is vague to me– they could have asked this in so many different ways that mean very different things.
Interestingly enough, I’ve actually always thought that schizophrenia was one of the disorders society thought was “cool.” Obviously that kind of reputation isn’t necessarily helpful in getting treatment, either, and is probably based on a lot of misinformation, but I haven’t really encountered many people who look down on schizophrenics. Maybe I just hang out with too many wanna-be psychologists
Being one of those wanna-be psychologists myself, feel free to message me whenever if you want to talk about your experiences and thoughts on this– I’d write you a book on it if it wasn’t socially unacceptable to do so!
@BlobOfGoo - In answer to #1. The negative symptoms of Schizophrenia are nasty. Avolition being the worst. That’s the one that causes people to just do nothing for their entire adult life after it sets in. I’ve read that there are a couple of medications that help with the negative symptoms, but they’re the ones that are so difficult to treat. I mean, how do you research negative symptoms?
In answer to #2. I think that’s the point of the article. Society(be they distant relatives or neighbors or coworkers), DOES judge you by what kind of illnesses you have. So say you have autism, then society applies all their thoughts and, perhaps, misconceptions about autism onto you without even knowning you. The same is true for Schizophrenia. After I write the introductory post about myself and my personal experiences then I’m going to write a blog about how society has misconstrued Schizophrenia.
Oh and don’t worry about writing a lot, you bring a valuable perspective and I like to hear what people have to say about the illness.
Well Im no Doctor either I do know a little about it, I never give up a good chance to learn!
I wish you well with the treatment and management.
Its only through the spread of awareness that we can hope to eventually find cures. Good luck!
@Shakes_the_Barley - Thanks for the well wishes. Always appreciated. And welcome to the site!
1. No, but I have issues most people I know wouldn’t care to understand like my social anxiety and swings of deep depression. I spent many years judging myself because I didn’t feel normal. Then I learned about it and continue to deal with it. It all has to do with psychology and I enjoy reading about things like that.
2. I have absolutely no reason to be ashamed or embaressed if someone I knew was dealing with schizophrenia. I’d enjoy learning about it, the only issue I would have is my fear of asking questions in the sense that I wouldn’t want to offend. I would have never known if you hadn’t told me or posted about it, but all the same I don’t know you in person. All the same, it doesn’t change who you are to me.
@specialxplaces - Those kinds of things are why I hope that group therapy helps. Maybe if it works for you I’ll give it a try. And I am becoming more vocal about the illness and how it affects me as I see so many misconceptions about it.
Yeah, I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one. I have yet to actually sign myself up out of fear but I’ll come around soon enough. What kind of misconceptions make you uneasy? It’s all good to talk about it when you don’t let it consume you as a person. I did that, oops.
@specialxplaces - The main one I’ll address in a future Schizable post is the idea that people with schizophrenia are violent maniacs. I’ll be the first one to admit that when I was growing up I thought that ‘crazy=bates motel shower murderer’. It’s just not true.
It’s how the media stereotypes it I think and how they incorperate the illness into tv shows like criminal minds. People like to blow things up to avoid people who are simply more complex than others.
How very odd. I thought I’d pop in to check out a fellow Goonie, only to discover you have another thing in common with me. Sort of….I take care of a schizophrenic. I’ve never seen this show, A Brilliant Mind, but I will say that he is extremely brilliant.
It’s funny, because I’m not a nurse or some sort of professional in this field, (I just so theatre), but his family felt I was the perfect match. I don’t really know what that says about me, but I completely understand the tangents his mind travels to. His is a brilliant mind. It’s so weird that there is a movie of the same name, because that is how I always refer to him. He is extremely well-read and we have very lively debates as he is a Progressive and I am a Conservative.
He is not medicated, so it is what it is. I also meet very interesting people whilst in his company……
@Kellsbella - Ah you added some since the original comment. I know that TV and doctors and nurses use the term ‘Schizophrenic’, but I would really appreciate it if, on this site, you would say ‘person with schizophrenia’ or ‘person on the schizophrenia spectrum’. This isn’t anything personal, I just very strongly believe in person first language. I don’t identify myself as ‘schizophrenic’. Saying that implies that my illness is all I am. Does that make sense? This will be the topic of a future Schizable post.
And just so I don’t seem like a downer, this site is always welcome to a fellow fan of the goonies.
@Shadowrunner81 - No, it doesn’t make sense for me. Then again, if you’re getting down to the semantics of labeling someone, I suppose it is logical in that you want an individual to have a broader interpretation of himself. I’m probably not making a lick o sense.