Schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia often exhibit problems in many areas. Some of the most typical signs are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, negative symptoms (such as blunted affect, poverty of speech, and avolition), and disorganized or catatonic behavior. Read on to find out more about these symptoms.

Delusions

Delusions are false beliefs that a person holds on to, despite the fact that there is strong evidence that the beliefs are wrong. People with delusions often believe that a person or a group of people is watching them and wants to hurt them.

Some people with schizophrenia may develop strange ideas about how the world works or may come to believe that they are famous or important people, such as Madonna or the president of the United States. They might believe that other people can read their mind or that someone is planting thoughts in, or stealing thoughts from, their brain.

Delusions are often based on real sensory experiences (experiences of the senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste, or smell) that are misinterpreted. To better understand how this misinterpretation happens, imagine walking into a restaurant. At the same moment that you walk in, a man sitting at the counter begins to cough. Most people would not think twice about this coincidence and might not even notice it at all. A person who is suffering from delusions, however, may not only notice the cough, but may immediately decide that the man coughed to signal other people in the restaurant.

If, shortly after this incident, a woman eating in the restaurant makes a call on her cell phone, the person's delusion might become even more fixed. “Obviously the woman is calling someone to talk about me,” the person thinks. If there is then a sudden power failure in the restaurant, the person thinks, “Obviously the woman on the cell phone was calling the power company to tell it to shut off the power in the restaurant.” To the person suffering from delusions, everything seems to fit together.

Hallucinations

When a person hallucinates, he or she hears, sees, or feels something that is not really there. Many people with schizophrenia experience auditory hallucinations (hearing voices or noises that are not real). Sometimes people with auditory hallucinations hear voices that insult them or tell them what to do. Others might hear voices arguing with each other or might hear their own thoughts being spoken out loud.

Imagine what it would be like to hear voices twenty-four hours a day—voices that will not go away no matter what you do, even if you cover your ears or turn up your stereo really loud. One person with schizophrenia said that having auditory hallucinations is like listening to headphones with the volume on the highest level and not being able to turn it down in order to carry on conversations with people, read, watch TV, or even sleep.

Disorganized Speech

Another common symptom of schizophrenia is disorganized speech. Many people with schizophrenia have loose associations. This means that they leap from one idea to another even though the two ideas are not connected in any logical way. As a result, their speech is often very disorganized and hard for other people to understand.

Other people with disorganized speech may use made-up words that have meaning only to the person using them. Some may repeat the same words or statements over and over again. Still others may use rhyme as a guide to forming thoughts and statements.

Negative Symptoms

Negative symptoms are a group of schizophrenia symptoms that involve losses or deficits (a lower-than-normal amount of something) in certain areas. They include:

Blunted affect. Many people with schizophrenia have blunted affect, or trouble showing emotions. They show less anger, sadness, joy, and other feelings than most people do. They often have poor eye contact (they do not look at you when you speak to them) and their faces do not seem to change much when they interact with other people.

Poverty of speech. Some people with schizophrenia may think and say very little. Because of this, it might seem as if their thoughts are blocked. When asked questions, people with poverty of speech will often give short answers that do not carry much meaning.

Avolition. This refers to a symptom of schizophrenia that leads people to lose motivation to set goals for themselves and work toward these goals. These individuals may have trouble completing tasks at school, work, or home. Even things that seem easy to do may be very hard for a person who suffers from avolition.

Disorganized or Catatonic Behavior

The disorganized behavior of people with schizophrenia is often what leads others to feel afraid of them. Some people with schizophrenia might do bizarre things that are socially inappropriate, such as suddenly shouting or swearing in a public place. Others might show inappropriate affect, such as laughing uncontrollably at a relative's funeral or crying in situations that would usually make someone happy.

People with disorganized behavior often look dirty and disheveled, sometimes wearing light clothing on a cold day or a heavy winter coat and several sweaters on a warm day. People with schizophrenia often have a very hard time taking care of their basic needs, such as bathing, dressing properly, and even eating regularly.

Catatonia is a form of disorganized behavior that causes a person to become completely unaware of and unable to respond to the outside world. If left alone, some people with catatonia may sit motionless for hours. Sometimes a person with catatonia will place his or her body in an awkward, bizarre position (such as standing with arms straight out or balancing in a squatting pose) and will remain that way for hours without moving. Other times people with catatonia show the opposite symptoms, moving around excitedly and uncontrollably and wildly waving their arms or legs or repeating other unusual behaviors.