Schizophrenia

[carnation]

OMG. A friend I hadn't heard from in awhile was filling me in on what former acquaintances were doing and...

There was a set of fraternal twins we knew at the U of Arkansas. The girls were fabulous. They were easily the most desirable PNMs of the year and all the sororities fought over them. They continued being outstanding--one was president of their sorority and the other was yearbook editor and they made every honor society possible. They had stellar careers.

So my friend said that a few years ago, one of the twins stabbed her children to death and then killed herself. The other one, a few years prior, had tried to kill herself and her sons with an overdose. The twins were schizophrenic. All the people who knew and loved them were shocked--as one guy said, "If it happened to them, it could happen to any of us." Too true.

I'm about to go do some research on schizophrenia because I want to know--can it really sneak up on you and hardly any of your friends realize it? Or is it there from birth? Can a person live a normal life when medicated? I mean, these women were so wonderful, so loved.

[KillarneyRose]

That is so tragic, for all involved

[valkyrie]

I used to work at a residential treatment facility for adults with mental illness, and almost all of my clients had schizophrenia. It seemed that, more often than not, symptoms appeared at some point in a person's 20s or so -- and really, that freaked me out because I was in my 20s and thought wow, this could happen to me.

My clients were in residential treatment because they couldn't live on their own, although it wasn't a locked facility so they could come and go as they pleased. Most were heavily medicated, and several had Parkinson's-like symptoms as a side effect of the medication.

[luvtoscrap]

I had a friend in college that was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in her early thirties. She was also active in a number of organizations in college but could never afford a membership in a GLO. However, there was something always off about her in college. She displayed maladaptive coping techniques for stress and personality traits while we were in school. She also had a lot of great qualities about her too-one of the reasons why I really liked her. At the time, I just shrugged the negative off to people being different and grewing up in a bad family situation since her mother struggled to support her and her sister in a single-parent household. (Let us all be thankful that attitudes have changed since I was in college regarding single-parent households. ) But like I said she didn't start hearing the voices until she was about 33. When we meet for lunch after her diagnosis and a long hospital stay (we lived in separate parts of the country after school) she did tell me that her uncle on her dad's side of the family also had schizophrenia and her dad had a serious drinking problem. While I was not shocked at her mental illness-I was surprised.

[Rudey]

If I'm in a fight, I pretend I'm a schizo!

-Rudey
--Nothing scares people like a crazy guy who wants to eat your insides!

[PsychTau2]

Carnation...

WOW!!! How awful!!!

Yes, schizophrenia usually shows it's symptoms in your 20's, but it could manifest later as well. There's a well-believed theory that if you have the genetic predisposition to schizophrenia, you won't show symptoms until your late teens/early 20s...for some reason it just hangs out and waits (probably due to changing hormones and neurotransmitters). Some theorize that you can have the genetic markers for it but never develop the symptoms because you just never make it to that "stress/trauma" threshold.

And then there are different types of schizophrenia with different severities and different responses to medication. You'll find a lot in your search.

Question: Did these killings happen in Arkansas? If so, let me know the names and when it happened...I'm curious if I remember hearing about this or not. (You can PM me). Obviously if it wasn't in the media you don't have to reveal who they are.

PsychTau

[bluefish81]

One of the families that my family is good friends with has two schizophrenic sons. Oddly of their four boys, it's the oldest and the youngest.
The oldest was diagnosed when he was a senior in high school (I was about 7). It shocked everyone - he was an amazing athlete, had a 4.0, took everyone by suprise.
The youngest, also quite smart (who is two years older than me) was diagnosed my freshman year of college. He also went to Iowa State and ended up dropping out right before the end of his junior year. Of the two of them, he seems to have, for lack of better term, a 'better handle' on it. He's a lot more functional than his older brother, but he's changed so much it's unreal. His parents purchased a house for him (across the street from them) however his older brother, still lives at home.

Carnation, that is truly awful to hear about your acquaintances.

[AChiOAlumna]

I worked in an outpatient clinic for adults with chronic mental illness. Schizophrenic clients made up a large part of my caseload. Usually the onset of Schizophrenia tends to occur in 20's to early 30's. If a family member has Schizophrenia, then the genetic component could be passed down through the generations, but again, the onset wouldn't be seen until early adulthood.

[MooseGirl]

my mother has schizophrenia. i don't know when exactly she was diagnosed, but I know I started noticing it when I was in grade four (so she was about 33). Her aunt also had it, so we think it does run in the family, so i'm just waiting til I go crazy. (actually my theory is that it runs through the men so in that case i won't get it)
I guess i'm the only one in my family who hasn't dealt with this - i was the one always home with her, experiencing her fits the most, so other than my mom, i was the one most affected by it.

She's been on medication for years now, and believes she's been healed by god, but i feel that's a bunch of bull. She just can't think like she used to and comes up withthe silliest notions. fortunately she's found another crazy and they got married a couple years ago, so at least she's not alone.
I'm trying to estrange myself from her, but it's hard when we go to the same family events.

from my knowledge, most schizophrenics aren't violent towards others, just themselves on occasion. i don't think my mother was ever suicidal, depressed, but not suicidal. But, I've heard that if you have one mental illness, you are likely to have others. (my mother was also manic depressive).

[sugar and spice]

I believe that usually the symptoms emerge in the late teens/early 20s, although they can show up at any time. Most of the time there's a family history of it, so that can indicate whether or not you should be watching out for it.

I believe that if you take medication regularly, you can live a pretty normal life -- however, a number of schizophrenics either don't want to acknowledge how the disease can screw up their lives or, because of symtoms of the disease, decide that they don't want to (i.e., paranoid schizophrenics might decide the medication is actually poison). One of my friends is schizophrenic and stopped taking his medication about six months after he was diagnosed. He's had a few setbacks but those tapered off. His behavior is never violent, merely irrational. I'm pretty sure he could be one of those 99 percent functional types if he was on his meds, but short of an intervention there is little we can do to get him to take them, and with no obvious manifestations of the disease in the past year, I doubt he'd take an intervention seriously.

[BirthaBlue4]

I think I mentioned it before somewhere, but my uncle has paranoid schizophrenia. He took a while to diagnose because he's intelligent and always beat the tests. They finally were able to diagose it I think back in the late 90s (he would have been in his 30s).

Its so scary to watch, because his "episodes" for lack of a better term will come out of the clear blue sky and then go just as quickly. He was also doing drugs at the time, and when he got off of them, and started to calm down, and go to church more and sometimes take medictaion, he was ok. His triggers are extreme stress about something.

Its sad because I remember as a child I LOVED seeing him when he came home from the Marines. Then it became scary to see him pull up. He thinks the government has him under surveillance and is out to get him. He's tried to file lawsuits and all! Its a mess.

OMG, I almost forgot! My aunt and I stopped to ask this lady directions and she starts to go on about how the NSA is running experiments on her neighbors, giving them cancer through rays they shoot from the powerlines. She said they then tried to put her under surveillance through the color TV, but she found out and got a black and white one, which they can't use. And the reason the space shuttle Columbia blew up was because the NSA has a cap on the sky, and they forgot to open up the sky that day. to top that off she had on her "protective hat" that was a styrofoam thing covered in foil, topped with three ski hats, all help down with a head band. that keeps them from getting in her brain. Its was sad.

[carnation]

Well, I've really scoured the Web. It's unthinkable that a disease can take over people with no warning, people who in their twenties and thirties have started families and successful careers, people from good families as well as highly dysfunctional ones. I was looking at my old UA yearbooks and there the twins were on every other page--sorority president, yearbook editor, Angel Flight, Chimes, Cardinal Key, Mortar Board, ODK. Everyone wanted them on their committees because they were such good, strong workers.

It's scary that you really don't even have any protection from schizophrenia, there being no vaccine, of course, and I suppose there's no cure, only medication. And some people never get the right dose and can never function in society.

[AGDee]

If you think about it, there are many diseases like this... diabetes, Crohn's Disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis. We tend to take our health for granted until something pops up. This includes our mental health.

When I was working on my masters in Clinical Psych, the stats they quoted us were these (in reference to schizophrenia): 1/3 recover spontaneously, 1/3 respond to meds, 1/3 don't respond to any treatment. I would guess that the last category is probably a bit smaller now because there are new advances and new medications each year, but there is still a core group who don't respond to anything. It is truly sad for those who suffer from it, because there is such a social stigma about mental illness.

[ragtimerose]

Not schizophrenic, but I do have bipolar disorder (aka "manic depression"), and take a medication which is also used to treat schizophrenia.

I seem to have a pretty good handle on it since I started therapy and meds. It must have manifested itself when I was a teenager, but I wasn't diagnosed until two and a half years ago. What moosegirl said about symptoms coexisting is quite common; I also have panic disorder and agoraphobia which coexist with my bipolar symptoms.

My sister said she noticed a difference since I sought help. She thinks I'm a whole new person. I feel like one.

I'm wondering if Tom Cruise has a chemical imbalance...

[christiangirl]

You'd find more info in a psych. textbook rather than the net, everything's so conflicting here. Check if your school library has a copy of the DSM-IV, that'll give you the accurate answers that you need.