In your own words, can you describe what a person suffering from schizophrenia would be like?

From what I’ve seen, it may be like living life inside a Franz Kalfka novel. Everything distorted by an over riding paranoia of everything.

I feel my dad was schizophrenic, though he refused to go get diagnosed. We talked to a psychologist (my mom, brother and I) about him and the doctor suspected it might be something like that. My dad had delusions that people were spying on him, that they were trying to actively ruin his life. He had problems communicating effectively with the family and was often wrapped up in his own I remember one dinner where no one was talking for several minutes and suddenly my dad just said “No.”. When asked “no, what?” he refused to say. I was often the go-between between my father and the rest of the family. I guess since I was the youngest I was the least threatening. He had great distrust of my mom, often voicing the opinion that she was out to make sure he never succeeded. He never got treatment, never sought help. Eventually he became functional, though at a much lower level than he had been before. He still maintained his delusions though. He once told me…decades after the onset of the delusions…that he was having trouble sleeping. When I asked why, he told me “they” put a manhole cover in the road and made sure it was loose. And now they drive over it all night just to keep him awake. When I asked if they had just done road work, he said they had not. So his belief was that 10 years or more before, the last time that manhole cover was touched, “they” purposely put it in loosely knowing that eventually they would get him right into that apartment so they could drive over it to keep him awake.
Other effects I noticed were things like a failure to be able to recognize financial realities. He couldn’t get or hold a job, and mom was working 3 jobs to try keeping things together. But he had to go out and buy a very expensive leather attache case because he was sure it was the lack of that which was keeping him unemployed. He didn’t recognize we didn’t have the money for that and resented my mother for not supporting him in his decision.
So I guess some of the traits or symptoms of schizophrenia, as I see them, are delusions, paranoia, inability to communicate effectively, inability to acknowledge reality.

I have only known one person in my life with schizophrenia. He was rather introverted and awkward. I know he was on meds and had a loving family that supported him. That’s all I can say as it’s the only true experience I have had.

@kritiper Your comment has nothing to do with a person suffering from this serious mental illness.

A relative of mine is schizophrenic. He hears voices and has hallucinations and is at times, violent – mainly against himself and physical objects. Meds help but at times he resists taking them. He is in his twenties and living at home and it is very tough him and others. Tragic.

@janbb A schizophrenic is suffering for one of more split personalities. What he/she appears to be/say may be something else from moment to moment, or day to day. I think my comment is spot on considering the OP said “in your own words.”

@kritiper “A schizophrenic(sic) is suffering for one of more split personalities”
N O T
Dissociative disorder / split personality is not schizophrenia ! ! You missed taking or skipped your psychology classes.

It really depends on how severe their schizophrenia is at the time I might be meeting the person. Some people hear voices, and they realize the voices aren’t real, and they can kind of fake their way through a day and I might have no idea they are schizophrenic. Same with if they have paranoia, often accompanied by schizophrenia, they may be able to control their paranoia enough that the general public has no idea.

If they are having a very bad episode, they might be what people stereotype as very “crazy.” Hearing voices, talking back to the voices, very afraid of many things, and having trouble interacting with other people. They might be somewhat delusional as well. They might cower and keep to themselves, or they might lash out, but in my experience they tend to keep to themselves more.

Their medication, if they are on medication, can have side effects also that can effect how they act and interact.

I have no expectation at all when I meet someone diagnosed with schizophrenia, just like any individual I meet, I wait until I meet them to get to know them.

Not a clue.

I have known a few schizophrenics, but only one man very well.
It seems individual personalities make a bit of difference in how the condition presents.

I don’t know if it presents more in men, or if men are more likely to discuss it, or if men are more likely to be diagnosed, but I have never known a woman to say she was schizophrenic.
The first man I met didn’t talk much about it. He told me because he didn’t want me to find out later and stop our friendship. He didn’t go into detail. Mostly he said that before he was medicated life was a confusing hell, often scary. He was thrilled with how his medication changed things for him. His perception of family, friends, and events was much friendlier.
I knew later a young man who was very quiet. He was a pretty, little guy, and his meds kept him in some sort of fog. He had very little interaction with others.
I was involved with a man who seemed quite happy and was as functional as any average man. I asked him questions, and he told me what it was like for him. He said unmedicated he would have all sorts of feelings going on that he couldn’t sort out. He said he couldn’t tell friends from enemies, and things seemed dark. He felt he had to fight his way past everything. He said he experienced voices even when he was medicated, but on medication he knew they weren’t real, and he could resist them. He told me the voices didn’t trust me, and wanted him to hurt me. That was scary, but his behavior towards me was kind, protective, fun, and so I trusted him. After a time, he stopped taking his meds. I can see why some believe schizophrenia is a division of personalities. He became another man entirely. He didn’t seem to recognize me, in that although he knew my name, he raged, and made all sorts of accusations about my motives. He treated me in such ways that if he actually knew me he would not have turned against me so totally. He wept, because he feared virtually everything around him. I tried to get him to take his medication, but he thought I was trying to poison him. I tried several times over a period of days to get him to take his pills, but failed. I kept his pills with me, so he couldn’t throw them away. He ended up being arrested. I saw him eventually again. He was medicated again. He told me he wanted me to stay away from him, because he couldn’t trust himself to stay on his meds. I only saw him one other time after that. He didn’t seem to recognize me. I mourned him as though he had died, because I’m pretty sure the man I’d known was completely gone.
So those are the extremes I’ve known. The others fit somewhere in between.

Until you experienced living with mental illness learn to be compassionate for those that still suffer , for most are living courageously through rough childhoods etc

My late mother had post par-tum depression after having giving birth to ‘Twins” and was unexpected at that time ( 1940 era).Most women suffer this but manage to get over it and better in short while.

Instead Doctors at that time who knew little about her condition prescribed several medications of which are outlawed nowadays.

As a child I would see her very over busy at times trying to run a household of five children of which three under the age of three and two an 8 yr old and 7 yr old child.

My father was always gone , either working or just hanging out with his buddies drinking and also attending to his Boxing club organization. When the older children were in school my sister and I would catch a glimpse of mother sitting at the table in the other room rocking back and forth and just starring at nothing. We lived in poor housing as in the area at that time everyone was economically starving.

It was amazing how my courageous mother could easily focus and get things done and handle emergencies either the flood of our home in rainstorm, and later the house fire of which she got us all out safely plus managed to get our needed belongings out as well. A few years after her death in a nursing facility for the aged I ordered a full report on her entire medical history of which was eye opening !

This poor petite humble woman had gone through 70 years of wild treatments, simply because the medical industry was ignorant and had her on took many drugs that were experimental then.She had shock treatments, far too many which made her very afraid of doctors,medical staff, police, and also her husband who placed her there.

She was soft spoken,petite, humble and always helping those that she met on the way in her life.She was the oldest of five siblings and at the age of 10 or 12 yrs old had to look after her brothers and sisters as her own demanding abusive mother left her to tend to them a lot.

Finally before she went to the aged home she managed on her own to live and manage her apartment, finances ( plus help out family members financially) and was at peace as by then the medical industry caught up with newer meds that helped her a tremendously.

Talking to her doctor he stated that the medical industry does NOT KNOW for sure and is still learning. Mother had been a lab rat for the medical industry until that industry improved.

RIP to my Mother for her bravery in a time when history was behind and she had to live with the pain of side effects for far too long.

At least in the end she was cared for and had little responsibility for others by then.

By the way I don’t think that she even had schizophrenia in the first place but by the end of all those mixed drugs she eventually did..never hallucinations etc just catatonic in earlier years and depressed. But with five kids and a father/husband absent support who wouldn’t crack under that pressure?
( especially with tragic situations to handle too).

It would be like believing Donald Trump is president of the United States and he communicates with me personally through twitter.

My brother was diagnosed as a teenager, but he had hallucinations from a very young age. When he was 5 my mother found him outside in the snow crying. When she asked what was wrong, he said a man was in there killing everyone and there was blood everywhere. Remember, this was back in 1947, before tv or video games.

When he started school the teacher thought he was deaf, because it took him so long to answer. He learned to read, but only one word at a time, so very slowly. He became very fascinated with toy guns and soldiers. At 18 he tried to enlist in the Army, but his diagnosis, plus an evaluation they gave him made him ineligible.

Throughout his life, people noticed his behavior and language was odd. Some even said “you’re crazy”. He replied “Yes, and I’ve got papers to prove it.” He was very kind hearted, and generous. He also did bizarre things, like tear down all the inside walls of a house he bought. He worked at manual labor jobs, and eventually started receiving disability benefits.
He was a heavy smoker, but rarely drank. He died of COPD.

@kritiper
What you speak of is not schizophrenia. That is Dissociative Identity Disorder, or what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder.

@madavmyers consider the reality that schizophrenia.is often mistaken for Disassociative Identity Disorder, or Multiple Personality Disorder.

In addition to the accurate information above. the difficult thing about living with a schizophrenic individual, is getting them to take their medicine. It definitely helps, but sometimes makes them feel a little odd, off, antsy, etc etc.

So, they get off of it and feel better. But soon, they are back thinking in delusions. They more than ever think that they don’t need their meds. They are happier thinking they are being watched, spied against, worked against.

I had a schizophrenic GF once and told her that if it was her choice not to take her meds, I was fine with that as long as she felt safe and secure and comfortable. She very quickly did NOT feel secure or safe. And it’s not just as easy as starting your meds again. Which a schizophrenic then is more headstrong as ever that they don’t need (or trust) their meds, and blame their problems on other circumstances that may or may not be in their lives.