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Alesha Hall Mr. Willett English 12 (B) 3 16 April 2013 Schizophrenias Misconceptions Twenty-one year old Alasia has to deal with the constant fear of having distorted thoughts and hallucinations during class at the university. Some last several minutes others last several hours. She has already failed two of her classes because the professors did not understand. She looks around at all of the faces of the classmates and her eyes well up with tears. Her disorder causes her to be frightened and paranoid not only of the disorder itself but of what others think as well. Alasia has been diagnosed with what is known as being a Paranoid Schizophrenia. Many people do not support this being an actual disorder of the brain, simply because they do not understand what it does and how it affects a person. They think that the reason why people act the way they do during these episodes is because that person is on drugs or under some sort of heavy medication. This is completely false. Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that causes people to have hallucinations, it causes thought disruptions and it can even cause memory loss. There are obvious signs that a person has this disorder when they get a CAT scan and a person can clearly see that the brain of a diagnosed patient is much different than a normal brain. There are also four different types of Schizophrenia; paranoid, disorganized, catatonic and undifferentiated. What people need to realize is Schizophrenia is a real disorder and people deal with real symptoms every single day. Schizophrenia can cause hallucinations. These can range from visual hallucinations to auditory to olfactory, tactile, and gustatory hallucinations. The visual hallucinations can be a

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range of seeing anything. Many people think they are seeing something such as a bug on them and it is not really there. Auditory hallucinations are known as the person hearing things that are not really being said/ heard. All forms of these hallucinations work together to make the person believe that the action whatever it may be is actually happening. Olfactory hallucinations are a different type in which a person thinks that he/she smells some sort of odor that is not really there. Tactile hallucinations are things that people literally feel on them. They may feel like something or someone is touching them, however nothing is there. Gustatory hallucinations are the kind where people think they have already eaten but really have not. These hallucinations can be caused by lesions on the brain. Brain lesions are not anything to mess around about. They can cause anything from a simple headache to extreme hallucinations of all types (Types 2). There are four types of Schizophrenia; paranoid, disorganized, catatonic and undifferentiated. Paranoid is characterized by delusions and auditory hallucinations (hearing voices that don't exist) but relatively normal intellectual functioning and expression of affect. The delusions can often be about being persecuted unfairly or being some other person who is famous. People with paranoid-type schizophrenia can exhibit anger, aloofness, anxiety, and argumentativeness. Disorganized is characterized by speech and behavior that are disorganized or difficult to understand, and flattening or inappropriate emotions. People with disorganizedtype schizophrenia may laugh at the changing color of a traffic light or at something not closely related to what they are saying or doing. Their disorganized behavior may disrupt normal activities, such as showering, dressing, and preparing meals. Catatonic is characterized by disturbances of movement. People with catatonic-type schizophrenia may keep themselves completely immobile or move all over the place. They may not say anything for hours, or they may repeat anything you say or do senselessly. Either way, the behavior is putting these people

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at high risk because it impairs their ability to take care of themselves. Undifferentiated is characterized by some symptoms seen in all of the above types but not enough of any one of them to define it as another particular type of schizophrenia (Schizophrenia 1). The interesting thing is everyone learns that most mental disorders either happen during birth or during old age. This disorder however can creep up on any individual at any time. They even call it the disorder cancer because similar to cancer a person can contract schizophrenia at any time in their life (Board 1). There are many people who try and argue the fact that Schizophrenia is not a real disorder and people who claim to have it are just using it as a scapegoat. They seem to think that a person just simply wants to stop doing what they are doing and claim to have a medical condition. They use this assumption to try and argue the fact that this disease is nothing more than just a drug induced brain misconnection. Anonymous source at Western Michigan University Yeah the people do not understand that these schizophrenic things are one hundred percent false and the people who have these symptoms were just partying too hard the night before. A study was conducted in 2011 asking students at this university if they personally thought Schizophrenia was a real disorder. Over seventy-five percent of them said they did not think it was a legit disease or disorder of the brain simply because the symptoms all seem drug related (Schizophrenia 2). This is false. Schizophrenia is a real disorder and should be recognized by everyone as a real disorder. Computed Tomography Scan or CAT scans are one way doctors diagnose Schizophrenia. The way they do this is by looking at what parts of the brain are active. It has actually been proven that parts of the brain have actually been damaged during Schizophrenic episodes (Modeling 1). As doctor Paul Thompson, Ph.D describes The damage in schizophrenia

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appears specific to two basic areas: the parietal cortex and the frontal lobe. The parietal cortex is located just above the temple area by the ears; its the part of the brain that makes sense of what we hear, see, taste or touch, essentially, our sensory experience. We know about differences in function between a normal parietal cortex and a damaged one from people who have suffered brain trauma. They cant make sense of what something is. They may be given an apple or an orange, and they can see it and touch it, but they cant name it or understand its purpose. The frontal lobe helps us organize our lives, go to work, analyze information and make decisions. This area of the brain is where teenagers have the most developmental changes a process of pruning excess cells and streamlining brain function until it reaches its adult form around age 25. This reshaping process seems to go profoundly awry in young people with schizophrenia. Instead of healthy pruning, you see massive loss of brain tissue. Because the frontal cortex is also the part of the brain that prevents you from doing things that are rash, a result of this damage is that people with schizophrenia may behave in a bizarre way; they may shout in public or react in an exaggerated way to minor upsets. Ten percent of schizophrenia patients die by suicide. This proves the people who seem to think that this is not a real disease wrong. It is a real thing and deserves to be treated like one. Schizophrenia is a real disorder and it affects real people. It causes stress and resentment to people who have it. It causes hallucinations ranging around all parts of the body. There are also four different types of it and they all have their different symptoms. It is hard to tell what person has what type without going to a doctor, so just by having one symptom a person may or may not have this disease but they should be looked at by a doctor. People around the world could contract this disease at any point in their lives. CAT scans prove that it is a brain disorder and that it is a real deal sort of thing. These patients are not making their symptoms up simply

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because they are strung out on something. What others need to realize is Schizophrenia can happen to anyone and it should not be made a mochary of.