National Schizophrenia awareness day

Today marks National Schizophrenia awareness day, a cause which we feel a strong need to spread visibility on

Worldwide, around 24 million people are currently diagnosed with schizophrenia, in the UK it is over 685,000 people with the condition approximately 1% of the population.

This number may not appear to be very high, but it is perceptions like this which lead to a lot of people’s misunderstandings about Schizophrenia since not a lot of people understand the condition very well.

As a result, there are a lot of misconceptions relating to the condition due to most people’s general misunderstanding here is just a few.

Confusion between schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder (DID)

One of the biggest misunderstandings is people believing the 2 conditions to be the same when they are not very similar at all the confusion comes from the belief that people affected will hear voices in their head due to hallucinations which is not the same as DID. Though it is true that both conditions can originate from childhood trauma but DID is not known to be hereditary and someone with DID’s children would not have an increased chance of getting the condition.

The belief that schizophrenia makes people violent

This is completely false, people with schizophrenia can act unpredictable at times but this is not necessarily mean violent as a matter of fact a lot of people with the condition are victims of violence themselves, due to people interpreting their actions as violet when they are not.   

It’s the parents’ fault  

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that has many causes and blaming one issue alone for the condition would be disingenuous. Schizophrenia is commonly caused by a person’s genes, past trauma or drug abuse. With that being said you are not destined to get the condition if your family has a history with the condition but will have an increased risk of developing it due to the gene that caused it being present in the parent and is by no means guaranteed. As such in most cases no one is to blame for the condition’s development.

They are uncontrollable and need to be in a hospital

Due to the perception that people with schizophrenia are dangerous it’s not uncommon for people to think it’s untreatable or that they need constant supervision by a mental health hospital. This of course is false and many people with schizophrenia when provided with the proper treatment go on to lead full and successful lives and do not need to be confined to a hospital.

It can be cured

This misconception largely stems from how if someone is getting the correct treatment for the condition, they will have no visual signs that they have schizophrenia which could lead people to believe that there is a cure. Though research is constantly being done on the topic but as of yet there is no way to cure schizophrenia.

Want to know more then about the condition then you can learn more on the NHS website by following the link: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/schizophrenia/overview/