Schizophrenia: Can You Make A Recovery?

Can you recover from schizophrenia?

Most people believe that you cannot recover at all from schizophrenia. While it is true that not everyone can recover completely; there are still people who are able to lead rather normal lives compared to those who do not go through life with this disorder.

But first, what is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental disorder that impaires a person’s ability to function in every-day tasks, thought processes and feelings. It is a complete breakdown of reality, causing difficulty in distinguishing what is actually real and what is imaginary. Contrary to popular belief, most people diagnosed with this disorder are not violent and do not pose a danger to others.

Ok, so, what are some of the symptoms then?

And before i list some of those off, please do keep in mind that if you exhibit some of these that does not mean you have schizophrenia. That is for a trained psychologist to diagnose.

Here are some of the more common symptoms:

Delusions: false beliefs held strongly despite outside evidence that makes these beliefs invalid (an example would be paranoia)
Hallucinations: can be visual or plainly auditory (like hearing voices)
Disorganized speech: usually occurs as fragmented sentences that have absolutely no correlation to each other
Extremely disorganized behavior: an abnormal condition characterized by over-flexibility of limbs and mania together

Often people diagnosed with schizophrenia fall out of jobs and get put out onto the street, unable to get proper help to deal with these symptoms they are going through. People with less severe forms may choose not to seek proper help, which can still often land them in the homeless communities, being unable to work as their condition worsens.

So can they recover?

Most doctors nowadays do believe people can recover from schizophrenia. The prime age for developing symptoms lands people between the ages of 18 and 26. Depending on how well people diagnosed were able to function before the mental disorder become known also aids in how easily they are able to recover.

Generally, if a person was functioning fine before noticing symptoms, with the proper medication and settings a full recovery can be made. Even people with severe symptoms can make a full recovery, or near full recovery from this disorder.