Symptoms

Early symptoms are sometimes hard for families to find in their family members. Many things are very similar to depression. The person may lose a lot of weight very quickly. The person may also sleep either a lot more or a lot less than they normally do, they also may withdraw from social events even with their family and friends. They may have troubles concentrating like in school or during work.

The later symptoms are very obvious to the person and people that are around them. The person will probably suffer from hallucinations, they may be delusional; they may see things that are not there as if the person were on hallucinogenic drugs but in fact they are not. They may have bizarre thoughts and may have inappropriate actions. Confused speech, attention or memory problems and may be lacking contact with reality.
Many people who do drugs like LSD(acid), mushrooms, ecstasy, or things that may make you hallucinate may have some of these symptoms and may eventually develop schizophrenia.
Symptoms usually first show up at different times but it is usually around late teenage to early adult ages. Even though anyone can get schizophrenia it usually develops more quickly in men than in women. It is not a rare disease in fact about one in every one hundred people get this and about 24 million people have it around the world.

Why I choose Schizophrenia!

I choose Schizophrenia because I have always wanted to learn more about it. My cousin Mike is schizophrenic and I always worry about him because I know he isnt doing very well. My family and him were always close but now i hear stories about him because his mom, my aunt, passed away not very long ago so they call my mom when he gets into trouble. He is having difficulty remembering to take his medication and he cant keep a job for very long so he doesn't have a place to live. The last time I heard anything about him a police station in Des Monies called my mom because they had arrested him for sleeping in a church and he refused to sign the papers so he could get out because he said that as long as he was there he had food and a bed to sleep in and that was better than the street. I also know that ever since his mom passed away he has been into a lot of drugs which scares me because i know that he could be in a lot of trouble and I know he doesn't have the money to have a place to live but he needs help and my mom wont help him because he goes crazy once in a while he doesn't know what it going on and she doesn't have the patients to deal with him all of the time. I basically just wanted to know exactally why he is the way he is and how I could help or if I even could help.