I don’t think that’s what schizophrenia is but it might be a contributor to this condition. It could also be a cycle of “what’s causing what?”. Is the schizophrenia being caused by poor self care, or do people with schizophrenia have poor self care.
Are schizophrenic (psychosis-spectrum) symptoms just a means to deal with deprivation from basic human needs?
Obviously, the propensity towards schizophrenia is largely considered to be genetic. But what exactly provokes the illness?
Point 1: Sleep deprivation provokes psychotic symptoms in people.
In fact, it can and will provoke psychotic symptoms in healthy people after multiple days have passed.
Point 2: Unhealthy nutrition predicts schizophrenia.
Prenatal malnutrition - 2x risk of schizophrenia (although this is a risk factor for many things)
Low childhood BMI - 2.3x risk of psychosis later
Low D and folate - common in first episode psychosis
Point 3: Sensory deprivation provokes hallucinations.'
This also happens in healthy people because the brain constantly expects reliable input signals. So we can assume that unhealthy people fail to interpret their signals for some reason - whether it's organic damage or something in their environment.
Point 4: Denial of one's own painful reality.
There's an old theory on the origin of schizophrenia - the schizophrenogenic mother - a cold dominant parent aiming to control her child's behavior.
The idea of a schizophrenogenic mother emerged from 11 families taking part in the research of schizophrenia and they had a few points in common:
* The child’s feelings or experiences were denied
* Contact with outsiders was restricted
* Strict, contradictory rules were enforced
At the same time, MMPI scale 8, one that aimed to measure the test-taker's schizophrenia, found that it doesn't only correlate to schizophrenia, but also emotional abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, constant destruction of one's self-worth. (as well as some brain damage and genetic factors)
In a way, an abusive environment can mimic point 3: sensory deprivation, a lack of signals the person can comprehend. Likewise, people who suffered through loneliness as a child are much likelier to experience hallucinations later on.
>I don’t think that’s what schizophrenia is but it might be a contributor to this condition.
Schizophrenia is less so a singular condition and more like a spectrum of psychotic symptoms, which can indeed be caused by many contributing factors. It is well known that 2 people that do not share any symptoms can be both diagnosed with schizophrenia. Of course, genetics, epigenetics (which is a really fun topic, thread worthy tbh) and especially environment all contribute to this.
I've noticed in my personal experience that schizos just tend to have really fucked up life history, which lead me to the conclusion in OP post, even if it kinda ended up sounding really silly. (I was just typing shit up for fun tbh) It would be nice if there was more awareness about this, ie something like "many people with schizophrenia are just like us, but with very different and maladaptive coping mechanisms like psychosis"
> Is the schizophrenia being caused by poor self care, or do people with schizophrenia have poor self care.
It's very hard to take care of yourself when you're that fucked up, don't even need to be a schizophrenic to do so. Just fighting inner demons is enough. (but obv these factors affect each other mutually, poor self-care reinforces negative emotions)
You'll find that when someone's schizophrenia reemerges, their environment's cleanliness will drop drastically.
One weird but fun fact:
Immigrants suffer higher rates of psychosis
>Disturbingly, evidence gathered from Western nations suggests that immigrants experience psychosis at rates two to five times higher than non-immigrants.
>There is compelling evidence for an association between this kind of racial discrimination and psychosis.
>More modern analyses of immigrant cohorts have revealed that this is likely due to the stress of integrating into a new culture rather than selection bias of those who decide to move.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-04-immigrants-higher-psychosis.html#jCp
This also shows how powerful self-identity is, I guess, and why people cling to it so much. There's quite a few conclusions that can be made from this, either way it's interesting.
It depends how damaged the individual's brain is, heavy cases, yeah, not likely they're ever going to be their old selves again. Once again, schizophrenia is a spectrum and I've seen a lot of people that can be helped, it's just that it's beyond most people's abilities. Remission is a thing that happens - schizophrenics are able to recover, just like someone with PTSD is, even if they fall back to old symptoms occasionally. John Nash is a good example and many schizophrenics have normal jobs. Schizophrenia may rewire brains, but the person can still adapt, assuming there wasn't too much damage.
I would also argue that a lot of facilities for helping schizophrenics and other mentally ill individuals are actually often traumatic and medication is largely used to manage symptoms, not so much to heal. According to my thesis, the real healing would be to give the person what they lack. So I wouldn't use people in the system as a reference point - those who were "healed" don't stay there anyways.
It's just a hypothesis, based on a few observations. Like sleep deprivation causes psychosis even in healthy people. We don't know for sure what the cause really is, yeah.
I just prefer to assume that people (and organisms) act to the best of their ability and knowledge in every scenario and that even stupid or harmful actions have a purpose. So even psychosis must have a purpose. That's my philosophy.
Yeah now in hindsight I realized this was actually the very mainstream consensus, but not usually talked about or even focused on treatment-wise. (the priority is still mostly medicamental treatment)
Boring, but most people don't know this stuff apparently so maybe posting about it isn't so bad for awareness.
