- Hi, everyone.
In today's video, I'm going to be going over
what the symptoms of schizophrenia are.
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Hi, and welcome back
to the Living Well with Schizophrenia channel.
If you're new here,
my name is Lauren, and I make videos about what it's like
to live with schizoaffective disorder
or schizophrenia.
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All right, so what are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
Basically, they can be divided
into three different categories,
the first one being positive symptoms,
the second being negative symptoms,
and the third being cognitive symptoms.
Now, what I mean when I say positive and negative symptoms
are not, you know, good and bad symptoms,
but moreso positive symptoms are a behavior in addition
that someone experiences as a result of schizophrenia,
and negative symptoms are the removal of a behavior
as a result of schizophrenia.
All right, so I'm going to be talking
about positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms
in this video.
I think before we get into positive symptoms, though,
it's probably important
to give a definition of what psychosis is.
Psychosis is loss of contact with the external reality,
and psychosis can be a part of other mental illnesses,
as well as schizophrenia.
All right, so starting off with the positive symptoms.
So the first one that I wanna detail
within this category are hallucinations.
So hallucinations are essentially perceiving something
that others do not,
and these can be any of the different senses.
So they could be auditory hallucinations,
visual, olfactory, so sense of smell,
tactile, sense of touch, or taste.
So some examples of hallucinations
that I personally experience
are primarily auditory hallucination.
So I primarily hear voices
or sometimes other sounds and that kind of thing.
And these voices can either sound
like they're coming from inside my head,
or they can come from an external source
or sound like they're coming from an external source.
But people experience hallucinations very, very differently.
I have had tactile hallucinations,
and when my symptoms were first starting to come about,
I primarily had olfactory hallucinations.
So I would smell these really terrible smells
that I couldn't really identify
and I couldn't locate where they were coming from.
So you may notice when interacting
with people who have schizophrenia
or who are experiencing hallucinations,
that they may seem kind of distracted sometimes.
And this is probably because they are listening to you
and responding to something else
that you are not seeing or hearing,
and they're responding to this own internal stimuli.
Now the second symptom that I want to go over
within positive symptoms are delusions.
And delusions are basically false beliefs
or convictions that are not true.
Now, these delusions may include persecutory,
religious or grandiose delusions or thoughts.
Some examples of my delusions
primarily fall under the more persecutory category,
where I think that people are looking for me
or are out to get me and take me
essentially to the hospital, is one of my major delusions.
I have some delusions around the motives of doctors
and psychiatrists who are treating me,
and have fallen into deep periods of mistrust of them
and of the medical system, and this is largely stemming
from a delusion that I experience.
Some other people who are experiencing delusions
may experience more religious or grandiose delusions,
where they think that they are a messiah,
come to save the world or, you know, things like that.
Another symptom within positive symptoms
is paranoid thinking,
and this is basically when someone perceives
some sort of threat that isn't actually
really a threat, probably.
So I've experienced this, where I am just,
it's also a hallucination involved,
where I was hallucinating helicopters overhead,
and I was so paranoid that they were looking for me
and that they were out to get me and take me in somewhere.
So this paranoia can be really, really intense
and kind of all-consuming sometimes.
And the last symptom that I want to go over with
in positive symptoms is racing thoughts.
Now, this can be a really hard one to manage
because it's very hard to orientate yourself within reality
when your thoughts are just racing in your head.
All right, so that was the positive symptoms.
Now I wanna get into the negative symptoms.
And again, that is not, you know, bad symptoms,
although sometimes some of them kind of are,
but it's more the removal of a behavior
as a result of schizophrenia.
So the first one that I want to talk about
is low motivation.
So this can be really hard to deal with
just in terms of keeping up with everyday life
and in terms of being motivated to accomplish things
that you would like to accomplish.
And this is something that I definitely struggle with
throughout periods of my illness,
where I have very, very low motivation
and it's hard to get myself going to do things.
Another symptom is emotional flatness.
And so if someone has restricted affect,
this can kind of be observed by someone who's treating them
or by someone who's observing the individual.
And decreased emotional range is something
that the person can kind of articulate themself
as to how much emotion they're able to the feel.
And emotional flatness is definitely something
that I have experienced
throughout different periods of my illness
and just kind of generally throughout my illness.
You know, it's kind of characterized by more flat speech.
I think that's how a lot of people in my life
have recognized it within myself,
where I just seem kind of,
I can't think of a better word or to describe it
rather than just seeming really flat
in terms of your affect and your mood
and how you're presenting.
You know, it's kind of funny to look back
on some of my earliest videos that we've posted
on this channel, where I definitely have a flatter affect.
So I was going through a period
where I was definitely experiencing emotional flatness.
So if you want to see an example of it,
go back to some of my earlier videos.
Another symptom is decreased speech
or something that is also referred to as poverty of speech.
Now, this is when a person is exhibiting
little spontaneous speech
and they're just kind of more quiet
or they may be answering in more monosyllabic responses,
such as just yes or no.
And I've definitely experienced this
throughout periods of my illness, as well,
where it's very hard to articulate the thoughts
that I want to convey to someone,
and it's really just comes out as very quick answers
that are really just monosyllabic.
It can also sometimes be characterized as long pauses
or gaps between sentences or thoughts or words, even.
Another symptom is loss of interest in life
or something that's also referred to as apathy.
Now, this can come across as the person
just kind of seeming indifferent
or not being able to really engage
in just basic life activities,
such as personal hygiene or that kind of thing.
And this is definitely something that I've experienced
throughout periods of my illness, as well,
where I just, I can't quite understand
why to engage in life,
and I just have a general apathy towards everything,
a loss of interest in things I used to take pleasure in
and, yeah, just a sense of overall apathy.
Another symptom that can kind of go
hand-in-hand with this one is social withdrawal.
And so this is when someone kind of stops engaging
with other people in their life
and with the world around them
and they just kind of recede inward.
And I've definitely done this
throughout periods of my illness again, too,
where I just, I don't want to interact with other people,
I don't want to socialize.
I just really recede inward and you just withdraw
from life and from social situations.
Another symptom is general decreased sense of purpose,
and this is when you kind of have a difficult time
discussing or understanding the meaning
and the importance or the value
of engaging with other people and with life.
So it's important to recognize that a lot of these symptoms
or, you know, the conglomeration of these symptoms
really kind of look a lot like depression.
And so this is why schizophrenia
is oftentimes misdiagnosed for long periods of time,
because these negative symptoms
are looking like something else.
And so this happened with me,
where I was first diagnosed with depression
for several years.
I was misdiagnosed with depression
because that was what I was primarily exhibiting,
were the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
And then I was diagnosed with bipolar.
and then eventually schizoaffective disorder,
which is a combination of schizophrenia
and a major mood disorder.
For me, it's bipolar.
And another thing that I just wanna touch on
underneath these negative symptoms
is the concept of anosognosia.
Now we've done a different video on this,
which we can link to, but basically anosognosia
is just a lack of insight into your illness
or a lack of awareness that it even exists.
And so this is when someone
who is diagnosed with schizophrenia doesn't understand
that they have schizophrenia or doesn't have insight
into the fact that they do have an illness.
And this can also stretch to include
when someone is being effectively treated for schizophrenia
and they're on medications and they're doing really well,
and they then, you know, kind of convince themselves
that they don't have schizophrenia,
that they are well and that they don't need medication.
And I'm very much speaking from experience here.
This has happened to me on several occasions,
where I had been in a period of wellness and stability,
and so I stopped being able to grasp
the fact that I do have schizophrenia,
and I convinced myself that I don't.
All right, so now I wanna get into cognitive symptoms,
which is one of the lesser discussed branches of symptoms
of schizophrenia behind positive and negative symptoms.
So cognitive symptoms refer to how well
your brain learns, uses and stores information.
So like I said, people with schizophrenia may have trouble
organizing their thoughts or making logical decisions,
and it may feel like their brains are kind of jumping around
from one unrelated topic to another.
Sometimes they can experience something
called thought withdrawal, where it's kind of like you feel
like thoughts are being removed from your head,
or there can also be something called thought blocking,
where the flow of someone's thoughts gets interrupted.
All right, so the first symptom that I want to talk about
under cognitive symptoms is disorganized thinking.
And so this is basically when, you know,
like what I've been saying,
where it's hard to form a cohesive thought
or hard to organize your thoughts or that kind of thing,
and this is definitely something that I experience.
It may not seem like it in these videos,
but just letting you know there is editing that takes place
because sometimes I just completely lose my train of thought
and I can't figure out what it is I want to convey
and I can't articulate it
because my head is kind of all over the place.
Another symptom within cognitive symptoms is slow thinking.
And so this is when the process of thinking
kind of gets really slowed down for the individual
and it's hard to keep up with conversations
with other people because your own internal thought process
has been slowed down to such an extent.
So this happens for me, and what I typically do
to kind of cope with this is I just get really quiet.
And so, you know what?
I'm not wanting people to know
that I can't keep up with a conversation, but I can't,
and so I just kind of get quiet.
And so this is why I have been very quiet
in a lot of social situations,
because my thought process is slowed down
or I'm having disorganized thoughts
and I can't keep up with the flow of a conversation.
This does not mean I'm too stupid or unintelligent
to keep up with conversations
or to engage in conversations with other people.
It just means that my cognitive abilities
are a little impaired at different times.
Another cognitive symptom is poor executive functioning,
and this is basically the ability to use information,
to understand information, and to use it to make decisions.
So kind of a basic example of this is, you know,
seeing a messy room and using that information
that you're bringing in to make the decision
that you need to clean it.
This is a really, really hard thing for me,
and, you know, probably a point of conflict
with the people I live with,
because seemingly obvious things that I can understand,
I can understand that my environment is messy,
but there's just some sort of breakdown in the connection
or the executive functioning needed to understand
that you need to clean that room in order to ameliorate it.
I know that sounds very hard to understand that, you know,
someone can't understand that connection,
but for people who have cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia,
these connections, these seemingly basic connections,
can be very hard to make.
Another possible symptom is just difficulty understanding.
So this can just be, you know, cognitive impairment
in terms of understanding information
that is being given to you or understanding a situation
or understanding cues that are being given to you.
Another symptom is just kind of trouble focusing
or trouble paying attention.
This difficulty with concentration is very characteristic
of people who are experiencing
cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia.
And another cognitive symptom
is difficulty with working memory.
So this is basically the ability to use information
immediately after learning it,
and this is something that someone
with schizophrenia may struggle to a great deal with.
An example of this might be not being able to keep track
of different information at the same time.
So, for example, if someone gave a phone number
as well as directions somewhere, it may be really hard
to remember both things at the same time.
I know for myself, this is something
that I really, really struggled with in school,
where I was learning information and taking in information,
and I knew that I understood that information,
but for some reason I just couldn't regurgitate it after
or I couldn't, you know, commit it to memory
as well as I thought I should be able to.
And so this was obviously hard.
It made things hard in university and in school.
And then another one that can fall
under cognitive symptoms is something
that I've already discussed
earlier in the negative symptoms, and that is anosognosia.
So again, this is just a lack of insight into your illness,
and can be described as cognitive symptom, as well.
And the last cognitive symptom that I wanna go over
is difficulty expressing thoughts.
And so this is definitely something
that I know I struggle with, and I think a lot of people
with schizophrenia struggle with at times,
where it's hard to, you know, formulate a thought
with all these other cognitive symptoms
that I've been detailing,
but then to actually articulate it and verbalize
what you're wanting to do is another challenge.
So all of these different cognitive symptoms
can make it very hard to communicate effectively
with other people.
All right, so that was kind of a brief overview
of the three different kinds of schizophrenia symptoms,
being positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms.
So we would love to hear in the comment section below
what your experiences with these different categories
of symptoms have been like.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope this video was helpful or insightful in some way.
If you would like to see more videos from us like this one,
make sure to subscribe to our channel.
And also if you would like to help support
the creation of videos like this one,
please check out the link to our Patreon page.
Thank you so much again for watching, and as always,
wishing you and your loved ones good health.
We'll see you in the next video.
Bye.