How To Go About Treating Schizophrenia
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As the Nanalyze brand continues to grow, the number of daily inquiries we get continues to rise. Every day, our lovely readers take time out of their busy schedules to ask us to do things for them. There is Catherine out of Texas who says, “interested in car rental.” That’s literally all she said in her email, and then left her phone number so we can… help her rent a car? Then there’s Jaime from San Diego with a much more verbose email about trading. It’s hard to say really what he wants:
Well I want to know you really don’t charge for your service cuz I was fool into paying $2000+. In supposedly betting against the stock market ups n downs. (Call n or bull put). Not sure got the dam thing not realizing that I need a stock broker n they been sending me every Monday a text on what to do but when I call them they said no advice (moneymap press) co name. n I’m wondering if yu can help me out on how to go about doing these sincerely…..
Now before you go thinking that’s spam, it’s not. That’s an actual reader who has emailed us a number of times now. And as we always do, we responded. (By the way, all of you advertisers out there should give us a shout if you want to access this prime demographic.) Every day, we get bombarded with questions from people that are looking for, well, all kinds of stuff. But, perhaps the most interesting people who email us are the paranoid schizophrenics.
The Schizophrenics That Email Us
Yes, we get a surprising number of schizophrenics emailing us. They usually reach out to us asking about how they might get rid of the voices they keep hearing, which they often attribute to some conspiracy or another which usually has some technological component to it. Many ask us about how they might detect the implants in their bodies, usually their brains. In response to our articles on brain-computer-interfaces or human RFID implants, people will ask questions like “how might I detect an implant even if it is not detected with an MRI or an X-ray?” These poor souls are desperately seeking help, and we try and take the time to softly explain that it’s probably a mental health condition as opposed to some sinister conspiracy theory.
Because these types of inquiries are becoming so frequent, we thought it might be helpful to take a closer look at the prevalence of schizophrenia and look at what steps need to be taken towards treating schizophrenia – something we knew very little about until now.
How Common is Schizophrenia?
Simply put, schizophrenia is “a chronic brain disorder primarily characterized by delusions, hallucinations, difficulty with thinking and concentration, and lack of motivation.” That definition comes from a 2017 paper by Chris Fellner titled “New Schizophrenia Treatments Address Unmet Clinical Needs” which goes on to say that around 1% of people in the United States are diagnosed with this condition which extrapolates out to 77 million people around the globe. If you’re someone who has schizophrenia, the biggest battle will be acknowledging that you have the condition. Your mind will go to extraordinary lengths to convince you it’s something else, or usually, someone else who is messing with you. Find someone you trust and confide in them. Go see a mental health professional, or better yet, go see multiple mental health professionals. If they all say the same thing, move on to the treatment phase immediately.
Treating Schizophrenia
Presently, there is no cure for schizophrenia. That’s the bad news. The good news is, there are many treatment options and many people live normal lives while having schizophrenia, not to mention some very accomplished people who did truly great things. Here are just a few of them:
- Syd Barrett – Singer for Pink Floyd
- Jack Kerouac – Author of books like On The Road
- Rufus May – A notable British clinical psychologist
- John Nash – A noble prize winning mathematician
- Vincent van Gogh – One of the world’s most notorious painters
- Peter Green – The founder of Fleetwood Mac
When it comes to treatments, you need to start by talking to a mental health professional, not emailing random people. There are numerous drugs available for initial and maintenance therapy, with the goal of controlling symptoms. According to the American Psychiatric Association, second-generation (atypical) antipsychotics are the leading choice when it comes to treatment.
If you happen to live in a developed market, you’re in pretty good hands, provided that you can acknowledge your condition and go seek help for it. If you have insurance, all the better. For those people who live in various places around the world, each country will have its own support network for mental health, and some might be lacking. This is where telehealth options can be useful. You may feel more comfortable reaching out to someone remotely first, as opposed to going into an office and baring your soul. There are an ever-increasing number of options to do that.
The most important thing you need to do is talk to a qualified professional, instead of taking advice from a bunch of MBAs with substance abuse problems. Fortunately, loads of money has been pouring into this space recently, opening doors for people that never existed just a few years ago. Here’s a chart from White Star Capital that shows just how much funding went towards mental health technology this year so far:
If you hear voices, and those voices are having a negative effect on your quality of life, you have to start by talking to a mental health professional about it.
Not All Treatments Will Work
While the hardest step might be accepting your condition, the next hard part is going to be not getting discouraged when treatments don’t work out as planned. Around 10% to 30% of schizophrenic patients are resistant to treatments. These cases will be challenging, as the treatment provider will need to exhaust all available treatments that have a positive effect. Even if treatments are effective, somewhere around 80% to 90% of schizophrenic patients will experience a relapse during the course of their lives. Not adhering to therapy, substance abuse, or stressful life events can all trigger episodes. It’s a constant battle, but the human spirit has a way of continuing to fight against all odds.
Conclusion
Hearing voices in your head doesn’t make you a weird person. We all hear a little voice in our head, every single one of us. That little voice is called inner speech, and you can hear it when you’re thinking or silently reading. The problem occurs when that little inner voice starts telling you things that most people would view with suspicion. If you ever want to test this theory, just do this. Go on a mental health app like Talkspace and ask a psychologist what they think the problem is. Don’t believe them? Then ask three different psychologists what they think your problem is. Be upfront about what you are experiencing. If all three reach the same conclusion, then it is a mental health issue, not some sinister plot.
Lately, mental health awareness has been a topic in the news because some tool on SNL thinks he has a miserable life because a few of his colleagues don’t like him, when in fact he has more opportunity than 99% of people on this planet because – for some reason that’s impossible to comprehend – a meaningful number of people in ‘Murica think he’s funny. While that’s “sad” and all, the person we really feel for is the shop owner in Trinidad who thinks her ex-husband is in on a plot to control the voices in her head remotely, demons that tell her horrible things when she lays in bed at night. She has nobody to turn to, so she sends us a well-articulated, intelligent email asking for help. We suggest that it might be a mental health condition, so she sends us recordings of the voices. We hear absolutely nothing in those recordings, but she does. We wrote this for her, and here’s hoping that she is able to get treatment for her condition as soon as possible.
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“We all hear a little voice in our head, every single one of us. ” this is in fact not true, it is not your own inner voice but that of voices of others which become indistinguishable from others. What is true is that more people experience this than let on due to the harmful stigma surrounding it, it only becomes an issue for people experiencing these voices when they are destructive voices. We need better understanding and acceptance in our society that this is in fact not an indication of madness or being crazy, but perfectly acceptable. This would go along way to showing an compassionate approach ratchet than coercing people to take life shortening deadly drugs and procedures… As It has been pointed out to me on afree occasions by those inflicted by the hideous label of schizophrenia and the stigma surrounding it that they would much prefer having terminal cancer as people might actually care about them. Our society is not all it’s made out to be is it.
If you say it is only schizofrenia I have other case. If I something say as this word to hear in Radio or TV. If my stomach is hungry this sound in my hungry stomach is hearing in Radio or Tv same. I hope you understand my bad english. However you do not say it is a sick person or something lie. Can you help me? No? Yesterday some driver press a trumpet in his car and it was to hear from my computer.
You’re asking for an answer when you probably already know what it is. You have to seek help from a mental health professional, not a comments section on the Internet. You’ll manage through it, just go consult with a mental health professional ASAP.