Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Symptoms typically come on gradually, begin in young adulthood, and in many cases never resolve. There are three sets of symptoms: positive, negative, and cognitive. Positive symptoms include the things someone gains by having schizophrenia, like hallucinations and delusions. The negative symptoms are more indicative of emotional deficits — things taken away from a person — like blunted emotions. Cognitive symptoms are considered deficits in ability to think and function properly on an intellectual level, i.e., verbal memory problems. The signs and negative experience of schizophrenia can be haunting and overwhelming to a person. There are plenty of symptoms to discuss though, so let’s get to it. I’m going to be listing the 10 worst symptoms of schizophrenia.
10 Worst Symptoms of Schizophrenia
1. Hallucinations
The prototypical symptoms of schizophrenia are never mentioned without hallucinations being brought up. They are one of the hallmark signs and symptoms of schizophrenia, and it’s for good reason. Hallucinations are well known and easily described as sensing something that is not really there. A false sense of smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch can all be present. To the sufferer, they can be frightening and out of control, as they usually describe a fear the person has. The false flag stimulus creating this effect can cause great damage and has much to do with dopaminergic chemical imbalances.
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The paranoia they suffer with can exacerbate the hallucinatory affect to great degree, creating more distress. This state can create confusion and further delusion in those struggling to understand reality. Hallucinations can also occur in those on certain kinds of drugs and with schizoaffective disorder. The only difference between these two disorders is that schizoaffective disorder displays the mood symptoms of bipolar disorder. The degree of hallucination can vary, but the intensity often goes in tandem with other symptoms. The more a person begins spiraling downward, the more these symptoms will gain control and become dangerous.
2. Delusions
A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence and is a symptom of schizophrenia. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or hallucination. It typically comes from some other misleading effects of perception. This is because individuals with those beliefs are able to change or readjust their beliefs upon reviewing the evidence. The same cannot be said for those struggling with schizophrenia, however.
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Those who struggle with a mental disorder though, may find these delusions harder to change. They may fluctuate between different delusions or be caught in a constant back and forth contradiction. This can create mass confusion to the point of distress, aggravation, and significant stress. Delusions of persecution, distorted self-image and experience, grandiosity, and thought insertion are very common. Those struggling with delusions can become dangerous, as they can act on these delusions in destructive and violent ways.
10 Worst Symptoms of Schizophrenia
3. Thinking Disorders
A major difference between delusional disorder and schizophrenia are the symptoms of thought disorders (Positive Symptom) in the latter. A person struggling with thought disorders will often have a hard time thinking straight and speaking clearly. An obvious lack of articulation skills is often apparent in those suffering with schizophrenia. These thought disorders can lead to symptoms such as thought blocking and disorganized speech. This only typically happens when a person is experiencing a psychotic episode.
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The struggler will show signs of thought disorders like poverty of speech, tangentiality, derailment, verbigeration, and pressured speech. All of these end up affecting the person’s ability to socialize and share their emotions. They may go on a tangent, speak in a simple manner, speak without proper pronunciation, and derail a conversation entirely. Thought disorders cause the person to have a conversation with the voices in their head more than another person. It can lead to obsessive thinking, and it can even cause extreme anxiety and depression.
4. Paranoia
Paranoia (Positive Symptom) is another predominant sign and symptom of schizophrenia. This symptom causes a person to question literally everything going on around them. It is is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear; it can often lead to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame. While paranoia and delusions go hand in hand, they are their own entity.
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This kind of thinking causes great fear and anxiety or depression in a person. A sufferer may believe that they are being prosecuted by everyone around them, leading to a reaction of anger or avoidance. Though sufferers are typically nonviolent, a reaction can occur when a person is in a paranoid state. The cause of this process can be negative life experiences mixed with predisposition. Things like paranoia are often some of the first signs of schizophrenia and comes from an attribution bias. This is when a person begins to make too many assumptions about the motivations of others.
10 Worst Symptoms of Schizophrenia
5. Anhedonia
Anhedonia (Negative Symptom) is a diverse array of deficits in hedonic function, including reduced motivation or ability to experience pleasure. While earlier definitions emphasized the inability to experience pleasure, things have changed. Anhedonia is currently used by researchers to refer to reduced motivation, and it’s reduced anticipatory pleasure. Reduced consummatory pleasure and deficits in reinforcement learning are also relevant. Anhedonia is a component of depressive disorders, substance-related disorders, psychotic disorders, and personality disorders. It is defined by either a reduced ability to experience pleasure, or a diminished interest in engaging in pleasurable activities.
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The representation of anhedonia in schizophrenia is social isolation and lack of focus. Those struggling with the other symptoms of schizophrenia will struggle to find things to be interested in. This is because they lack the mental ability to find anything but their problems worth considering. The psychosis is the biggest factor involved in this, as the worry and fear keep a sufferer distracted. Thought disorders and general dysphoria make the existing problem even worse, as a schizophrenic struggles to find any happiness. The more they cannot think properly, the more they will find less interest in any desire at all.
6. Asociality
As mentioned above, asocial behavior is very common among people with schizophrenia. It’s not the same as being antisocial, but antisocial tendencies can be displayed as well. Asociality (Negative Symptom) refers to the lack of motivation to engage in social interaction, or a preference for solitary activities. Asociality may be associated with avolition, but it can be a manifestation of limited opportunities for social relations. The more a person becomes embroiled in their own little world, the less they can connect realistically.
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This is where it can become dangerous for anyone, especially for someone with schizophrenia; however, sufferers may prefer it and find it less of a hassle than interaction with others. It’s not to say that all people who stay by themselves are at risk or have schizophrenic tendencies; they are signs at most. The reason for having asociality is because of the paranoid anxiety involved in social interaction. A person with schizophrenic symptoms will find others a threat and worth avoiding out of fear.
10 Worst Symptoms of Schizophrenia
7. Avolition
Avolition (Negative Symptom), as a symptom of various forms of psychopathology, is the decrease in the ability to self-motivate. In other words, a person cannot initiate and persist in self-directed purposeful activities. Such activities that appear to be neglected usually include routine activities. This can include hobbies, going to work and/or school, and most notably, engaging in social activities. A person experiencing avolition may stay at home for long periods of time rather than seeking out work or peer relations.
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People with avolition often want to complete certain tasks but lack the ability to initiate behaviors necessary to complete them. This can lead to distress and emptiness in light of an ability to feel any kind of satisfaction. Those with schizophrenia struggle with this because of the other symptoms affecting them. With this comes depression and anxiety, leaving them feeling more vulnerable to the world around them. Feelings of perceived vulnerability lead to exacerbated symptoms of hopelessness and paranoia.
8. Alogia
Alogia (Negative Symptom) is poor thinking inferred from speech and language usage. There may be a general lack of additional, unprompted content seen in normal speech. This means that most replies to questions may be brief and concrete, with less spontaneous speech. This is termed poverty of speech or laconic speech, where little detail is gone over to elaborate. The amount of speech may be normal but conveys little information. This is because it is vague, empty, stereotyped, over-concrete, over-abstract, or repetitive.
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This condition is associated with, dementia, severe depression, autism, and schizotypal personality disorder. Oftentimes, slurred speech will accompany this symptom, even in someone who is not mentally ill. Since this characteristic is broad spectrum, even normal people will experience it from time to time. The difference between them and a schizophrenic is the person with a disorder will almost always experience it.
10 Worst Symptoms of Schizophrenia
9. Emotional Blunting
Reduced affect display (Negative Symptoms), sometimes referred to as emotional blunting, is a condition of reduced emotional reactivity in an individual. It manifests as a failure to express feelings (affect display) either verbally or nonverbally. This is especially true when talking about issues that would normally be expected to engage the emotions. Expressive gestures are rare and there is little animation in facial expression or vocal inflection.
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Reduced affect can be symptomatic of autism, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, depersonalization disorder, schizoid personality disorder or brain damage. It may also be a side effect of certain medications. Reduced affect should be distinguished from apathy and anhedonia, which explicitly refer to a lack of emotion, whereas reduced affect is a lack of emotional expression (affect display) regardless of whether emotion (underlying affect) is actually reduced or not.
10. Cognitive Deficits
Cognitive deficits are the earliest and most constantly found symptoms in schizophrenia. They are often evident long before the onset of illness in the prodromal stage. They may be present in early adolescence or childhood. Deficits are a core feature but not considered to be core symptoms, as are positive and negative symptoms. However, their presence and degree of dysfunction is taken as a better indicator of functionality than the presentation of core symptoms. Cognitive deficits become worse at first episode psychosis but then return to baseline, and remain fairly stable over the course of the illness.
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The deficits in cognition are seen to drive the negative psychosocial outcome in schizophrenia. They are claimed to equate to a possible reduction in IQ from the norm of 100 to 70-85. Cognitive deficits may be of neurocognition (nonsocial) or of social cognition. Neurocognition is the ability to receive and remember information. This includes verbal fluency, memory, reasoning, problem solving, speed of processing, and auditory and visual perception.
10 Worst Symptoms of Schizophrenia
