Questions about schizophrenia for a short play?!
Question: Questions about schizophrenia for a short play?
I'm writing a short one act play about a woman who has schizophrenia but since I don't know much about it so I have a few questions:
(a) You don't have to be born with schizophrenia, right? Can my character start showing signs of it in her 40s?
(b) When your schizophrenic, do you remember what you did what you had the 'other' personality or identity?
(c) How often do the episodes occur?
(d) Is there a certain number of personalities a schizophrenic person needs to have?
If you can answer any of these questions that'd be GREATLY appreciated!
Answers:
Schizophrenia is not Disocciative Identity disorder, which is what it feels like your questions are about. Schizophrenia is an illness usually manifesting in the early 20s but can manifest later or earlier in life where the idvidual will suffer from posotive symptoms such as: Hallucinations (Seeing/hearing/feeling etc. things that are not real), delusions(Beleiveing something is true despite evidence to the contrary) and disorganised thoughts, they also suffer from negative symptoms such as emotional flattening, inability to feel pleasure and lack of motivation amoung others.
I'm schizophrenic
Schizophrenia is not multiple personality disorder, for a start.. they don't have different personalities, they have hallucinations and delusions.