Why Doesn 't Millie Believe She Is Mentally Ill?

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behaviour and failure to recognize what is real. Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations, reduced social engagement and emotional expression, and inactivity. A person with schizophrenia often hears voices, experiences delusions and hallucinations and may believe thoughts, feelings and actions are controlled or shared by someone else.

While at home, Andrea’s mental state did not appear to improve. She stays in bed all day, begins self mutilating, scratching bald spots on her head, and scraping her legs and arms. She discloses to her husband, Rusty, that she having hallucinations. For their own reasons, the Yates couple does not discuss the hallucinations with Andrea’s doctors during outpatient or inpatient treatments. Andrea was also experiencing other symptoms of schizophrenia. These symptoms include her belief that that there are cameras in her home watching her and that television cartoon characters are communicating with directly to her. She became anti social with an array of other symptoms that included flat affect, poverty of speech and loss of directedness.

Valerie mentions a few factors during her interview that may predispose her to developing paranoid schizophrenia. Growing up Valerie always felt as though she was a social outcast. This piece of information shows the reader that Valerie experienced a negative symptom of paranoid schizophrenia during her younger years. A negative symptom of paranoid schizophrenia would be a person’s failure to interact with people, which Valerie displayed when she felt as though she were a social outcast (Kohn, 2009).

At one point she describes laying on the bed and "follow[ing] that pattern about by the hour . . . I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of conclusion" (Gilman 429).

She went on to speak of other episodes with symptoms of delusions and hallucinations which she says are “hallmarks of the illness”. She explained that schizophrenic is not disorders of multiple personality or split personalities, a schizophrenia mind is shattered. What I find incredible is the fact that with treatment she was still able to hold it together

Mental health is not the mere absence of illness but it is the sense of harmony and balance for the individual. Aspects associated with the individual include self-worth, sense of accomplishment, and a positive identity (Fontaine, 2009), where as mental illness is the disharmony someone is experiencing. This disharmony affects not only the individual but their friends and family as well as the surrounding community. This disharmony causes the person to be unable to function properly in many aspects of their life (Fontaine, 2009). Disco Di started to display signs of mental illness from the young age of 12. Her behaviours may have been triggered by a traumatic event and have been interfering with her life ever since. I agree with the

Felicia’s symptoms line up almost exactly with the textbook diagnostic criteria for Schizophrenia. The textbook’s first symptom is “For 1 month, individual displays two or more of the following symptoms much of the time: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, very abnormal

In my lifetime, I have spent months with my Grandmother, Florence Ernstead, who is a diagnosed paranoid delusional schizophrenic. During this time I have realized that schizophrenics have difficulty realizing the seriousness of their disorders. This inability to acknowledge a problem is known by psychiatrists as lack of insight.

According to Mathers et al., (1996) “Schizophrenia ranks among the top ten causes of disability worldwide and affects one in one hundred people at some point in their lives.” (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2012). Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder which is commonly diagnosed in 15-30 year old individuals. It disrupts a person’s cognition, perceptions and emotions, making it extremely difficult to diagnose. Bleuler (1911) introduced the term schizophrenia, which translates as ‘split-mind’ or ‘divided self’ and accounts for the earlier interpretations of the disease. These misunderstandings and the ongoing misrepresentations, especially within the media, has stigmatised the illness. This raises the need for better understanding and

Additional, inferences about the disorder are provided by Whitcomb and Merrell (2013). The authors characterize the symptoms of schizophrenia as delusions that are “typically bizarre and implausible” and pronounced hallucinations such as hearing voices for long periods of time (p. 363). Additional, impairments noted by the authors include “severe disturbances in perception, thought and affect, a severe decline in personal and social functioning, poor personal hygiene, inability to function effectively at school or work, and a severe impairment in social relationships” (Whitcomb and Merrell, 2013 p.363).

When watching, “Alice in Wonderland” as a child of course I didn’t know what Schizophrenia was, therefore I didn’t recognize or look for this in the character of Alice. After doing research and re-watching the film, it became clearer to me that Alice does in fact show symptoms of Schizophrenia.

Researchers went on to discover that an extreme life even or a significant amount of anxiety was a major factor in the emergence of negative auditory hallucinations. While this is true for many sufferers of schizophrenia, Lori did not report any history of abuse or extreme anxiety before her emergence of symptoms. In fact she grew up in a caring and loving environment. The most popular held perspective though is not caused by environment but is rather biological, this theory is called the medical model. The model views mental illness as an issue of brain chemistry rather than caused by childhood trauma or abuse. The model also views the solution as a chemical one, otherwise known as prescription medications (Shorto, 1999). Since Lori experienced very little anxiety and was a happy child and adolescent growing up, her story speaks more the medical model. According to Thomas, Bracken, and Leudar (2004), “Most people who hear voices, whether in schizophrenia or as part of a bereavement reaction, struggle to make sense of the experience” (p. 22). One of Lori’s major turning points to getting better was recognizing she was ill and that the voices were the inner workings of her brain conveying her worsts fears to her.

Schizophrenia is an incredible example of mental muddle which is exemplified by crumbling of thought processes and emotional receptiveness. It can be straightforwardly acknowledged by auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre illusions, dislocated speech or thinking aptitude pursued by social or occupational dysfunction. The warning signs initiate untimely in the adulthood. The disease is recognized to affect about 1% of the human population with about 2 million patients from the United States unaided.

This is a case of my sister in law whom I know for the past 16 year. She has been suffering from schizophrenia, paranoid type. She is a 45 years old holds a master degree in Sociology. Soon after she got divorced se broke out and started to exhibit bizarre behavior. Their family members noticed her whispering and talking to herself. On confronting she got agitated and accusing them for poisoning and harming her. She also claimed that property where they all live belongs to her.

Many people who suffer from this disorder may have suicidal thoughts, bi-polar disorder and also depression .Upon her arrival at the institution she meets some of the patients who she quickly starts to connect and develop a bond with especially with one of the patients named Lisa who is diagnosed as a sociopath. Psychiatrists and psychologists states that a sociopath is someone with a personality disorder who “displays antisocial tendencies that are ascribed to social or environmental factors.” Other definitions include “A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.” (Dr.Axe, 2017). With this being said anyone could suffer from a personality disorder and majority of the time it goes unnoticed because we end up blaming other people for the way we feel or react to certain situations. As the movie goes on we are introduced to another woman named Daisy she suffered from compulsive eating disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and also self harm.