{"id":354597,"date":"2017-09-19T06:20:53","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T06:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=354597"},"modified":"2017-11-10T11:19:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T11:19:01","slug":"have-you-got-the-wrong-impression-about-schizophrenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/09\/have-you-got-the-wrong-impression-about-schizophrenia\/","title":{"rendered":"Have you got the wrong impression about schizophrenia?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Schizophrenia does not mean you have a split personality or automatically become violent, a mental health charity has warned.<\/p>\n
Rethink Mental Illness said a survey of 1,500 people showed that the condition is widely misunderstood.<\/p>\n
Schizophrenia commonly causes hallucinations, such as hearing voices, or delusions and can make people lose interest in life.<\/p>\n
But it should not be “a dirty word or a term of abuse”, the charity said.<\/p>\n
The organisation warned such myths are dangerous.<\/p>\n
One in 100 people is affected by schizophrenia during their life, but 45% of those surveyed thought the illness was much more common.<\/p>\n
Half mistakenly thought the illness was defined by a split personality and a quarter believed it definitely led to violent behaviour.<\/p>\n
But the reality is very different, a new campaign by the charity claims.<\/p>\n
It is not true that “someone with schizophrenia can appear perfectly normal at one moment, and change into a different person the next”, the Royal College of Psychiatrists says on its\u00a0website.<\/p>\n
And although there is a higher risk of violent behaviour if you have schizophrenia, it does not necessarily make people dangerous.<\/p>\n
Comparatively, drugs and alcohol cause far more violence.<\/p>\n
People with schizophrenia are far more likely to be harmed by other people than other people are to be harmed by them, the psychiatrists say.<\/p>\n
Schizophrenia can affect the way individuals think, feel and behave.<\/p>\n
Experiencing hallucinations is common and people often hear voices, which can sound very real and be critical and abusive, although they are all in the mind.<\/p>\n