Signs And Symptoms Of Paranoid Schizophrenia

Signs and symptoms of schizophrenia may include:

Delusions — personal beliefs not based in reality, such as paranoia that you're being persecuted or conspired against
Bizarre delusions — for example, a belief in Martians controlling your thoughts
Hallucinations — sensing things that don't exist, such as imaginary voices
Incoherence
Lack of emotions or inappropriate display of emotions
A persistent feeling of being watched
Trouble functioning at work or in social situations
Social isolation
Difficulty with personal hygiene
Clumsy, uncoordinated movements

Generally, schizophrenia causes a slowly progressive deterioration in the ability to function in various roles, especially in your job and personal life. The signs and symptoms of schizophrenia vary greatly. A person may behave differently at different times. He or she may become extremely agitated and distressed, or fall into a trance-like, immobile, unresponsive (catatonic) state, or even behave normally much of the time. Signs and symptoms that occur continuously and progressively may indicate schizophrenia.

In general, schizophrenia has symptoms that fall into three categories — negative, positive and cognitive:
Negative signs and symptoms
Negative signs and symptoms may appear early in the disease, and a person may not think he or she needs treatment. They're referred to as negative because they indicate a loss of behavior or of a personality trait. Negative signs generally accompany a slow deterioration of function, leading to your becoming less sociable. Such signs may include:
Dulled emotions (lack of expression)
Inappropriate emotions (laughing while expressing terrifying images)
A change in speech (speaking in a dull monotone)

Positive signs and symptoms
Positive signs include hallucinations and delusions. They're called positive because they indicate a trait or behavior that's been added to the personality.
Hallucinations.
Hallucinations occur when you sense things that don't exist. The most common hallucination in schizophrenia is hearing voices. You may carry on a conversation with voices that no one else can hear. Or you may perceive that voices are providing you instructions on what to do. Hallucinations may result in injuries to other people.

Delusions.
Delusions are firmly held personal beliefs that have no basis in reality. The most common subtype of schizophrenia is paranoid schizophrenia, in which you hold irrational beliefs that others are persecuting you or conspiring against you. For example, some people with schizophrenia may believe that the television is directing their behavior or that outside forces are controlling their thoughts.

Cognitive signs and symptoms
These signs and symptoms tend to be more subtle than positive and negative ones. Cognitive signs and symptoms may include:
Problems making sense of incoming information
Difficulty paying attention
Memory problems

Misconceptions about schizophrenia
Schizophrenia may exist alone or in combination with other psychiatric or medical conditions. Misconceptions about schizophrenia and its relation to other mental illnesses abound. The following truths will help clarify what it is and is not:
Schizophrenia isn't the same as a split or multiple personality. Multiple personality disorder is a separate, rare condition.
Although some people with schizophrenia develop violent tendencies, most don't. Many withdraw into themselves rather than interact with others.
Not everyone who acts paranoid or distrustful has schizophrenia. Some people have a paranoid personality disorder, a tendency to be suspicious or distrustful of others, without the other features of schizophrenia.
Not everyone who hears voices is schizophrenic. Some people with depression may hear voices. Hearing voices may also occur as a result of a serious medical illness or from the effects of medication.

Substance abuse and schizophrenia
While not necessarily a sign of schizophrenia, drug abuse is more common in people with schizophrenia. Nicotine is a commonly abused drug by people with schizophrenia; it's estimated that 75 percent to 90 percent of people with schizophrenia smoke compared with about one-quarter of the general population. Unfortunately some drugs, such as amphetamines, cocaine and marijuana, can make schizophrenia symptoms worse. Others, such as nicotine, can interfere with schizophrenia medications.

Introduction
Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness. People with schizophrenia don't perceive and respond to the world as most other people do.
Paranoid schizophrenia is a subtype of schizophrenia. People with paranoid schizophrenia hold untrue beliefs (delusions) or hear things others don't hear (auditory hallucinations).
The onset of schizophrenia in men is usually in the teens or 20s. Victor was 16. The onset in women is usually in the 20s or early 30s. Paranoid schizophrenia tends to appear toward the later end of this range.
Although there's no cure for paranoid schizophrenia, medications and well-coordinated mental health care services can help people manage the disease.

Signs and symptoms
Early signs and symptoms of schizophrenia — such as social withdrawal, unusual behaviors, anxiety and decline in daily functional abilities — may begin gradually before the primary symptoms of schizophrenia, known collectively as psychosis, are manifested. But disease onset may also be acute with the sudden appearance of psychosis.
Delusions and auditory hallucinations are the prominent psychotic symptoms in people with paranoid schizophrenia.

Delusions
When people have delusions, they believe something to be true that essentially no one else in their culture believes. A person with paranoid schizophrenia misinterprets experiences and then holds on to those interpretations despite evidence or reasoning to the contrary.
Delusions are commonly focused on the perception of being persecuted and often result in the mistrust of other people:
The FBI is spying on me.
Someone is poisoning my food.
My thoughts are being broadcast over the radio.
Delusions can become complex stories, and interpretations of experiences often "confirm" the person's view of reality. For example, a traffic officer blowing a whistle is alerting FBI agents on the trail of the person with paranoid schizophrenia. A man who looks at the officer is an agent. When he uses his cell phone, he's reporting the person's location.
Delusions may result in a violent outburst if a person believes a perceived threat creates a dangerous situation in need of self-defense.
A person with paranoid schizophrenia may also have delusions of grandeur — holding the belief that he or she has superhuman skills, is famous, has a relationship with a famous person or is a historical figure. These delusions can be dangerous, as when a person believes he or she can fly and acts on that belief.
Auditory hallucinationsAn auditory hallucination is the perception of sound — usually voices — that no one else hears. The sounds may be a single voice or many voices, either talking to the person or to each other.
The voices are usually unpleasant. They may give a constant critique of what the person is thinking or doing, or they harass the person about real or imagined faults. Voices may also command the person to do things that can be harmful to himself or herself or to others. They may be thematically related to the person's delusions. For example, the voices may say that the FBI is after the person with schizophrenia because of some crime they say he or she committed.
To a person with paranoid schizophrenia, these voices are real. The person with paranoid schizophrenia may talk to or shout at the voices. However, after years of relatively successful disease management, some people may learn to recognize the voices as manifestations of the disease.
Other paranoid schizophrenia symptomsIf people with paranoid schizophrenia have other characteristic signs or symptoms of schizophrenia, they are mild. These psychotic behaviors, which are more prominent in other schizophrenia subtypes, include:
Disorganized thinking
Grossly disorganized, irrational behavior
Physical immobility
Excessive mobility with no purpose
Absent or inappropriate emotional expression
Little verbal communication with other people
Inability to initiate plans
The other main subtypes of schizophrenia are catatonic, disorganized and undifferentiated schizophrenia.

Causes
Most researchers believe that schizophrenia results from problems with early brain development. Studies have focused on the way brain cells communicate with each other through nerve pathways. Too many or too few connections in the important pathways of emotional regulation may lead to psychotic symptoms. More specifically, certain areas of the brain that are rich in the chemical dopamine seem to be affected most often in schizophrenia.
The contributing factors associated with the development of these brain-pathway problems are controversial and are being carefully investigated. Some of the areas of current research include risk-associated genes, exposure to certain viruses or malnutrition in the womb, and stressful childhood environments in genetically susceptible children.

Victor was given electro-chemical shock treatment in the 60's and he believes that caused his illness.