{Partly in response to a time someone I consider knowledgeable and honest brought up that at least one person in an online Discord server that I had been kicked from due to delusions during psychosis wrote that they thought I was fake claiming schizophrenia.}
I.
I’m beginning to think that schizophrenia as a concept is harder for some to acknowledge exists — and barely begin to understand – than other concepts.
Partly, perhaps it’s because is generally a terrible indicator to go by how someone looks alone, to determine who has it.
I realize it’s a slightly selected-for group (being people who accept help for their psychotic disorder), but in my first-episode psychosis clinic where I’ve met 10-20 people with psychotic disorders, there’s not a single one who I perceive as “looking” like they have schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is defined by clusters of things that are in diagnostic manuals, and is correlated with a higher risk of smoking, developing metabolic issues from medication use, higher prevalence of ADHD, higher unemployment, lower lifespan, etc.
And you have to know of differences among individuals like the ones mentioned — ie agree with the presence of these differences, which can be made harder because generally visually recognizable differences don’t exist.
II.
It can also mean that because it’s hideable, people are less incentivized to put institutional measures in place. This is just a speculation. I’m not saying specific affirmative actions (eg hiring policies and university acceptance tendencies) are good, but that the concept of, “We should improve the lives of the disadvantaged” is good IMO.
It may be felt as personally less worth it to bother changing mistaken beliefs about schizophrenia, and improving lives for schizophrenics overall, when most people who meet you – including bosses, potential friends, potential dating candidates – by default don’t believe that you have it.
Thing might get you not hired or get you fired if employer finds out you have the thing —>
Everyone who knows they have the thing and that it’s not perceived well hides the thing; those who are unable to hide it (eg people in first-episode psychosis) get “found out” if they behave in recognizably psychotic ways in from of employers or colleagues —>
The most overt signs of schizophrenia are noticed (instead of subtler things, eg flat affect and other negative signs) and among other reasons, told to others.
I suspect that signs in general get talked about more than symptoms in general. They are by definition observable by outsiders without the condition.
“Signs and symptoms are the observed or detectable signs, and experienced symptoms of an illness, injury, or condition.
Signs are objective and externally observable; symptoms are a person's reported subjective experiences.
A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature than normal, raised or lowered blood pressure or an abnormality showing on a medical scan. A symptom is something out of the ordinary that is experienced by an individual such as feeling feverish, a headache or other pains in the body.”
Wikipedia, 09/29/2024
I write about some of my signs and symptoms of psychosis in this blog.
I’m pretty passionate about identifying symptoms of mental illness, since I think they can be the earliest indicators, the least desirable indicators, and the most neglected indicators.