Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia in recent reports have been found to be decreasing rather than increasing which is good thing in my own opinion. Personally I have never dealt with schizophrenia first hand, and I don't have any family or friends with schizophrenia either. I did a little research on this disorder and PsychCentral has given a really great description on the history of schizophrenia and what it is presently.

History of Schizophrenia:
People who suffered from this illness were thought to be possessed by demons. They were feared, tormented, exiled or they were locked up forever. People who imagine a person with schizophrenia as being more violent or out of control than a person who has another kind of serious mental illness.

What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is characterized by a broad range of unusual behaviors that cause profound disruption in the lives of people suffering from the condition, as well as in the lives of the people around them.


What does Schizophrenia conclude?

Delusions and hallucinations are common in schizophrenia. An obvious kinds of impairments that are caused by schizophrenia involves how a person thinks. They lose the ability to rationally evaluate their surroundings and interactions with others. They have trouble understanding what is true reality and what is not. And most of the things that they see, they believe to be their true reality when it really isn't.


This disorder reminds me of Criminal Minds. If any of you are familiar with that T.V show series should know what I am talking about, but for those that aren't I'll explain. In Criminal Minds special agent Dr. Spencer Reid's mother had schizophrenia, but there is an entire episode focusing on a person who has schizophrenia. The episode is called "with friends like these" which as I stated focuses on a person who is being manipulated. It has voices as actual characters was a convincing way of showing how afflicted and defenseless a schizophrenic who is constantly paranoid can be. You can see the part 1 of the clip here with friends like these part 2

People with schizophrenia act in an extremely paranoid manner. I had no idea that nearly 1/3 of people that are diagnosed with schizophrenia attempt suicide. I also didn't know that 10% of those will commit suicde  within 20 years of beginning of the disorder.

The relationship of schizophrenia and substance abuse is significant. According to the site I mention (PsychCentral) due to impairments in insight and judgement, people with schizophrenia may be less able to judge and control the temptations are associated with drugs or alcohol abuse.

The website has a lot of information that you can read dealing with Schizophrenia. To read up on it here is the PsychCentral website: All about Schizophrenia and Psychosis 

Here are just a few signs of schizophrenia:

Social isolation and withdrawal

• Irrational, bizarre or odd statements or beliefs
• Increased paranoia or questioning others' motivations
• Becoming more emotionless
• Hostility or suspiciousness
• Increasing reliance on drugs or alcohol (in an attempt to self-medicate)
• Lack of motivation 

Feel free to offer your own opinions and thoughts about schizophrenia, and I hope you guys enjoyed my post. 

psychcentral

Major Depressive Disorder

When I was in high school I had Major Depression. For a couple of years I was really withdrawn, and only had a small amount of people I considered friends, a long with at that time my boyfriend. Counseling never helped, and I never really liked talking to anyone because I had that mentality that those people were only doing their jobs and never really wanted the best for me. I would cry all the time at night, went days without eating, felt like a failure to my friends and family and insomnia was one of my greatest weaknesses. I literally could go days without sleeping and it even reached the point where doctors had to give me anti depressants to help me. However, I was forbidden to take those medications because my parents, well my mom did not want me to take them. I lost a majority of my friends because I tended to be kind of morbid, at that time all I would talk about is ways to die, or [I wonder how the world would be like if I wasn't around] or [would people be happier had I died when I was a baby and not survive being born prematurely].

Though shame followed me for a long time, I have small marks on my arms and legs to show that cutting was my way out of the unhappiness I kept feeling. It's a nasty road to go down because there is nothing worse in someone's life than feeling empty and surrounded by nothing but darkness all the time. I would like to blame the guy I was dating at that time for my emotional instability, because he would constantly tell me that [no one but him will ever love me] or that my family doesn't love me, because if they did they wouldn't [constantly shove losing weight down my back]. I was constantly given diet pills, constantly thrown in exercise programs, constantly having to work out, and constantly changing diets despite me being at a normal weight level. My unhappiness grew, and I became socially withdrawn. After awhile, I stopped caring that all my friends left me, because I still had my boyfriend [at that time] and I still had my best friend who was like my sister at my side. My depression got deeper the last semester of my senior year when that best friend betrayed me to the greatest extent, and after that with that boyfriend breaking up our relationship for stupid reasons. It felt like the remains of my world crashing and burning before me with no way of escape.

Today, presently, I don't feel like I am in that dark void. Did I seek help? I wanted to, but I didn't. I sought help from my church, and God. It took a while but eventually God paved a way for me to be happy, and though at times I am battling with a small side of my depression that has yet to leave me, and though there are times where I feel unhappy with myself, or I feel like everything is going wrong over and over again....I choose to think that God, perhaps is preparing me for something greater. It eases the pain somehow, and the whole I had/have tends to gradually fill up, thoughts of suicide turn to thoughts of life.

I don't believe in medication, and I probably never will. It's probably because of what I went though, that I made myself mentally stronger, but at the same time mentally weaker. I get emotional really fast, and I do blame myself for things I shouldn't, and I over think many-many-many things and that is probably why my stress is so high, especially with how things are with my family at the moment. But, even though I am physically tired, and the problems in my life are increasing, I don't think I'm in that state of Major Depression again, because I'm getting stronger when back then I wasn't.

Major Depression, according to PsychCentral in their article Depression and MDD talks about this disorder.

Clinical depression is characterized by the presence of the majority of these symptoms:

• Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feeling sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). (In children and adolescents, this may be characterized as an irritable mood.)
• Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day
• Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.
• Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day
• Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day
• Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day
• Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide 

here is a video that talks about MDD Major Depressive Disorder project

Panic disorders

I am sure there are many of you besides myself who have experience a state of fear or mild panic attacks. However, for those of you that have no experienced severe fear, anxiety or severe panic attacks, it is very difficult to know how to help someone struggling through that moment. During those moments of a state of panic that you yourself is not experiencing, and not knowing what to do or say can be just as equally devastating because it makes you feel hopeless. A panic disorder is what most books, doctors and psychologist categorize as a frequent period of anxiety and occasional attacks of rapid breathing, increased heart rate, sweating and trembling. It's an extreme arousal of the sympathetic nervous system. I have personally have had a panic attack, just not to the extreme, my mom on the other had has had very severe panic attacks. There was this one time, she was driving home after work, and all of a sudden her breathing became very loud, unsteady, rapid, her eyes got wide, her hands started shaking  and she hit one of those giant dumpster trash cans, and scratched the side of the car really bad, well when she got home her body was shaking so bad she crawled under our bread counter and stayed there for awhile hugging her knees. My dad had to try and talk her out of that state for about ten minutes, really it was crazy. 

 The WebMD website gave an awesome insight of panic disorders, the symptoms to look at. A few symptoms besides the ones I listed above include:

• "Racing" heart
• Feeling weak, faint, or dizzy
• Tingling or numbness in the hands and fingers
• Sense of terror, or impending doom or death
• Feeling sweaty or having chills
• Chest pains
• Breathing difficulties
• Feeling a loss of control

The website for this article, like I said you can find it at panic Attack Symptoms
What I found really interesting and fascinating was the fact that people who have panic attacks have a lot of fear because they never know when they might have another attack. I did not know however that it affects over 2 millions people in the U.S between 18 and 54.

Sleepy Time Gone Wrong

Like many of us, I'm sure at some point we all have are difficult moments of trying, but failing at trying to fall asleep at night. I have battled insomnia for a long time, have I particularly overcome it I'm not to sure. There are days where I can fall asleep real easy, but then there will be serious times, probably about twice a month where I can go as much as six to seven days without sleep. Not without consequences unfortunately. Stress, depression, traumatic experiences, medications, diet pills, environment are just a few of the causes that lead to insomnia. I do have stress, I can't remember a time where I haven't NOT felt any stress in my life, I battled with depression for years, and I'm still battling with it now, the environment I was living in before I moved out was horrible so everything kept piling up and insomnia would often be the case. Since I would also have fear of sleeping, since my dreams often lead to nightmares.

Some of the ways I have heard to solve sleeping problems is to change the room a person is sleeping in around, exercising more, eating better, avoid naps, and drink that much caffeine. Problem is for me is that I change my room around every week, I exercise a lot. I eat healthy, but I could try to eat more, I don't have time for naps, and I don't drink any caffeine either so sometimes I have to resort to sleeping aids that my doctor prescribed for me to take. 

I read this article from HelpGuide that talks a lot about insomnia, and I thought you guys might like to read it.
can't sleep?

What insomnia is exactly, its the inability to fall asleep for a length of time. If you have any symptoms of insomnia seek medical attention, because it can also lead to some serious damage to your body.

 Insomnia Damages in Following Ways:
1. Memory Loss: . Lack of sleep prevents to do such things and causes of weekend of memory.  Insomnia causes to lose of this power of retaining information with 44%.

2. Intellectual Loss: Lack of sleep no doubt damages the memory but with memory loss it also causes to cerebral loss. When one individual feels drowsiness, memory loss and deadening than its obvious lack of intellectual power.

3. Physical Loss: Insomnia can damage the body with negative effect on coordination, motor functions and other body function. Lack of sleep reduced endurance and cardiovascular performance.

4. Depression: Depression and insomnia follow each other frequently. Some researches show that inability to get good night sleep can develop the depression. Insomnia has several symptoms of damage including the following.

• Increasing Irritation
• Lack of concentration
• Reduced interest in sex
• Unwanted and unexplained weight loss
• Weekend immune system
• Increase negativity
• Feelings of helplessness


damages of insomnia

Testosterone

I find the subject on testosterone kind of interesting, well both testosterone and androgen fascinating since we both have them. Imagine how it would be for men to produce extremely high levels of testosterone than the average male? or women having more androgen than that of the normal female? I thought those questions would be interesting to talk about since I dated a guy that had extremely high levels of testosterone.

Testosterone for adult men produces a healthy libido, it builds muscle mass and helps maintain energy. However, to much testosterone can be a serious problem and wreak havoc on a man's behavior and physique. Lynda Liu wrote on testosterone stating that men who produce even a slightly above average testosterone level had more risks to injuries, drank more alcoholic beverages in a day, smoke and had a risk of sexually transmitted infections. now imagine extremely HIGH levels?

Lynda Liu also stated, in MedicineNet were more likely to engage in risky behaviors and ignore the positive health benefits of testosterone, be involved in crime, become anti social, get in trouble in school, remain single and be unemployed.

The guy I dated a while back, ended up all of a sudden developing high levels of testosterone out of no where. Our relationship ended really bad because of this. To say he got involved in criminal behavior is an understatement, his anti socialism started to drive us apart, we got into more arguments, and it was like he was feeding off those arguments. He got into several fights, many that landed him in the hospital for weeks, he began doing dangerous things like: getting hit by a taxi in Florida when he was visiting family, he laughed and thought getting hit was nothing but a game. Driving his motorcycle on the opposite side of the street while laughing and screaming out that the car coming at him was a chicken and will move aside. Engaging in knife fights for the thrill of it. So, it was really bad, especially when during the final year and a half of our relationship I found out that he was cheating on me with 13 different women, and had 7 children (mind you this guy is only 25 years old well now he's 25). When we broke up, he told his cousin that he had no desire to get married just play games. I wasn't surprised to know later that when he found himself back in the hospital for doing something dumb, that he had to get prescribed medication to handle his extreme high levels of testosterone.

So I think it's important for men to constantly monitor their testosterone, because to much is dangerous. Many body builders actually inject themselves with testosterone, and some of them die from those injections.
Evolutionary biologist Steve Jones talks about testosterone and crime, in Testosterone and Crime  its a very interesting film, and Steve Jones does a very good job at explaining the difference in actions because of testosterone in males and females in this video. 

Pain

I'm pretty sure we all have had some of the same experiences dealing with pain, just not in the same situation. One of the most traumatizing times in my life I had to go through dealt with corrective jaw surgery. I was a junior in high school when my doctor told me that I had a severe overbite that needed to be corrected. I will let you all know right now that was one heck of a life alternating experience. The day before my surgery I had to stay at the hospital, they let me eat anything I wanted that was a good solid meal since it was going to be a long time (16 weeks mind you) before I was able to eat anything solid again. I was a junior at the time, so really to be honest I had no idea what I was in for. Actually, I don't remember much, only that early the following morning they gave me a series of injections, I'm guessing morphine and other things. Next thing I know I'm waking up late at night, doctors had questioned my sudden consciousness because I was supposed to be out till around midnight or really early the next day. Nope, not me, I woke up within hours after the procedure, they took the tube out of, at the time I thought it was mouth, but then again it could have been my nose since they had to break both my lower and up jaw, but it could have been my mouth. It was a very strange feeling because it felt as if my mouth was like a block of cement, I couldn't move it at all, couldn't even speak a word. Well, it didn't help that I started to feel nauseous and soon after started vomiting a lot of blood. It felt as if my lower jaw had fallen off, but because my jaws were wired shut, I was surprised to know that much blood came out of a tiny opening. To make a long story short, my recovery period went for twelve and a half weeks instead of sixteen, but for the first couple of weeks it was really brutal. I could rarely eat anything, everything had to be liquefied, it was hard not communicating vocally because the doctor had forbidden me from speaking or attempting to speak, and I was in a lot of pain constantly. Sleeping hurt, drinking my meals hurts, changing the rubber bands around my jaws hurt and the pain medication only helped a little bit.



This is the area where the doctors had to break in different places, and shifted it to the proper area.

This is the area where the doctors had to break on both sides to shift to fit in the proper area that would align it with the upper area.
I don't remember specifically in great detail what they did, but I hope that would explain a little of what they did. So imagine how much pain I was in.


I won't go into the whole nitty gritty of my experience with jaw surgery since the whole ordeal was really traumatizing, and painful, but hopefully you can see where I am going with this.

We learned that pain is experienced is caused by harmful stimulus, and it holds are attention for as long as the pain lasts.
There are many types of medications available to help control pain, like opioids (a drug with morphine like effects), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (used for relief in the areas where there is pain), and anesthetics (induces insensitivity to pain). By treating pain with prescribed medication after surgery can really help the person feel comfortable, and by doing so will help the body heal and recover from surgery faster. I think it would be common sense, because when I was in pain, I could feel my body tensing, shaking, and I would cry constantly, scream, which caused more pain, even though it was muffled since my jaws were sealed. After, I took medication, icing my face a lot, and started getting a little bit of rest when I could, I found myself recovering faster, I was able to walk around a few days earlier than expected, and even healed completely a few weeks earlier as well. When you feel less pain, you can start moving sooner and get your strength back more quickly.

The AAOS (American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons) website goes into a greater detail discussing different ways to cope with pain after a surgery, here is the link AAOS they provide a really good explanation of how to manage pain, I highly suggest you read it. They provide different types of opioids, how they work, and advantages and disadvantages of using them.

This is a quick video involving two doctors that discuss pain treatments. Doctors Explain Pain Treatments
This video explain an Intensive Jaw Surgery similar to one like mine, only mine lasted a little bit longer than five hours. It is a graphic video, so if you do not wish to see the surgery please do not click on the video, I watched a lot of videos on it since I actually went through it. Intensive jaw surgery
I hope you guys enjoyed this post, I highly suggest you go to the AAOS website and read what they have there, and watch the videos if you want to see for yourself what I was talking about.

Amnesia

I think most of us take our memories, well our ability to make memories for granted. There are people out in the world that have done things, experienced hurtful situations and wish nothing more than wanting to forget about them because they think it is just to hard to deal with. I'm sure some of us have been in that situation, where something happens, and we sit in our rooms or cry on the shoulder of a family member or friend wanting to forget everything, and not even bothering to consider that, well, at least we are able to make memories.

There are many people that suffer from accidents, some from random strokes, and some in different situations. However, our memories are precious, and I think most people don't really have a full concept on how precious that part of us is. Our memories is what enables us to go back and think about what we have done, what we can learn from that time so that we can prepare ourselves in the present and in the future. Without our memories, to me, I'm not sure how I could do things, or even make it through school. Lord knows I have to read the book at least eight times until I grasp and memorize everything. Even remembering loved ones we take for granted as well, because if you think about it, how would you feel if you woke up one morning not knowing your past, and forgetting that you can't make new memories? In just a blink of an eye they can all just disappear with not even a snap of your finger.

There is several different type of Amnesia, I find this rather shocking. At first I thought, "Ok, well Amnesia, is Amnesia the person looses their memories and will either get them back, or not." I did not know the severity of each type though.

Antergrade Amnesia occurs when the brain is hit by something that causes a trauma that involves the hippocampus, fornix, or mammillary bodies. People with Antergrade Amnesia are unable to recollect events that happen AFTER the onset of amnesia for more than a few minutes, basically things that happen to them during the day do not get transferred into their long term memory. Their intelligence, personality and judgement are still intact, but because of the amnesia many issues can happen, like losing their job for instance. Memory aids can help though, with memory aids the person can live a pretty much normal life.
I don't know about you, but the movie 50 first days comes to mind. 50 first dates clip in the movie Lucy the main character, suffered from a fictional condition called Goldfield Syndrome, basically Antergrade Amnesia.

Retrograde Amnesia can be caused by either a disease or a brain injury, especially in areas linked to the episodic memory, the hippocampus and median temporal lobes. The individual affected is unable to recollect events that occurred BEFORE  the amnesia. For this condition, early memories are comparatively safe with memory building up to the even. Unfortunately, no cure has been found for this condition. This link Scott Bolan   will lead you to Scott Bolan's interview and testimony of his experience with Retrograde Amnesia. He wrote a book called "My life deleted" presently, he still cannot remember past life.The reality of this type of amnesia really, there is no words to describe how I felt when hearing how Scott Bolan testimony on how he received the support of his family to help him.

Dissociative Amnesia is a condition in which the patient is unable to remember vital personal information in a way that has nothing to do with normal forgetfulness. It is commonly seen in individuals who have witnessed a violent crime or a grave accident and does not occur due to a medical illness. They  do not experience an identity crisis but they tend to pass through a trance-like state and may develop depersonalization as an effort to block out a stressful experience. 

Infantile Amnesia: is basically the inability to recall events from early childhood. Some think that his occurs because of immaturity of the brain in some areas. 

 Transient Global Amnesia (TGA): there is temporary impairment in an otherwise healthy person's memory. During this period of amnesia, the person is unable to recall recent occurrences, visuals or verbal information for more than a couple of minutes. They can retain their identities, immediate recall abilities, distant memories, attention span, language function, visual-spatial and social skills. People that have TGA experience headaches, dizziness, and nausea along with memory loss. The memories can be recovered, and once they recover the individuals are able to remember what occurred during the period of memory loss. TGA generally affects fifty to eighty-year old men. About 100,000 per year receive TGA. Causes of TGA may include: emotional stress, strenuous physical exertion, a small stroke, and migraines. 

 Wernike-Korsakoff's psychosis This amnesia is a progressive disorder caused by extended alcohol abuse. It is usually accompanied by neurological dysfunctions such as loss of co-ordination during movement or a feeling of numbness in the fingers and toes. Dr. Patrick J. Macmillan goes into a deeper insight of Wernike Korsakoff Psychosis and discusses a few cases associated with this diagnosis. Wernicke-Korsikoff Syndrome


Alzheimer's Disease: Alzheimer's disease causes brain changes that gradually get worse. It's the most common cause of dementia. It's a group of brain disorders that cause progressive loss of intellectual and social skills, severe enough to interfere with day-to-day life. In Alzheimer's disease, brain cells degenerate and die, causing a steady decline in memory and mental function.My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's for several years before she died. It was really hard to deal with emotionally, but I won't go way into detail on that. This link will lead you to a small discussion on Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's Disease
If you have watched the Notebook, then I'm pretty sure you can get a somewhat insight on what Alzheimer's is, even though it's just a movie.  the Notebook