People have always been and always will be attracted by the visions of strange, frightening and mysterious; and what can be more so, than the things that happen inside human’s mind, when the mind itself seems to rise against the human?
The word “schizophrenia” is derived from the Greek words meaning “to split” and “mind”, the literal translation being something like “split mind” and it is truly so – it affects the person’s cognitive process, destroying the connections between reality, thought, emotion and behavior. It often results in hallucinations, delusions (mostly bizarre or persecutory), as well as disorganization of thinking process.
The first signs of schizophrenia generally appear during the period of adolescence and early adulthood, severely impairing the person’s abilities to interact with the outer world. It goes without saying that such individuals can hardly lead normal social life. Although, however, there have been a number of rather picturesque examples of people suffering from this serious mental illness, who still showed considerable capacity to live and act, finally achieving a lot more than an average normal human being. One of the most well-known of them is John Forbes Nash, an American mathematician who was diagnosed as a schizophrenic during his study at college. Notwithstanding the fact that he refused to take medications and undergo treatment, he not only continued to work in the field of Mathematics, but also was awarded the Nobel’s prize in 1994. His case became famous enough to inspire a book “The Beautiful Mind” and the film based on it.
All in all, schizophrenics range in the acuteness of their mental disorder and their possibility to fight them off. Generally they are much more dangerous for themselves, than for the other people.