Patricia Nicole Tio (2012-31423)

Schizophrenia and the Suffering of a Tortured Brilliance

Behind every ingenious painting is a man with profound brilliance. These are the great
worshippers of art. We are all fortunate enough to have come across such artists like Michelangelo,
Vincent van Gogh, Louis Wain and Edvard Munch, the painter of the famous The Scream. All of them
had something in common. Not only the passion for the art but something else, all of them suffered from a
tortured mind. All of them had Schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and by a
deficit of typical emotional responses. It said that the symptoms of schizophrenia are commonly evident
by puberty with 3-7% prevalence through adulthood. Some may experience the symptoms by 20 years
old. The early onset symptoms of this disease includes, 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 selfmedicate), Lack of motivation, Speaking in a strange manner unlike themselves, Inappropriate laughter,
Insomnia or oversleeping and Deterioration in their personal appearance and hygiene but for patients who
had been suffering Schizophrenia for a while ,they suffer from auditory hallucinations, paranoid or
bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or
occupational dysfunction.
One of the most obvious kinds of impairment caused by schizophrenia involves how a person
thinks. The individual can lose much of the ability to rationally evaluate his or her surroundings and
interactions with others. They often believe things that are untrue, and may have difficulty accepting what
they see as reality. This is why people with Schizophrenia are said to be insane which is technically
wrong. These unusual behaviors are manifestations of the disease. This is also why nearly 1/3 of the
diagnosed patients had attempted suicide. As we all knew Vincent van Gogh killed himself at the age of
37. Louis Wain also attempted suicide for three times and on the fourth time he succeeded.

These were Louis Wains artworks of cats as his Schizophrenia was advancing.
There are many biological explanations of the causes of Schizophrenia but none of them has been
proven 100%. Most of them are theories that only applied from 40%-60% of the diagnosed. Some
psychologists say that schizophrenia can be passed down generations, meaning that some people inherit

the disorder from their parents. Twin research has consistently shown that identical twins have a greater
risk of developing schizophrenia, if their twin has the disorder, than non-identical twins but this cannot be
proven to be universal because Psychologists said that there also other factors that contributed to the
disease.
Another explanation is the dopamine hypothesis which says schizophrenia is caused by an
increased reaction to dopamine in the brain. This could be because there is too much of the hormone
dopamine in the brain, or conversely because there is an abnormally high number of dopamine receptors
in the brain. The excess sensitivity to dopamine results in the brain causes the symptoms of
schizophrenia. They have formulated this theory due to the autopsy reports of those with Schizophrenia
which had unusually high number of dopamine receptors in the brain.
Brain dysfunction is also one of the biological explanations of Schizophrenia. Researchers have found
many schizophrenics have enlarged ventricles, on average 15% larger than normal. Some psychologists
believe that the increase in the size of these ventricles is what leads to the schizophrenic symptoms. But
some researchers also suggest that brain abnormalities that lead to schizophrenia could be caused by
viral infection. Contracting diseases such as Flu or Syphilis in the womb may relate to developing
schizophrenia in later life. This assumption is yet to be proven because no concrete evidence has yet
surfaced.
It is hard enough for schizophrenic people to live with utter hallucinations and delusions and we,
the society, are making it even harder for them to live normally. It is because instead of understanding and
helping them of what they are going through, we tend to avoid them and regard them as insane violent
people who we must not give attention to. Some of them do not live any longer and kill themselves
because of societys pressure and schizophrenias impairment and dismantlement of their brains. Some
like the great artists weve known pour out their anxiety through art. It helped them levitate the pain it
caused them while showing the beauty of what a tortured mind can do.