Ramesh was a 17 year-old boy who had much academic success in the past but somehow seemed to behave a little bit odd these days
Ramesh was a 17 year-old boy who had much academic success in the past but somehow seemed to behave a little bit odd these days. One day he went to his high school and accused one of his friends of taking his money even though that guy really didn’t do anything. He kept repeating the same behavior every day. Not only that but his sister, Shruti, saw him mumbling to himself and sometimes also she had seen him talking to someone although no one was there in his room. He stopped talking to his parents and stopped seeing his friends too. Whenever he talked to them, all he talked was about how he had found some hints as to which his school was part of a secret crime operation. He stopped taking care of his body and rarely took a bath. He would also shout at his parents to stop making noise although they actually weren’t making any noise.
On seeing this behavior every day, his father took him to the hospital. On going there, Ramesh seemed inattentive and preoccupied. When the doctor asked his family about drug use, they said that they had never seen him doing drugs, his drug screening results were also negative so they knew that drug use wasn’t the cause for his behavior. He never even had the food in the hospital because he had the doubt that they added drugs in his food to kill him and he starved day and night. When the doctors asked his parents whether there was anyone in his family who had behaved the same way. They told that his grandmother had a serious illness and stayed in a mental hospital for a long time. His parents got divorced when he was 1year-old and his biological mother might have had an illness that the father doesn’t know about. But, they did know that she used to smoke and drink regularly.
Some of the symptoms he showed in the hospital are auditory hallucinations, which means that he heard voices in his head and that’s why his sister saw him mumbling to himself. He also showed delusions which means that they think that someone is in the same room as them when they aren’t actually there in real life. Whenever he spoke to someone, he easily jumped from one topic to another topic although there was no connection between the things he talked about, this is known as disorganized thought and speech. He also showed grandiosity which means that he believed that he had power or ruled everyone in the world and felt like the greatest person to ever live. These are just some of the many symptoms he showed. All these symptoms have caused Ramesh a great deal of mental health problems and have given him a lot of stress which highly affects his well-being. Even his close friends stopped talking to him and stopped caring about him which destroyed his social life.
After looking at all these symptoms in Ramesh, we can come to a conclusion that he has been suffering from SCHIZOPHRENIA. There are many causes as to which he might be suffering from Schizophrenia. One of the main biological causes is hereditary. As mentioned above his grandmother had faced the similar disorder which might have been carried on to Ramesh and is now suffering because of that, he might have also lost a lot of gray matter as he was growing up. It can also be caused by low socio-economic status which means that the community he lived in was a poor one and no one really knew anyone else from the community and were always sitting inside four walls which leads to little to no social life. It can also be caused by the environment. For example, we know that Ramesh’s mother was an alcoholic and a smoker, so that might have caused him to suffer from the illness. We all know that mothers should never drink or even smoke when they are pregnant. Schizophrenia can be treated many ways, but the doctors used atypical antipsychotics to treat him and he lived a normal life after a horrific 1 year.
The one thing that I learnt in class about Schizophrenia is that although the prevalence rate in world is 1%, that’s a lot of people suffering from schizophrenia and its growing day by day and we have to be cautious. I also didn’t know that people suffering from schizophrenia heard voices in their heads. We saw a video in class in which a normal, healthy guy wasn’t able to do simple problems by hearing voices in the head. After learning about so many disorders, I feel that we should never talk down or make fun of people who are suffering from disorders as it is not because they did something wrong in their life but because of their surroundings and social environment which we are all part of. We should help the people in need and always try to keep coming up with solutions to cure the illness so that all of them can lead a happy and a normal life once again. I have experienced what it is like to be born in a family with disorders. My cousin brother who is not even a teen yet is still suffering from hyperactivity and sometimes it’s so hard to control him. All of us still have hope that one fine day, he will be living a happy life again, and I know that we are going to see that day.
