Updated September 30, 2014.
Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.
People experiencing disorganized speech are often aware that their thoughts and words aren’t communicating the things they intend.
However, they typically don’t understand why. They may earnestly try to communicate their thoughts in nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness language, and be frustrated when the other person doesn’t understand, or that the words aren’t coming out right. On the other hand, they may seem to be unaware that the listener doesn’t understand them.
There are many kinds of disorganized behavior. For example, someone may move their empty hands as if they’re knitting, or occasionally make an apparently meaningless hand gesture or body posture. They usually seem unaware of these motions.
Other forms or disorganized behavior can be quite dramatic. For example, a person may remove all his or her clothing in an inappropriate place. At the time the person does this, they seem to believe the behavior is entirely reasonable and usually don’t expect to generate an unusual response.
Disorganized public behaviors often result in contact with the law. More and more legal jurisdictions are recognizing mental illness and referring people for psychiatric evaluation.
However, there are still far too many mentally ill people in jails and even prisons for nothing more than disruptive, disorganized behavior.
Healthy people also perform bizarre and socially unusual behaviors. Otherwise relatively normal people might take off their clothes at a football game, start a pillow fight in a public square, or wear bizarre dress. The difference is that these people are aware the behavior is unusual, and are looking for the attention they attract. This kind of behavior is not unusual among high-spirited teenagers and young adults.
People with schizophrenia have a particularly difficult time recognizing negative symptoms as being symptoms of an illness or even abnormal. In this way, the experience can be like that of certain kinds of depression.
The person doesn’t express emotions or expresses them only mildly, even when confronted angrily, or in a dangerous situation. The person may also fail to find significant pleasure in things that were once delightful (this is called anhedonia).
A person experiencing negative symptoms has little energy or motivation, and the person's mental energy and acuity is often also depressed. Because the mind itself feels fuzzy or dull, there’s little perception that it’s possible to feel differently, and little memory of a time when one felt differently. Many people who have experienced depression will understand this feeling of being in a mental fog.
Schizophrenia is a progressive illness, and treatment with antipsychotic medications stops or slows the progression of the disease. Diagnosis and treatment with antipsychotic medications early in the illness, optimally within the first six months of symptoms, has the greatest potential to reduce the severity of a person’s illness for the rest of that person’s life. It is absolutely essential for people to get help, and insist on an evaluation by a psychiatrist, when psychotic symptoms occur.
Sources:
Chovel, I. The Experience of Schizophrenia: Ian Chovil’s Homepage. http://www.chovil.com/
Keith, S. Understanding the Experience of Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry. 150:11, November 1993. pp.1616-1617.
Koreen, A., Siris, S, Chakos, M,. Alvir, J., Mayerhoff, D. and Lieberman, J. Depression in First-Episode Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 150:11, November 1993. pp. 1643 - 1648.
Sechehay, M. and Conroy, F. Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl: The True Story of “Renee.” Translated by Grace Rubin-Rabson. New York: Penguin Books. 1968.
Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.
What’s It Like to Have Disorganized Speech or Behavior?
The process that disrupts the normal operations of the brain also disrupts the process by which the brain monitors its own operation. . To use an engineering analogy, a psychotic brain can’t trouble shoot its own errors, because the trouble shooting tools are malfunctioning too.People experiencing disorganized speech are often aware that their thoughts and words aren’t communicating the things they intend.
However, they typically don’t understand why. They may earnestly try to communicate their thoughts in nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness language, and be frustrated when the other person doesn’t understand, or that the words aren’t coming out right. On the other hand, they may seem to be unaware that the listener doesn’t understand them.
There are many kinds of disorganized behavior. For example, someone may move their empty hands as if they’re knitting, or occasionally make an apparently meaningless hand gesture or body posture. They usually seem unaware of these motions.
Other forms or disorganized behavior can be quite dramatic. For example, a person may remove all his or her clothing in an inappropriate place. At the time the person does this, they seem to believe the behavior is entirely reasonable and usually don’t expect to generate an unusual response.
Disorganized public behaviors often result in contact with the law. More and more legal jurisdictions are recognizing mental illness and referring people for psychiatric evaluation.
However, there are still far too many mentally ill people in jails and even prisons for nothing more than disruptive, disorganized behavior.
Healthy people also perform bizarre and socially unusual behaviors. Otherwise relatively normal people might take off their clothes at a football game, start a pillow fight in a public square, or wear bizarre dress. The difference is that these people are aware the behavior is unusual, and are looking for the attention they attract. This kind of behavior is not unusual among high-spirited teenagers and young adults.
What’s It Like to Have Negative Symptoms?
People with schizophrenia have a particularly difficult time recognizing negative symptoms as being symptoms of an illness or even abnormal. In this way, the experience can be like that of certain kinds of depression.
The person doesn’t express emotions or expresses them only mildly, even when confronted angrily, or in a dangerous situation. The person may also fail to find significant pleasure in things that were once delightful (this is called anhedonia).
A person experiencing negative symptoms has little energy or motivation, and the person's mental energy and acuity is often also depressed. Because the mind itself feels fuzzy or dull, there’s little perception that it’s possible to feel differently, and little memory of a time when one felt differently. Many people who have experienced depression will understand this feeling of being in a mental fog.
Real People, Real Emotions, Real Lives
Samuel Keith, MD, editor of the America Journal of Psychiatry, expressed the plight of a person with schizophrenia very well:Real people with real feelings get schizophrenia. One should never underestimate the depth of their pain, even though the illness itself may diminish their ability to convey it…. As one of my own patients told me, “Whatever this is that I have, I feel like I’m a caterpillar in a cocoon, and I’m never going to get the chance to be a butterfly.”
Schizophrenia is a progressive illness, and treatment with antipsychotic medications stops or slows the progression of the disease. Diagnosis and treatment with antipsychotic medications early in the illness, optimally within the first six months of symptoms, has the greatest potential to reduce the severity of a person’s illness for the rest of that person’s life. It is absolutely essential for people to get help, and insist on an evaluation by a psychiatrist, when psychotic symptoms occur.
Sources:
Chovel, I. The Experience of Schizophrenia: Ian Chovil’s Homepage. http://www.chovil.com/
Keith, S. Understanding the Experience of Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry. 150:11, November 1993. pp.1616-1617.
Koreen, A., Siris, S, Chakos, M,. Alvir, J., Mayerhoff, D. and Lieberman, J. Depression in First-Episode Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 150:11, November 1993. pp. 1643 - 1648.
Sechehay, M. and Conroy, F. Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl: The True Story of “Renee.” Translated by Grace Rubin-Rabson. New York: Penguin Books. 1968.