Anxiety vs. Schizophrenia
Anxiety and schizophrenia are two distinct psychological and physiological phenomena. Anxiety pertains to the unpleasant feeling often associated with apprehension, uneasiness, worry, or fear. Schizophrenia is much worse – it is a mental disorder characterized by distortions of reality and disturbances of thought and language, as well as withdrawal from social contact. Light anxiety is experienced by each of us from time to time, while the psychotic disorder schizophrenia is suffered by only a small percentage of the world’s population.
Anxiety has physical effects such as headaches, stomachaches, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, fatigue, muscle weakness and tension, or heart palpitations. Emotional effects are also seen in an anxious person and include feelings of dread or apprehension, trouble concentrating, feeling jumpy or tense, expecting the worst, restlessness, irritability, watching for danger, and feelings of having one’s mind gone blank. Anxiety also causes nightmares, déjà vu, and fears. Schizophrenics, on the other hand, are characterized by foolish mannerisms and senseless laughter along with delusions and regressive behavior. They are paranoid and disorganized in speech and thinking, which results in significant occupational or social dysfunction.
Both anxiety and schizophrenia may have some relation with past events or be a result of environmental factors, such as a traumatic experience or the intake of illegal drug. They can also be a result of the risks involved in pregnancy. However, as opposed to anxiety, schizophrenia can have genetic causes.
People who experience anxiety, especially those who suffer from a disorder, often ask if it’s possible that it will eventually turn into schizophrenia. The answer is no – the major cause of schizophrenia is the genetic condition of a person; the likelihood of having this psychotic disorder depends on the family history of the person. Anxiety is the not the cause of schizophrenia; rather, it is more of a behavioral response than a disease. Schizophrenia is biologically caused by overproduction of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which causes brain damage to the behavioral and social stimuli of a person.
Anxious people still belong in our world despite their struggle of constant fear, unlike schizophrenics who seem to have their own world where they talk to imaginary people. They both live in fear, but schizophrenics are always paranoid that somebody’s reading or manipulating their minds and plotting harm against them. Anxiety does not cause disorganized speech and behavior; schizophrenics are incomprehensible and even frightening if they intend to hurt the people around them without knowing it. They suffer from psychosis, schizophrenia’s hallmark symptom where mental impairment is marked by delusions, sensory perception disturbances, and hallucinations, which result from their inability to separate the real experiences from the unreal ones. Because of this, schizophrenia causes social anxiety or phobia.
Treatments for both anxiety and schizophrenia are available, but in the case of the latter, only one out of five individuals recover completely from their mental illness. Both can be treated with medications such as anxiety-reducing drugs and antipsychotic drugs. Anxiety can have an easy recovery compared with schizophrenia; the latter usually takes years to fully heal, and may never go away. Individuals suffering from severe schizophrenia episodes are required to be inside a mental institution in order to be observed and evaluated for progress in behavior. Intake of mental medications in both anxiety and schizophrenia is not an assurance of being healed; sometimes it only makes the condition of the patient much worse.
If you have a friend who has suddenly started behaving strangely in their interactions with other people, do not hesitate to seek professional help.
Summary:
- Anxiety is a kind of emotion, while schizophrenia is a mental disorder.
- Schizophrenia has worse effects on a person than anxiety.
- Anxiety and schizophrenia can both be caused by past traumatic events and intake of illegal drugs, but the latter’s major cause is a genetic predisposition
- Anxiety does not lead to schizophrenia, but schizophrenics are always anxious.
- Schizophrenics have trouble distinguishing the real from the imaginary, while people who suffer from anxiety do not.
- Medications and therapies are available for both.