Although not so common as other psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia is likely to affect about one percent of men or women in their lifetime. The condition is a behavior and brain disorder that affects how one feels, acts, and thinks. It is hard to tell the real world from fantasy, manage or express emotions normally, and make decisions. The thinking processes become disorganized and engaging in activities becomes blunted. When having this condition, there’s a likelihood of hearing imaginary voices or believing that someone is reading your mind, plots to harm you or control your thoughts.
You’re likely to experience intermittent symptoms throughout your life. These symptoms are terrifying with the potential to encourage agitation, unresponsiveness, and withdrawal. Additionally, schizophrenia encourages suicide thoughts with the chances of completing the deadly mission standing at 10 percent. Fortunately, psychological, medical, and social treatments are appropriate remedies to improve your life when dealing with his chronic condition.
How the environment leads to schizophrenia
When trying to figure out some of the factors responsible for causing schizophrenia, the environment ranks among the top. This is your surroundings where you spend most of your life. To a layman, the environment includes a neighborhood or home. However, to scientists, the term environment encompasses a lot including nutritional, chemical, social, and hormonal, and chemical surroundings before birth. Any problems in the environment might significantly contribute to the development of this mental disorder as you’re about to discover.
Prolonged exposure to drugs
Many people experience their first schizophrenia attack from continued use of cannabis. Other drugs including marijuana and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) are reported to cause a similar problem. You can also experience a schizophrenic attack from using stimulants, particular steroids, or other prescription drugs.
Furthermore, many people with schizophrenia are discovered to use excessive alcohol. When exposed to any of the situations highlighted above, don’t hesitate to get best treatment for schizophrenia from professionals to make your life better.
Growing up in poverty
Children who grow up in poverty-stricken families are likely to exhibit signs of schizophrenia. These are exposed to stressful situations every day impacting their cognitive function making the child end up with limit cognitive resources for education. Stressed-out children are always hungry and too tired to pay attention in class or achieve full potential.
Stress hormones affect brain development and mental health. Exposing a child to prolonged stress is linked to inflammation with a significant negative impact on the body and brain. Children who grow up in low-income families end up with significant anxiety and worry compared to those in stable families. Additionally, children from poor families experience a lot of neglect, abuse, and trauma, poor nutrition, and domestic violence.
Fetal malnutrition
Sometimes a child experiences malnutrition while developing in the mother’s womb. Alternatively, complications during birth are also responsible for schizophrenia. These situations increase the possibility of a child suffering from schizophrenia as they grow older. It is hard to tell situations that might potentially make you develop schizophrenia.
Condition of the mother during pregnancy
The state of the mother at the time of giving birth has an impact on the chances of developing schizophrenia in the future. A mother with rubella increases the chances of the child getting the chronic mental condition by about 500 percent. Additionally, maternal infections like herpes simplex virus type 2, toxoplasmosis, and influenza and flu throughout the pregnancy are also said to encourage the mental disorder.
Obstetric complications
Obstetric procedures such as bleeding during the pregnancy, low birth weight, preeclampsia, and cesarean section increase the chance of schizophrenia. Additionally, the use of forceps might trigger the onset of psychotic problems early in life.
Exposure to trauma
Trauma as a child or adult is a risk factor for schizophrenia. Child abuse including physical abuse, sexual abuse, bullying, or neglect increases the chances of this mental condition in adulthood. Additionally, the death of a parent or both, victimization, and permanent separation from loved ones also have a strong link to schizophrenia. Life events that bring negative changes are some of the biggest culprits when it comes to triggering schizophrenia later in life.
Shifting from one place to another
Living and growing up in an urban setting increase the risk of schizophrenia. Shifting from a rural setting to an urban setting doubles the risk of developing this mental disorder. And, the more years spent living in an urban setting, the greater the risk of schizophrenia. This is because there is great potential to get exposed to income inequality, use of marijuana, social fragmentation, and social deprivation. All these encourage extreme stress that might eventually encourage mental problems.
Various factors are responsible for causing schizophrenia. However, this article has focused on environmental factors alone. It is very important to understand how the surrounding can encourage mental problems. Most important of all is to always remember to seek treatment for schizophrenia from experts on exposure to the above situation.
