Why do people who are depressed or suffer from schizophrenia isolate themselves? This article answers this question and seeks to address the alienation of people with depression and schizophrenia. The isolation of elderly and abandoned people also turns out to be an important issue.
One of the first symptoms of schizophrenia is avoidance of contact with the outside world. The person with the illness has difficulty communicating with others, forgets words, and over time begins to confuse the order of words in a sentence. Many people close themselves off for fear of being hurt, some are unwilling and unable to believe that contact with people can be a great cure. During the psychotherapy to which patients are referred, one can observe a slow process of people withdrawing from life. Psychotherapies are intended to bring people back to reality, and therefore also back to life in society. Many people who withdraw from life are afraid of not being accepted and feel that everyone is aware of their illness.
Such a belief gives rise to a reluctance to be with other people, to adopt an open attitude. People with schizophrenia have a different way of seeing the world and are afraid of not being understood by others. Depending on the type of schizophrenia, bizarre, agonising delusions and hallucinations may occur, behaviour that is inappropriate to the situation.
The patient often hears voices commenting on his behaviour or ordering him to do something. The schizophrenic often sees a connection between neutral events and himself, which devalues the person. To such a person it may seem that everyone is mocking and deriding him or her. From the beginning, patients tend to withdraw from life into their inner world - dominated by the illness. Schizophrenia results in an almost complete mental isolation of the patient from those around them.
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Patients lose their friends, their ability to study, to do their jobs, to communicate. Often left unattended, they sink further and further into the illness. The illness strongly disturbs perception, emotions and clear thinking. For some people on medication, it seems to change their personality, that they will never be the same as before. This can also be a reason for them to shut down and create an aversion to being in society. However, this is an absurd belief because drugs do not change a person's personality or character.
