Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder prone to gradual progression. One of the dangers of this condition is the tendency to selfharma (self-harm) and suicidal tendencies. According to medical statistics, more than 10% of people with schizophrenia commit suicide.
Direct thoughts about settling accounts with life or self-harm, as well as specific attempts and actions, can manifest themselves both in moments of exacerbation of the mental state, and in a situation of remission.
Period of psychosis
For schizophrenia, moments of remission are typical - the so-called "light periods", when there are no symptoms of psychosis - and periods of relapse of the disease. Relapses are manifested as direct signs of psychosis that accompanies this pathological condition. The risk of suicide during moments of psychosis is usually very high. Why is this happening?
- Among the delusional ideas that arise in a person with schizophrenia, thoughts of suicide and self-harm may dominate.
- If there are hallucinations among the “products” of the disease, then the risk of attempting suicide becomes even greater. Often hallucinations - visual and auditory - can take the form of imperative, that is, those that give immediate orders to a sick person. Such orders may include attitudes to self-harm. In addition, hallucinations can be so frightening that a person, unable to control his condition, may try to commit suicide, only to get rid of fear and anxiety, panic.
- Confusion of consciousness, which is typical for exacerbations of schizophrenia, can also be the basis for selfharma or suicidal attempts.
- Irrational fear, pathological anxiety, painful anxiety, existing separately from hallucinations and delusional ideas, can push a sick person to terrible actions.
- Often during psychosis, the patient behaves violently, restlessly, uncontrollably. He has lost sleep, his physical activity is very increased, and so on. In such a state, close to affect, a person can decide on any action, including suicide.
Remission period
Schizophrenia is a disease that, even in moments of calm, somehow reminds of itself. This can happen with the help of certain personality defects that gradually increase, or due to a persistent state of depression, sometimes severe.
Depressive disorder, even without reinforcement from another mental pathology, in some cases is the basis for causing physical harm to oneself, for suicide attempts. When combined with schizophrenia, depression generates even more heavy thoughts, anxiety, and so on. In addition, in some cases, depression can appear against the background of immediate psychosis.
During remission with depression, a person with schizophrenia is constantly thinking back to the last episodes of relapse. Images, ideas, sensations become obsessive, exhausting, exhausting and can be fatal. Suicide in this case is perceived by the patient as a kind of salvation or as a variant of self-punishment.
When the risk of suicide increases in schizophrenia
Typically, people with schizophrenia commit suicide attempts either at night or in the early morning. Unfortunately, even in the conditions of treatment in a hospital, the threat of suicide and selfharma persists in the schizophrenic.
The risk of such an outcome increases in cases of:
- too frequent hospitalizations;
- due to the sharp progression of mental illness;
- under pressure from relatives;
- due to improperly prescribed treatment, non-compliance with the schedule for taking prescribed drugs;
- too late diagnosis of mental pathology;
- the presence of suicidal attempts prior to diagnosis;
- appropriate living conditions of a sick person;
- such forms of disorder that are very difficult to correct or not suppressed at all with the help of drugs.
