Development of Hebephrenia

[mokou123]

So... I've got a hebephrenic character. As of now his symptoms aren't very severe as the disease has begun recently, but I plan to show him in the future, with the disease more developed - about 5-6 years from the start. The guy has received no treatment at all

Comments

[maya_blue]

DS was the type of schizophrenia a close relative of mine had, I was around for much of the caretaking and such up until his death. He started developing symptoms just after puberty. I could tell you a lot more about his day to day life if you want to hear it, just let me know and I am happy to share. This is gonna be long, bear with me.

Disorganized schizophrenia is much nastier than the paranoid type...the earlier schizophrenia begins, the more devastating it is to a person's overall development. It doesn't disappear with puberty unfortunately, and over time physical brain damage
starts to become more and more apparent.

People with disorganized schizophrenia generally don't display "catatonic behavior" like sitting in a chair staring for hours or wandering with no purpose. Overall, the behavior in DS might be described as nonsensical. They may mumble nonsense, put on all their clothes at once, or break things for no reason. A person might start laughing during a sad event or fly into a rage for no reason. Here is a video example of a person with disorganized schizophrenia, on medication.

Would it be possible to interact with the patient-
Yes, but the response back might not make any sense. Unmedicated, it would be very difficult to hold a "normal" conversation for long. DS manifests more as language problems, bizarre emotions that aren't relevant to the situation, and extremely disorganized thinking. Patients with DS do have hallucinations and delusions, but their primary issues are with language, emotion and social development.
Wiki has some examples of the different kinds of language problems encountered in people with Schizophrenia.

Would the disease have any impact outside of mental health-
I've never heard of people with HS having more fevers. Overall they have poor hygiene and problems with self-care, though. Have you ever seen a homeless person wearing eight coats in the middle of summer? That's why. I'm not a psychiatrist, so I don't have the answers as to why exactly this happens.

In psychosis a person might not feel pain as severely. They might self-mutilate, pick at open wounds or neglect to keep them clean, causing infections. The person I helped care for had a nervous habit, he would rapidly rotate his wrists, much the way you see Jani Schofield (a very young schizophrenic with severe symptoms that don't respond to meds) doing off and on in the video. One time he smashed his hand in the door in a rage, and even though it was swollen and obviously broken, he kept doing the rotating wrist thing. We could hear bones crunching, it was awful, but the compulsion to do the action was more aggravating to him than the physical pain of snapping his broken wrist back and forth. He also broke windows with his bare hands, stabbed himself in the arm with a pen and more than once, tried to jump from a four story balcony. Not because he wanted to kill himself (tried more than once, though), but because he wanted to know what it felt like to jump.

Everday Life- They often neglect their own self care and often resist their caretaker's efforts to get them to brush their teeth or bathe. Short term memory gets worse and worse with age, causing a person to become frustrated and irritable very easily. A person might only eat one or two foods, have bizarre phobias that rule their life (Jani, the girl in that video will strip off her clothes if she gets a drop of liquid on them) and be seemingly "set off" by things that don't bother most people. It becomes a game of walking on eggshells, learning what will set your loved one off into a rage or cause them to try and kill themselves.

It won't fit in this comment so I am stopping now, but if you want me to write up a sort of "24 hours with a person who has HS" thing, I would be happy to.

Thanks so much for listening, I hope some of this has helped you out!! :]

[mokou123]

Thank you for the extensive info! I didn't expect such a detailed reply. :) That was much more helpful than anything I've ever read on this subject.

I'd be very glad to take you up on your offer, if you have the time and patience to do so. :) Thanks again!!!