Schizophrenia

It is just staggering how much damage schizophrenia does to our society. About one percent of the population will suffer from schizophrenia over a lifetime. Until deinstitutionalization, about half of all hospital beds (not just mental hospital beds) were occupied by schizophrenics, because onset was usually in the teens or early adulthood. Until deinstitutionalization (when schizophrenics started dying in large numbers by suicide, murder, or freezing to death), it was common for them to live for decades in institutional settings, largely incurable.

Since deinstitutionalization, the direct costs to the public have probably dropped a bit, but when you consider the number of schizophrenics who are dependent on disability checks rather than able to work, it is shocking what this costs to our society. A lot of them come to tragic ends now. If they are fortunate, they have a family member who is both willing to make the sacrifice to care for them, and is able to keep them properly directed. There have been times in my brother's life that he was completely out of control, and my mother's efforts to care for him have not been successful; there have been other times, such as the last few years, when she has been able to keep him properly directed. A lot of schizophrenics aren't so fortunate.

While I haven't seen any direct evidence of this, it does seem as though a lot of schizophrenics, before they become ill, are people of high intelligence, geniuses like John Nash, or my older brother. (His score on the Army's entrance exam was so remarkable that it caused the Army to offer him an unusual opportunity that kept him from going to Vietnam.)

There must be schizophrenics who are of subnormal intelligence, but what is striking to me is how many of the accounts that I have read of schizophrenics who have ended with tragic ends is that many of them were clearly of superior intelligence. It does make you wonder if whatever genes code for schizophrenia also code for superior intelligence. Some people may carry the schizophrenia gene, but there may be environmental triggers that cause some people to develop it, and others not.

So many lives wasted.