Uzma was admitted to a government hospital for abdominal cramps. Doctors advised an ultrasound, which revealed alien objects in her perforated intestine. A subsequent surgery led to the removal of those “alien objects”—polythene, pins, plastic, the handle of a shaver and needles; objects which she had consumed over a long period of time. Despite the alarming results, she feels she hasn’t done anything wrong; she has no interest in knowing what is happening around her, and is seemingly lost in another world. 21-year-old Uzma, the only child of her parents, is a schizophrenic.
Uzma prefers to remain silent, and hardly shows any interest in talking to anyone—family, doctors or others. Her family says she has been stressed because her mother has been pressuring her to qualify the MSC entrance test of the University of Kashmir, which she has already failed once. The pressure lingered since she failed to qualify the MBBS entrance test.
Besides this, family members do not believe that Uzma has any other health problems. However, the doctor treating her says, “She is a case of paranoid schizophrenia (thought disorder) and has been under psychiatric treatment earlier as well, but due to family reluctance, she stopped taking medication, and finally tried to harm herself.”
Schizophrenia, a mental disorder, is characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and by poor emotional responsiveness. It most commonly includes auditory hallucinations (hearing voices); delusions (bizarre or persecutory in nature), disorganised behavior, disorganised thought and negative feelings. According to doctors, an individual should show at least two such symptoms for six months, in order to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. But people with bizarre delusions can qualify without even waiting for six months. This disease has an onset from the age of late teens, but there have been some patients also who have been diagnosed as schizophrenic at the age of five. It is a rare condition, and worldwide it has a prevalence of one percent.more
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