Do you mind if I ask where you live?

Schizophrenia frequently shows up in the late teens and early twenties. I’m not exactly sure what you want to know, so I’ll just summarize some information for you, but you really should search around the internet and look for more information. There’s tons out there.

Schizophrenia is usually caused by genetics though it can also be triggered by environmental factors. The environmental factors include things like abuse, poverty, even living in urban areas, seem to increase the risk. Essentially it’s situations that cause an abnormal amount of mental stress.

But these aren’t necessarily the cause. There’s usually an underlying genetic issue involved that makes it difficult for these people to cope with life.

There are several sub-types of schizophrenia. These sub-types generally describe the types of symptoms the person suffers from. In other words, not all schizophrenia is the same.

It sounds like your brother is suffering from, at the least, delusions and thought disorders, possibly hallucinatiosn as well.

Schizophrenia is often treatable. There are a number of medications out there for treating it. There are basically 3 categories of prognosis: Full recovery, partial recover, and no recovery. The odds are about 1/3 for each, so it’s really a roll of the dice, unfortunately.

The important thing is that your brother needs to see a psychiatrist (not a psychologist). A psychiatrist is a medical doctor that’s gone through medical school whereas a psychologist is someone with a degree in psychology.

Your brother will need to get on medication. There are two classes of drugs for treating schizophrenia: Atypical antipsychotics and typical antipsychotics. The atypicals are newer and tend to be a bit more effective. They also have fewer side-effects and are generally more tolerable. Weight gain appears to be a side effect the atypicals all share, however, so that’s something your brother will need to try to control after getting on them.

Again, I can’t stress enough that your brother really needs to see a psychiatrist. Your brother may fight this idea, but the family needs to force him to do it, if that’s the case. Schizophrenia can be very dangerous. There is a very high suicide rate among schizophrenics, particularly untreated schizophrenics. Schizophrenics have also been known to hurt other people, even people they care about, like friends and family members. They have very little, if any, control over their actions, so treatment is simply not optional.

I hope this helps. I’m so sorry for what you and your family must be going through. Schizophrenia is a disease that is very hard on families, but there’s also a very good probability of complete or partial recovery through treatment, so don’t lose hope. Treatments are improving all the time and if the current line of drugs are not effective or only partially effective, 5 years from now, there may be a completely new class that work for him. Don’t give up.

You should also research as much as you can on the internet. There are a lot of sites devoted to schizophrenia and many have forums where you can talk to people who have family members that are schizophrenics or sufferers of schizophrenia themselves, and they will be able to give you much better information than I can.

The most obvious place to start would be here: http://www.schizophrenia.com/

Good luck.

Pete