Hello! I am learning about Schizophrenia in my Psychology class and I was wondering if anyone could answer some questions to help me better understand what it’s like living with Catatonic Schizophrenia. My questions are; what is it like to live with this disorder? Do you feel that you are treated differently because of it? How so? What are your symptoms? When were you diagnosed and who decided to take you for diagnosis? Are some days worse than others? If so, what are the causes? What have you done to cope with this disorder? Does it affect your everyday life? Did this disorder have an impact on your personality? What kinds of treatments did the doctor offer? If anyone replies, thank you for taking time to answer! I greatly appreciate it!
My son had catatonic schizophrenia when he was 17. He would be walking across the lounge towards the bathroom and suddenly stop in the pose of ‘walking’, one leg in front of the other and one arm in front and one behind, as though he was a statue of someone walking. and he’d be frozen there for like half an hour. His eyes did not respond or blink when we waved our hand in front of them. When he became animated again, he’d say he couldn’t remember where he was going. Another time he was watering the garden (well playing with the hose pipe actually), and suddenly froze there. He didn’t move at all for about half an hour. The weird thing is that he looked like he would fall over, not properly balanced, yet he never fell over. Every now and then he would freeze and become unresponsive. He once stood in the kitchen for over an hour, looking at nothing in front of him. His explanation was always that he forgot where he was going or what he wanted to do.