why do schizophrenia patients get less sympathy than cancer patients? I don’t understand!
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Maybe because you die from cancer?
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Probably because a lot of people think you are not responsible for getting cancer ,but are ignorant enough to think it’s not the same for schizophrenia.
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It might sound ungrateful or offensive, but id rather have a physical disease. This mental disease made me lose “me” and my terrors go far beyond fear of death.
I think people cant understand schizophrenia, they are frightened of it, they think wrongly “I might get cancer, but i will never get schizophrenia”. They might see someone with cancer as “one of us”, but someone with sz as different from themselves. As crazy and dangerous. And indeed perhaps the “It is your own fault” thing.
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I think this is pretty accurate. When they think it could never be them they just don’t have the same visceral reaction/fear/sympathy.
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Yes, i think thats true.
It is the same with homeless people. I work with them. Even my colleagues, some of them, are frightened of them and see them as totally different. And at fault.
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A high profile celebrity hasn’t gotten really severe schizophrenia yet. When they do, we will get our due awareness.
Also cancer kills but it can be beaten, while schizophrenia has no cure. That’s something also to think about
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I think it is because cancer is something you can see and test for. 
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It’s sad how we’re treated.
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My direct colleague, who knows im in peer support, told me: someone with sz cant have goals. I said: “I had that diagnosis too”. He didnt know what to say. I think they indeed see it as hopeless. They have an image of the worst outcomes. It has a huge taboo. The more functional sz people/sz people in better times will stay quiet. So they only see our most severe struggles - a homeless person talking to himself, the news about someone violent, etc.
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Hmm I may have been a bit negative with my post. I should be happier. What would also work is a movie from hollywood that focuses on a schizophrenic individual, like a Beautiful Mind. Something that really covers the impact it has on a person.
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Elizabeth Blue was a good movie that portrayed a sz woman pretty well.
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Yeah I thought that it was pretty realistic.
It sure is a mystery…
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I think there are movies needed, but also us (carefully) coming out of the closet and making room in society. If people realise their coworker/acquaintance/the mum on the schoolyard has sz…their view might change.
At my work most people are real kind to me and accepting. Me working there, looking normal and talking about my illness helps them understand. Them making room for me helps loads too for my healing.
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Cancer seems less intimidating than schizophrenia, since schizophrenia gets a bad rap in Hollywood. People with the issue are thought to be unhinged and with a split personality, sometimes capable of horrific impulsive acts, which isn’t completely off the mark.
MrSquirrel’s post sums it up pretty succinctly…
Yes, this kind of events and the way they are covered in the news wont help much.
I wonder though… there must also be people with cancer (brain tumor?) or physical brain damage through an accident or so who suddenly become violent. Even murderous. Or just weird, impulsive or aggressive. Im quite sure that would be seen and reported in a totally different light (in my country).
Why?
Most of the time, cancer doesn’t change someone’s personality towards violence. It does happen, but the instances seem rare. Hollywood depictions are always leaning towards the sympathetic.
Yes, it is rare.
But i read somewhere that sz people on average arent more violent (edit: and somewhere else that there is a modest increase in violence). They are more often victims than perpetrators.
Also, for example brain damage through accidents often causes personality changes and aggression (I read somewhere 30% or so, including verbal violence). Im quite sure someone like that would be seen in a different light than a sz, getting way more sympathy. And if somebody gets an accident and has brain damage, nobody automatically assumes they will be violent.
I think the fact that there is a clear and understandable physical cause makes people view it differently. Or other ideas?
It’s going to take a prominent figure in Hollywood to make schizophrenia seem less intimidating. Maybe someone that can create a schizophrenic main character in a popular sitcom who is put in a positive light.
Barring that, maybe a reformed, wealthy schizophrenic can put millions in an ad campaign destigmatizing schizophrenia. That would start a movement.
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