My guess is that the poster who put that on his tumblr had a LSD (or some other psychedelic drug) experience. I often wonder why when people tend to do those specific drugs, it does appear if their minds were opened more to other possibilities, at least it was with my experience. The tree of knowledge of good and evil... but in this case for me good and evil became a little less clear. I know this post is on schizophrenia, which is something I know little about, except for the documentary about the little girl that had friends called numbers. What's interesting to me, is that we are seeing an increase in children being diagnosed with this and other severe mental disorders.

I feel very confused about this, because children are so influential and in all the documentaries I've seen on these children, the parents are openly talking about the diagnosis with their children watching. A seven year old child might hear this as an excuse for their own bad behavior. Of course, this is a real disease, and I'm sure there is a possibility those children might truly have it, I just don't get how a parent can passively say with an approving voice, "She hits and bites me sometimes"...as if it's an acceptable behavior. I would also be hesitant to give a young child such a strong medication due to the fact that their brains are just developing, and misdiagnosing does happen. I went through a huge charade with my own son when he was 4 years old. They(public school system) insisted that he had ADHD because he wouldn't sit still or stop talking. The school teacher lost him from the class, not once, but three times and insisted it was a behavior problem. When it became clear to me that the school system was unable to safely teach my child in about 1st grade, without pushing the medication agenda on me, then I took him out of school. He became so depressed with the public school system that he talked about killing himself. A 6 year old can have depression and of course a 6 year old could definitely have schizophrenia, but with my experience in having children, I would not EVER use ADHD(because textbook that is what my son had)as an excuse for bad behavior. We would address the behavior first, and not the disorder. I cannot fathom saying, "Oh he has ADHD, so that's why he's hitting me and running around screaming like a banshee" especially right in front of the child.


Of course, on the other side of the spectrum, ADHD is not nearly the same as schizophrenia. I could not say for certain that I would not immediately medicate my child, unless I was there dealing with it, so I try not to be judgmental. Though, I do know how much anti psychotics can affect brain development. I witnessed a young relative of mine be put on an anti-psychotic medication at the age of three. By the time he was six he came and stayed with us, and was bragging that his mother now had him on 9 different medications. They gave him a prescription to counter act the side-effects of another prescription. Though, he was a very intelligent child, he was placed in a special education program because his development was slow due to the medications. He's 17 now, and went to live with his father and his father took him off the medications and he's relatively normal considering he was in a mental home by the age of 9. My own son, who is now almost 11 is not the same overactive toddler that started preschool before he was emotionally mature enough to handle sitting in a classroom all day long. He can read a chapter book in one sitting, without getting up once. He has absolutely NO signs of adhd right now at all.


An adult with schizophrenia would be much easier to diagnose, and that's why it's been so unheard of for so many years for a psychiatrist to diagnose a child so young. Yet, I'm hearing more and more about this recently than ever before. As well as children being put on drugs that essentially change the chemical balance in a growing brain, that is very difficult for me to understand, unless they had without a doubt proof that that the child is lacking that particular substance, which I guarantee and know from experience that is not the case.


Childhood schizophrenia and other mental disorders fascinates me, and not in a circus freak way, but in a way that compels me to learn more so that I could potentially help children. It's a whole new ballpark when children are a danger to themselves and others, but I still feel very weird in the way that a lot of parents take that behavior in stride rather than trying to put a stop to it, they medicate. It's easier to do that, but sometimes easier is not the best way. I also know, that's certainly not the case in all children, but in the majority of my experience that is exactly what I'm seeing.