What is Schizophrenia?

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizop...
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has been recognized throughout recorded history.

People with schizophrenia may hear voices other people don't hear or they may believe that others are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. These experiences are terrifying and can cause fearfulness, withdrawal, or extreme agitation. People with schizophrenia may not make sense when they talk, may sit for hours without moving or talking much, or may seem perfectly fine until they talk about what they are really thinking. Because many people with schizophrenia have difficulty holding a job or caring for themselves, the burden on their families and society is significant as well.

Available treatments can relieve many of the disorder's symptoms, but most people who have schizophrenia must cope with some residual symptoms as long as they live. Nevertheless, this is a time of hope for people with schizophrenia and their families. Many people with the disorder now lead rewarding and meaningful lives in their communities. Researchers are developing more effective medications and using new research tools to understand the causes of schizophrenia and to find ways to prevent and treat it.

For signs ans symptoms, please go here: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizop... Source(s): http://360.yahoo.com/jamie_hassen...
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizop...
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizop...

Schizophrenia is a very serious illness plaguing 1% (or 3.2 million) of people around the world. This is a chronic, disabling brain disorder which can drive a sufferer to withdraw from everyday life. Sufferers of Schizophrenia have reported hearing voices in their head that no one else hears to people being able to read their minds. They also think their thoughts are being told to the outside world and many convince themselves that others are planning to bring harm to them.

Due to these voices, thoughts, and feelings, Schizophrenics become fearful and show extreme agitation when approached. Some will sit for hours without moving or saying a word; but when they do decide to speak, the thoughts which are running through their head make no sense. Schizophrenics have a difficult time keeping a job and caring for themselves and it leads to burdening the family to take responsibility to take care for them.
You'll find heaps of text book examples of what it is such as "Schizophrenia is one of a group of psychotic reactions characterized by basic disturbances in the individuals relationships with people and the inability to communicate and think clearly. The person's thoughts, feelings and behavior are often evident with a withdrawal behaviour pattern, fluctuating moods, disordered thinking, and regressive tendencies."
But sometimes they don't always get the picture across as well as we'd hope.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that causes people to loose contact with reality. It is a random illness (unlike bipolar disorders that happen in periods) it can cause people to see/hear/smell/feel/taste things that are not real along with becoming delusional (where they can become convinced of things that are evidently not true such as people reading their minds).
There are many forms though (as I listed in your other question) and with the different forms come different symptoms although everyone seems to get a mix of varied symptoms and sometimes don't always fit into a neat category when being diagnosed.
There is no known cause or cure as of yet, doctors have possible ideas of causes but there is no single known cause.It can affect anyone from any background of life style and race at any time, although it tends to affect males ages 17 to early 20's and females mid 20's to 30's. Males seem to develop it worse than females and the majority of people who have schizophrenia only tend to have 4 or so psychotic episodes in a life time, meaning it is uncommon (but not rare) to have chronic schizophrenia. No matter how healthy you keep your self nor your age (whether 5 years old or 89) it is an illness that will pick anyone at random, one in 100 people will be affected by it in their life at some stage.To be classified as schizophrenia though the symptoms must be present for 6 months or it will fall into other disorders.

To sum it all up for you it is when people begin to lose touch with reality. I hope this helped solve your question.
+Paranoid Schizophrenic+