I've shared before on WS about my bil who suffers schizophrenia. He's about eight years younger than my husband. Based on what I know about this mental disorder, I'm not sure there's an understood cause/reason as why it develops or that a person's choices has anything to do with their having the illness.
I believe self-medication may add to confusion about what's wrong with a person when the illness is emerging. Eventually it's undeniable that something is wrong based on escalating strange behavior.
Experimentation with drugs probably isn't the cause. The illness would have surfaced regardless. People who have never done drugs, or are too young to have started using them, are diagnosed with this disorder too.
Doing street drugs, or anything that influences brain cells, probably doesn't help though and may delay proper diagnosis. Not messing with drugs is a wise thing because I suppose they may act as triggers and make diagnosis more difficult.
In my bil's case, he drank beer when I met him. That's all. I could tell his difficult speech patterns weren't because he was drinking. Totally different result.
Long story but today, he loyally takes his medications and functions well within his own environment, has a good and kind heart - truly. He's a slave to taking this med at this time, and that med at that time though, and his routines are based around taking his meds. He doesn't like crowds.
If not on his meds, like when he recently came to visit us via bus and put all his meds in his suitcase (versus keeping his next dose in his pocket), he's a disaster. It's amazing the difference the medications make to help him be relatable and appear normal (otherwise peeps don't know how to react to him). During his trip, he called us on his cellphone but kept insisting he didn't have our number while, at the same time, we were speaking. I thought, 'uh-oh, we have a problem'. We couldn't tell if he knew where he was (and were frightened if he was on the right bus going in the right direction), and we couldn't make sense if he had plans to transfer onto a train or what. If an emergency, where we could pick him up. It turned out he made the journey safely but he couldn't communicate to us as he was doing it (we couldn't understand what was going on). When my husband met him at the station (he finally called back after hours), the conductor gave dh a concerned but kind look as in, 'oh I'm glad this person has a person here for him'.
The first problem was related to weak planning abilities (not thinking ahead to his next dose before reaching his destination) and, the second problem was that he can't be understood when off his meds (but he knows what he is saying). The meds are key to having normal communication with other people. Of course, strangers who encounter a person who is experiencing this brain confusion, become concerned and are likely to become fearful too. Conspiracy and space talk seem to be common topics when unmedicated.
Recently, I read something about two categories of schizophrenia - like there has been newer distinctions made about the disorder. One type is less severe than another or something. I share this because it's true that nothing is ever the same again, but also to share that I've watched a person manage this illness and believe he is content and often happy. It took many years for acceptance and healthy patterns to form, but it can and does happen.
