"My head and me", the weekly program of 20 Minutes devoted to the mental health of young people, returns for a season 2 on Snapchat.
The purpose of this meeting: to lift the taboo on psychiatric disorders thanks to the testimonies of young people concerned and to try to find solutions to get better.
In this fifth episode, we talk about schizophrenia.
A mental disorder that appears overwhelmingly between the ages of 15 and 30 and which is not always easy to diagnose.
Tristan is smoking a joint with some buddies when he begins to lose his footing.
He has the feeling that all the people present at the party want him badly and the impression of having understood everything in the world in a few seconds, "as if we were loading (t) all the data from a computer at once.
The 16 year old teenager does not know it yet but he has just had an acute psychotic episode symptomatic of the disease which he will be diagnosed with years later: schizophrenia.
This mental disorder appears mostly between the ages of 15 and 30 and affects 600,000 people in France.
But the diagnosis takes time to be made, in particular because certain symptoms may suggest a teenage crisis or depression.
The entourage therefore has a key role to play in the detection of the disease.
For that, it is still necessary to know this pathology still very stigmatized.
Disorganization, social withdrawal and delusional talk
"There are different forms of entry into the disease", explains the psychiatrist Nicolas Rainteau from the outset.
If schizophrenia begins with an acute psychotic episode, that is to say delusional remarks or hallucinations, “generally the relatives quickly worry because it is impressive and it is out of the ordinary.
These behaviors, called “positive symptoms” of schizophrenia, often allow rapid access to a consultation.
“But it is not because we have had an acute psychotic episode that we enter schizophrenia”, tempers the psychiatrist.
“We have to look retrospectively to see if there have been other episodes or wait to see if there will be new ones.
»
It is even more insidious when the onset of the disease is through “negative symptoms”, such as social withdrawal or difficulty in organizing one's thoughts.
"Sometimes the change of attitude is trivialized by the entourage who explains this malaise by a breakup or school failure when it is the disease that begins, explains psychiatrist Bernard Granger.
If in doubt, it is best to consult.
»
This is what Bénédicte Chenu, now General Secretary of Collectif Schizophrénies, did.
When her 17-year-old son began to withdraw into himself, stop working at school and smoke more and more cannabis, she took him to see a psychologist who redirected them to a child psychiatrist.
Eventually the diagnosis of schizophrenia was made.
Because only a psychiatrist, following several interviews, will be able to put a word on the behavior.
A diagnosis that arises from six months of observation
"You have to wait six months and see if the symptoms persist before you can make the diagnosis," explains Bernard Granger.
It is a chronic disease so there are duration criteria.
While some cases are typical, others are more complicated.
“There are really different clinical forms.
We put under the name of schizophrenia a very heterogeneous group of diseases, ”laments the specialist.
That's why Tristan took ten years to be diagnosed.
It was only after yet another hospitalization for depression that a psychiatrist told him that he suffered from schizoaffective disorder, one of the many forms of schizophrenia.
"These are progressive diseases that depend on many things, and in particular on its consumption of products", adds the secretary general of the Collectif Schizophrénies.
“Cannabis can be used as a kind of medicine.
It calms the anxieties that we have at the beginning of the disease, when we have different perceptions and we say to ourselves “what is happening to me?”
but we dare not talk about it.
These addictive behaviors can mask the onset of schizophrenia, confirms Bernard Granger.
Worse still, they can make it worse.
If each person is born with a different vulnerability to schizophrenia, inherited from their genes, there would also be risk factors, such as cannabis.
"A young person with two parents with schizophrenia should not go too hard on cannabis", summarizes Nicolas Rainteau.
Become aware of your illness
“One of the symptoms of this disease is the absence of awareness that one is sick.
This is called anosognosia and it is almost always present, at least at the beginning, in schizophrenia, adds Bernard Granger.
There may also be denial of the disorder, that is, rejection of the diagnosis.
The care then turns out to be complicated and it is often during an acute episode leading to hospitalization that the patient becomes aware that he is suffering from a psychotic disorder.
According to Bénédicte Chenu, some young people even hide their symptoms.
“My son didn't tell me he was hearing voices.
I think he was afraid of coming across as crazy because the word schizophrenia has a lot of connotations.
But schizophrenia is not madness.
My son reasons, he sees his friends, goes on his appointments.
He just has a different perception.
For Nicolas Rainteau, “by dint of talking about psychiatry as the domain of the mad and the dangerous, patients are afraid and hesitate to consult.
»
A de-stigmatization to put in place
It is also because of this stigma that the diagnosis is not easy to announce.
“Making a diagnosis is not nothing.
So we are always very careful,” confirms Nicolas Rainteau.
Bénédicte Chenu acknowledges that she "was lucky" to consult a child psychiatrist who made the diagnosis positively.
“It was hard for me because I had this stigma around the disease.
But he announced it so softly that it wasn't too violent.
»
ALL EPISODES OF “MY HEAD AND ME”
For Nicolas Rainteau, “raising awareness of schizophrenia cannot be done without de-stigmatization.
The young psychiatrist believes that teachers, school doctors, general practitioners and parents should be trained to recognize the symptoms of schizophrenia.
“There should also be education in mental health from primary school or even kindergarten.
Because in schizophrenia, as in many psychic pathologies, the earlier one is diagnosed, the greater the probability of recovery.
To subscribe to our program "My head and me" and receive all the new episodes,
it's here
.
Health
Mental health: Maxime, diagnosed with bipolar at 22, creates an association for young people with mental disorders
Health
Schizophrenia: Informing young people to fight against prejudice and confusion
Company
Health
My head and me.
20 minute video
Psychiatry
Sickness