Youth and Mental Health 101 | CAMH

What is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels, behaves and relates to others. Schizophrenia can include psychosis, which is when a person loses contact with reality and can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.

How schizophrenia might affect you

Certain mental and emotional changes can be early signs that someone may develop schizophrenia. These changes usually happen before more serious symptoms develop. They include:

trouble concentrating or thinking clearly
confusion about what is real or imaginary
hearing voices or seeing things that aren’t there
feeling that the world has become strange and unreal
fixation on religion or superstitions
feeling suspicious or paranoid
disorganized speech, racing thoughts or slowed-down thoughts
irrational ideas of special identity or abilities
problems with social activities, work or school
withdrawal from family and friends
flat emotions, decrease in facial expressions, monotone speech.¹

Stats

Schizophrenia is usually first noticed in 16- to 30-year-olds; its first onset typically happens in a person’s late teens to early twenties and is generally earlier for men than for women.²

Noticed most in ages

16–30

Schizophrenia affects an estimated one person in every hundred.³

Affects

1 in 100

people