Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by relapsing episodes of psychosis. Symptoms include hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices), delusions (having beliefs not shared by others), and disorganized thinking.
Psychosis is an abnormal condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not. What Nigerians typically call "madness".
Schizophrenia is the most common form of psychosis. It is a lifelong condition, which can take on either a chronic form or a form with relapsing and remitting episodes of acute illness. It is a disorder which not only affects patients but also family and close friends.
Multiple factors are involved in schizophrenia - eg, genetic, environmental and social.
Short-lived illnesses similar to paranoid schizophrenia are associated with illicit drug use eg cocaine, amfetamines and cannabis.
Cannabis use especially has been noted to be a culprit in both established schizophrenia and in enhancing future risk of schizophrenia in those who have not yet developed psychotic symptoms.
Risk factors
Family history,
Intrauterine and perinatal complications,
Abnormal early cognitive/neuromuscular development.
Social isolation eg prison or loneliness.
Abnormal family interactions - eg, hostile or overly critical parents. #medtwitter
I started this thread because of 420, people usually imagine that they're bigger than the risk of psychosis brought on by cannabis use.
A person with schizophrenia usually presents with

Delusions -
Delusions of grandeur and importance,
Delusions of love,
Delusions of nihilistic hopelessness where they have zero outlooks on the world
Hallucinations
Visual hallucinations, seeing things
Hearing things, sometimes someone is commenting on what they're doing like "now he's tweeting about psychosis"
Sometimes they hear dead people,
Thought disorder, sometimes they think others can hear their thoughts, or can steal their thoughts, or are controlling them and telling them what to do.
Lack of insight, these patients would have no idea what's going on, and may even feel persecuted when they are told the reality of things.
Other times, it may start from a severe form of depression.

When these are noticed by friends, relatives or people nearby, the best thing to do is to seek medical advice.
I felt it would be interesting to talk about this. Forgive me for sounding too clinical.
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