Schizophrenia

Andrea Yates: Schizophrenia

“Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has affected people throughout history” (Schizophrenia, para. 1, n.d.). About 1.1% of the population in America at the age of 18 and over have schizophrenia each year. People who suffer from Schizophrenia may often hear voices that no one else hear. They may also feel as if someone is probing through his or her mind, reading his or her thoughts and memories. This causes people with schizophrenia feel isolated from society, and causes them to be agitated.

In the case of Andrea Yates, she first “began to show signs of mental illness after the birth of her first child, when she had an hallucination that involved a stabbing” (McLellan, para. 12, 2006). It was after giving birth to her fourth child, she try to commit suicide by overdosing on sedatives. She survived the suicide attempt and was discharge from the hospital before doctors could resolve her symptoms. It was because her insurance have a limited number of days they can pay for her hospital stay. Additional stay would have to be out of pocket. Her second attempt at suicide involved her holding a knife to her throat. According to McLellan, (2006), Yates began to inflict self-harm onto herself and heard voices inside her head instructing her to “get a knife.”

It was after her father had died in February 2001, she began to become abstinence. She “stopped talking, drinking liquids, nursing the baby, Mary, and began pulling out her own hair” (McLellan, para. 14, 2006). Because of her schizophrenia nature, she believed the video cameras were watching her every move she make, and the characters in the television were directly speaking to her. As stated by McLellan, “mute and catatonic, she was admitted to hospital for a third time to a facility that specialized in substance abuse which was chosen by her husband because it was close to home” (para. 14, 2006)....