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Psychotic disorders
These are serious, polygenic conditions, which means that several genes must coincide for the disease to manifest itself.
At the same time, certain traumatic experiences during development and drug use, with cannabis being the most common, can act as triggers for the disease, causing it to manifest in a patient who already had a favorable genetic substrate at baseline.
Schizophrenia is the most representative example of psychotic disorders. In this disease, one-third of those affected live in a situation of dependency because they are unable to manage their own self-care. However, other cases are progressing favorably. The usual age of onset is between adolescence and the thirties. As we have mentioned, the consumption of toxic substances can trigger the onset of the disease, but it is not a necessary condition. In psychosis, the patient suffers from delusions and/or hallucinations, losing touch with reality and experiencing a biographical rupture. There is often accompanying behavioral repercussions consistent with their delusions or hallucinations, such that we observe unusual behaviors in otherwise healthy individuals.
Hallucinations can be auditory (the most common) or tactile. Visual hallucinations are uncommon in primary psychiatric illness. The most commonly described delusions are those of prejudice, surveillance, or persecution, although there are also mystical-religious or pseudoscientific delusions, for example.
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Bipolar Disorder
In the case of bipolar disorder, there may also be a loss of contact with reality, but what is most prominent is mood swings, moving between depression and excessive euphoria.
During phases of euphoria, patients may spend disproportionate amounts of money, exhibit sexual disinhibition, or engage in risky behaviors that put them in serious danger (such as reckless driving, for example). At times during periods of euphoria, they hardly need to sleep or eat, and their style tends to be more extravagant than usual. Patients usually experience long periods of stability, except in the case of those known as “rapid cyclers,” whose periods of stability are much more limited, with a more severe course of the disease.
Bipolar patients with manic or depressive episodes do not necessarily experience hallucinations or delusions. These may occur concurrently with mood swings, but they are not a necessary condition for bipolar decompensation. There are many treatments that can help people avoid these mood swings and lead a completely normal life.
