Sony World Photography Awards 2020 - Mental Illness - A Silent Crisis
We planned each image to match a common sign of paranoid schizophrenia, some may inadvertently trigger more than one trait in your mind:
Delusional
Hallucinating
Internal war
Disorganised
Inexpressive
Numb
Self destruct
Stress
Lonely
Withdrawn
The story continues.
Photographer; Mick Child
Model; Em-J Smith
Lighting Assistant; George Child
Withdrawn
Sufferers of paranoid schizophrenia can have periods of time where they become withdrawn as they try to make sense of, and deal with what is happening. It is common for them to close the curtains for instance during the day to stop "them" (inexplicable people or alien entities) looking in or spying on them.
Internal war
A sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia will often hear voices in their head, a person or people that they might refer to as "them" or "they". What they hear is often irrational with no basis in reality resulting in the sufferer arguing with "them" out loud as they try to reason with the voice. 'They're mad', 'you're mad' are two examples and this is sometimes accompanied by uncontrollable laughter.
Disorganised
A sufferer of schizophrenia can become disorganised, not to be confused with "disorganised schizophrenia". The hallucinations start to dominate their day to day life and they find themselves being driven by outside and inexplicable forces. This can lead to them forgetting their normal routines for example; self hygiene, eating at normal times, visiting friends and family etc. They can also lack emotion or empathy to others by laughing at inappropriate times, displaying "silly" facial responses and lack of pleasure and motivation.
Self destruct
Depression, or feelings of extremely low mood, intense feelings of sadness with a loss of interest in life and reduced emotional well being are really important to recognise in a sufferer, particularly because they are more likely to be prevalent following a psychotic episode. Some experts believe that suicide by sufferers of schizophrenia is statistically more likely through the effects of depression than by the hallucinations or delusions.
Delusional
Sufferers of paranoid schizophrenia can sometimes be delusional as they feel like they are being told by outside forces to do things they may not really want to do. This is a time to listen and seek urgent specialist care. Whilst for impact this image suggests an individual might be driven to do bad things - I try to form a common picture of delusion in the viewers mind - this is not always the case, spending excessive amounts of money on eccentric gifts is just another example.