I was curious with the difference between schizophrenia and DID, since most mental illnesses overlap tremendously. If anyone has a better source, you're welcome to elaborate:
"Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are often confused, but they are very different.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness involving chronic (or recurrent) psychosis, characterized mainly by hearing or seeing things that aren't real (hallucinations) and thinking or believing things with no basis in reality (delusions). Contrary to popular misconceptions, people with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities. Delusions are the most common psychotic symptom in schizophrenia; hallucinations, particularly hearing voices, are apparent in about half of people with the illness." (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-dis...)
DID: Alice is talking to Bob. At some point in the conversation Bob "dissociates" and is replaced by Charlie. Charlie is in the exact same place as Bob and sees all the things Bob was seeing, but Charlie wasn't here before so no idea where here is, how he got there, or who is talking to him. Alice doesn't know anything's wrong at first but Bob (now Charlie) seems uncomfortable and doesn't know things Bob does, like where they are, how they got there, or who she is. Sometime later the dissociative episode ends and Bob comes back in place of Charlie. Bob has no idea what transpired during the episode because Charlie was there instead, but recognizes Alice and remembers things they had done together.
In this case there is no difference in Bob's or Charlie's ability to perceive the world, nor are either of them perceiving something which Alice could not (barring other conditions). There are no hallucinations or delusions; Bob and Charlie appear to "know" different things, as if they were different people. Of note, Bob and Charlie identify differently but its debatable whether they are (or should be treated as) different persons, hence the change of name.
Schizophrenia: Alice is talking to Bob. Bob is talking to Charlie. Charlie isn't really there, but Bob is either unaware or doesn't mind. Bob's conversation with Charlie may be benign or it may involve plots to take over the world, in either case from Alice's perspective Bob experiencing something which isn't real.
This of course is just a possible scenario for schizophrenia, and if Bob is being treated for schizophrenia he may be better able to control or cope with Charlie. In schizophrenia cases Charlie does not exist to any third party observation; Bob is not identifying as Charlie nor is Charlie an alternate persona. Bob believes he is himself and that Charlie is communicating with him.
In my very limited contact with people who were suffering from schizophrenia, it's clear their minds, their ability to think, is broken in some fundamental way. This is indeed completely different, the person can think properly, it's just that some things are gone. If it's like my girlfriend who had it when with me, this woman regressed in time a bit, not so far she forgot that previous boyfriend, but enough to forget the current one. But I wouldn't be surprised if DID can be more nuanced.
Agreed. I've lost three friends over the years to schizophrenia. I knew them all well before, during and after. Their minds are simply broken, their reality is not the same as ours. One believed he was a ninja protecting the world, another saw himself as the hero of a WWIII future, the third wanted to bind his spirit with alligators to grow his spiritual totem. DID sounds very, very different.
How so? Genuinely trying to understand, as DID was formerly characterized as multiple personality disorder, and the way you describe your friends seem like it would fit (i.e. a dissolved idea of identity).
I know 3-4 people with schizophrenia, and none of them displayed the kind of wild delusions you're describing (though I am not discounting them! Don't get me wrong). In my experience schizophrenia manifests itself more like a worse form of anxiety, paranoia and depression mixed together (all my friends are under treatment and medicated).
As I understand it schizophrenia leads you to make unwarranted connections between things, and then the mind tries to give an explanation. There's no dissolved idea of identity in perceiving hidden messages and thinking you're linked with a conspiracy. Everything seems to be tied with logic into a cohesive whole, no weird memory gaps or alternate personalities.
There are different forms of schizophrenia, such as paranoid schizophrenia, catatonic schizophrenia and hebephrenic schizophrenia, in which some or most of the symptoms associated with schizophrenia are not present.
Paranoid schizophrenia is most well-known, and is associated with delusions (such as GP comment outlined).
Schizophrenia in general is associated with severe anxiety and depression, explaining your friends' experiences.
Note that I'm not even close to the remotest possible thing to a doctor, and have no special insight - most of my 'knowledge' about schizophrenia should be treated with caution at best.
I had a friend who I thought was borderline, and later suspected to have DID. She sometimes said delusional things like she thought she was an alien, or that Jesus was inside her, or that she was a reincarnated dolphin, etc. Other people told me she would get weird in conversations, a lot like the "react oddly in conversations, not respond, or talk to themselves" description in the Wikipedia article. Stuff that schizophrenic people do.
When I asked about it, she said she realized that it didn't make sense that she was a reincarnated dolphin and that she didn't know why she believed those things. Schizophrenic people don't really have that kind of self-awareness.
You can think of schizophrenia as a hardware problem and of DID as a software issue (not bug, but maybe mis-configuration?). With high enough trauma (and applied early enough, while the brain is still developing) anybody could develop DID; some are more prone than others of course.
"Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are often confused, but they are very different.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness involving chronic (or recurrent) psychosis, characterized mainly by hearing or seeing things that aren't real (hallucinations) and thinking or believing things with no basis in reality (delusions). Contrary to popular misconceptions, people with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities. Delusions are the most common psychotic symptom in schizophrenia; hallucinations, particularly hearing voices, are apparent in about half of people with the illness." (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-dis...)