extreme stress and schizophrenia

Can anyone get schizophrenia when one is heavily under extreme stress? Or you need to have specific genes that needs to be there..

Also, can anxiety disorder lead to schizophrenia? I checked out many websites and they said
Two are not related...

Thanks for the responds!!

Other people correct me if I am wrong.

My understanding is that you must have the genes for schizophrenia to get it. But sometimes you must have a trigger in order to fully develop it, which can include extreme stress. Anxiety disorder cannot lead to Schizophrenia, unless you have the genes and severe anxiety triggered it to be worse or to start showing.

Hope I helped!

I'm not a doctor, or a mental health professional. However, my understanding is that while schizophrenia is most likely a genetic disorder (or maybe a biochemical disorder), many environmental factors can trigger it, or increase the severity of the experience.

Stress could make the symptoms of schizophrenia onset in a more pronounced way. However, it's also my understanding that this isn't necessarily the case. Stress or other environmental factors may increase the risk of severe experiences for schizophrenic people.

While mental illnesses, are biologically induced illnesses (though their mechanisms aren't totally understood,... neither is cancer though for that matter), environmental factors can play a significant role with them.

e.g. marijuana is thought to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia among people who are at high risk of developing schizophrenia. Hence some people who are already schizophrenic when they abuse pot are at risk for serious disability.

LesMisJim wrote:I'm not a doctor, or a mental health professional. However, my understanding is that while schizophrenia is most likely a genetic disorder (or maybe a biochemical disorder), many environmental factors can trigger it, or increase the severity of the experience.

Stress could make the symptoms of schizophrenia onset in a more pronounced way. However, it's also my understanding that this isn't necessarily the case. Stress or other environmental factors may increase the risk of severe experiences for schizophrenic people.

While mental illnesses, are biologically induced illnesses (though their mechanisms aren't totally understood,... neither is cancer though for that matter), environmental factors can play a significant role with them.

e.g. marijuana is thought to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia among people who are at high risk of developing schizophrenia. Hence some people who are already schizophrenic when they abuse pot are at risk for serious disability.

I speculate that environmental factors can affect brain chemistry and genetic factors affect people's baseline brain chemistry.

Both times when I have dealt with an anxiety disorder, my schizotypal symptoms increased gradually (they mostly went back to normal afterwards, but some of them didn't go completely back to normal), and I have read multiple sources that stress can lead to a schizotypal person to develop schizophrenia, so I think that stress can lead to schizophrenia if that person is already somewhere on the schizo spectrum.

My thinking is that extreme stress can bring out any illness (physical or mental/emotional) that you have a predilection toward. One extremely stressed-out person could develop ulcers. Another schizophrenia. Another migraines. Etc.

I developed schizophrenia as a response to extreme stress, but there were indicators that I was headed that way long before. I was diagnosed ten years ago, at the age of 28, but when I was five years old, (according to my mom), I'd say, "Mommy, Mommy, make those bad strangers quit looking at me!" There were other signs as well.

So if you're perfectly healthy, I wouldn't worry about randomly getting stressed out and becoming schizophrenic. But after what I went through ten years ago, I can tell you that being extremely stressed is incredibly bad for your health, and if you can get out of that situation, you should, ASAP.