Script Shrink

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While the exact cause is unclear, schizophrenia seems to be something a character is born with - it just typically doesn’t show itself immediately.

Typically, schizophrenia is diagnosed in young adults (late teens to early 20s), with men showing symptoms a little earlier than women.*

While it is indeed possible for a character to develop schizophrenia before the age of 13, it only happens in 1 out of 40,000 people. For comparison, schizophrenia occurs in roughly 1 out of 100 people.

Even if a child does have childhood-onset schizophrenia, it’s really, really difficult for them to get an actual diagnosis until later on. After all, neurotypical children often have “psychotic symptoms” such as believing there’s a monster under their bed or that they have an imaginary friend. As such, it’s hard for a clinician to differentiate kids’ fantasies versus actual psychosis.

*The Shrink apologizes that not enough research has been done on genders other than male and female. 

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“Hallucinations” in children actually aren’t all that uncommon. Kids frequently have an imaginary friend, or fear that there’s monsters in the closet or under their beds.

The key thing that separates these normal childhood fantasies from an actual psychological disorder is that a child who has an underlying mental problem virtually always can’t be convinced that what they’re seeing isn’t real.

It actually wouldn’t matter that much that they’re being told their hallucinations aren’t real by someone they trust - how many children are still afraid of monsters even though their parents tell them monsters aren’t real?

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