I knew a girl who had fully developed schizophrenia at fourteen, so not unbelievably young, but she was very um, off, for a good long while before she started hallucinating, which I'm told is the norm. Also, schizophenia tends to flatten the affects of the people who have it. If anything, Azula went the other way. Plus, Azula's kind of the perfect candidate for an episode of Brief Reactive Psychosis. Not that I necessarily think the writers did that on purpose.
Schizophrenia isn't a chemical imbalance like a mood disorder. It's a degenerative neurological disease. It does not disappear on it's own, though other forms of psychosis can and do. Brief reactive psychosis on the other hand, comes on quickly following a situation in which someone's self image is stressed to the breaking point. Then, it resolves itself after a period of time, anywhere from days to months or more.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-03-20 04:14 am (UTC)Schizophrenia isn't a chemical imbalance like a mood disorder. It's a degenerative neurological disease. It does not disappear on it's own, though other forms of psychosis can and do. Brief reactive psychosis on the other hand, comes on quickly following a situation in which someone's self image is stressed to the breaking point. Then, it resolves itself after a period of time, anywhere from days to months or more.