Schizophrenia: what disorder is it, what are the symptoms and stigmas to dispel

«I need to be someone else to be myself: this is my way of being an actor: “putting myself in someone's shoes”». With a clear and passionate voice Danilo Arena, 29 years old, tells his story like this, specifying how everything comes from “the need to want to take this path at all costs”. We are seeing him on Canale5 as the policeman Salvatore Lo Faro in the series produced by Palomar for RTI **Vanina – An assistant commissioner in Catania, (also available on Mediaset Infinity), **taken from the novels by Cristina Cassar Scalia, published by Giulio Einaudi editor.

Dialogue with him opens many windows of discovery about a man who is “hungry to do” and has demonstrated this since he was a child, when he approached the world of music by accompanying his father in piano bars with the songs of the great Italian singer-songwriters. At seven years old he spent his days dancing in the street, starting as a self-taught break dancer with acrobatic elements. At the same time, together with his brother Graziano, he attended live role-playing events, while, encouraged by his brother Giovanni, he began to specialize in Caribbean and folk dances, becoming, together with his sister Denise, several times Italian Dance champion Caribbean.
«The main driving force, however», as he confesses to us, «is acting». At the age of 21 he received a scholarship at the College of Arts and Crafts of Entertainment in Catania, where he later trained as a teacher of Basic Cinematographic Teaching, a subject taken from his thesis.

The first national experience will come with the film on Pippo Fava, Before the night , filmed in Catania, his homeland. «I was born in 1994, Giuseppe Fava was killed in 1984. I studied him as a Catanian and I believe that he was not only a journalist, but an all-round artist. My character wasn't completely written, Daniele Vicari got to know me and chose to leave the door open to what would happen spontaneously during filming.”

In Salvatore Lo Faro, you can see how you wanted to characterize him physically…
«For me, in building a character, we start 70% from the body. I started to
working on it for a month and a half before filming and then constantly while we were shooting following a strict diet, with very heavy training, because he had to be a real policeman, also from the point of view of physical power. With the director Davide Marengo we had worked on it The hunter so, already having a consolidated relationship, we thought about the evolutionary arc of this character.”

Can we say that Salvatore is wearing a mask?
«Of course: who among us doesn't have one? He is a mix of fun, reflection and emotion. When a person laughs so often, inside, he is very sad. Salvatore Lo Faro is nothing other than the representation of that very famous saying: “Every person you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be gentle. Always”. He is a young man who talks about his dependence on all digital systems and social media to hide and not face his demons.”

It's as if, episode after episode, the viewer discovered his kindness, sensitivity, some policeman's flair. We also notice the joking manner of his teammates compared to his somewhat bizarre attitude, which hides his mental illness…
«Something inside Salvatore remained from when he was 12: the smile, the apologies, the change of expression based on the situations. For him Vanina (Giusy Buscemi) represents that pillar that has been missing in her existence for a long time.”

How does a person who suffers from mental disorders as in your case deal with daily life?
«Salvatore cancels the mental problems he has. He has fits sometimes, but he forgets them when he sticks his head into the digital device. On social media, however, he gets distracted and this also leads him not to grasp clear evidence. The most obvious ones escape him because he sees other images, he hears something else…”.

Did you consult a psychiatrist to interpret him?
«Yes, for this character I researched what mental disorders can be».

In the promo for the fourth and final episode of the first season, Salvatore Lo Faro is seen in
underwear and a big hug with Vanina.
«Yes, she and the whole team show acceptance and understanding towards him, which is not entirely obvious. He had been ill for some time but did not want to give up on the police. He had prepared himself wholeheartedly for the competition; in fields such as law enforcement there are also preliminary interviews with specialists, and during the visit to the psychologist he had kept certain ailments to himself. When Salvatore is taken into the team, he starts taking the drugs again, thinking he had everything under control, but that wasn't the case. Unfortunately, when the illness comes to light he risks compromising his work. Salvatore Lo Faro makes a mistake in perhaps the only thing in which he could not afford to make mistakes. But he did it, he is human.”

Can today's society welcome those who wear these masks to cover such deep wounds?
«I believe that today's society must first of all offer the means to be able to do this. For example, in the world of work, the conditions should be created to be able to include a person with psychological disorders – logically providing medical support – but always trusting in the fact that it can bring the results expected from her role”.

The cast of Vanina – An assistant commissioner in Catania

Will there be a new season of Vanina – An assistant commissioner in Catania?
«We strongly hope so, so that there can be development for Salvatore too».

Schizophrenia explained by the psychiatrist

«If we analyze the origin of the term schizophrenia we see that it derives from the Greek σχίζω, which means to divide, and φρήν which refers more broadly to the mind (for the Greeks, in reality, it corresponded to the diaphragm because they were convinced that this was the seat of our thoughts). Combining the two words we literally have: divided mind», explains a Vanity Fair the doctor Alessia Metelli, psychiatrist at the ASST Nord Milano, underlining how «there may be a heredity connected to genetics, with factors linked to fetal life that confer a basic vulnerability that can predispose to a pathology; in reality it is the social and psychological environment that determines whether or not the disease develops.”

The symptoms to recognize it

One of the key symptoms is the so-called split: «the person who suffers from it finds it difficult to associate the events that happen in reality and therefore tends to give a meaning that becomes delusional.
Positive symptoms consist of delusions And hallucinations; the negative one is grasped
through the tendency towards social withdrawal or even recognizing one difficulty in relating to others. A component of completes the picture disorganization which concerns behavior and the way of speaking.

Generally manifests itself with an uncomfortable situation: you feel perplexed in the face of reality, you begin to no longer connect it well. Often a delirium sets in which helps to explain it: certain signals are interpreted in a suspicious manner and when the reading is mainly negative we speak of paranoid schizophrenia.
Other delusions can go in the direction of the end of the world or think they have a message from God. Often, compared to other mental disorders, there is no awareness of illness: those with delusions believe it 100%, it is defined as a belief not open to criticism. Unfortunately, in Italy, it takes an average of eight months for a person or, even more so, those close to them to understand that they have a problem. Most of the time it comes to us when a psychotic episode has occurred, with delirium and hallucinations that tend to be auditory.”

How schizophrenia is treated

«Those with a schizophrenic disorder are perfectly capable of understanding and wanting, can manage their assets and make decisions, unless there is a situation of cognitive impairment, but this can also happen in other disorders and illnesses», he specifies the psychiatrist. «The objective of the therapies is not only to remove the symptoms, but to lead to a recovery of the
functioning the same as that of all other people in every aspect of life”, explains the psychiatrist. «We intervene with both drugs and rehabilitation interventions. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia tend to have a very difficult time following treatment because they are unaware of the need for treatment. This is why they exist depot drugs, antipsychotics that release the therapeutic substance over time, which is administered intramuscularly monthly. This guarantees an unsupervised person to be “covered” for a month.”
The person diagnosed with schizophrenia needs to rebuild himself, perhaps by leaving work for a certain period, and then returning by evaluating various factors. «We can reach a balance. There may be complete remission, but these are small cases; most of the time symptoms remain, which can be controlled and managed.”

The stigma of drugs

Often, there are those who think that the medicines used end up creating addiction. In reality, these are fundamental therapies. «The medicine protects because the disease is very harmful to the brain, in the case of schizophrenia there is an alteration of dopamine which is rebalanced with pharmacological treatment», explains Dr. Metelli. «Unfortunately the therapies can cause side effects, such as increased appetite or a sort of muscle stiffness, but you can try to find the most suitable drug. If the brain is subjected to years and years of illness it becomes tired and this also applies to stress caused by depression or anxiety. Sometimes a low dose antidepressant would be enough to make the person feel good, yet people come to this idea after a long time, with great difficulty. We all have fragilities and the only way to ensure that they don't get in our way too much is to face them and become aware of them. This is also why everyone should do psychotherapy.”