Schizophrenia

## Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally.

Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling. People with schizophrenia require lifelong treatment.

## Mentions

Bellatrix Lestrange is suspected by Hermione and her parents to have Schizophrenia. after Hermione hears Narcissa Malfoy describe Bella's history in chapters 349 & 350. In chapter 355 Hermione suggests to Narcissa that Bellatrix might be helped by Clozapine.

Bella is described by Narcissa as "very sick" and "not the sister I was raised with".

> "My sister has always been fixated on the concept of restoring magical purity, possibly from the Black family motto. But when she was older, something *happened* to her. She became unstable, radical. She became paranoid, violent, and she was no longer the sister I knew before."
> "I will admit she was always obsessed with magical purity, but it was a cooler obsession, one of pride and derision toward those who were lesser or unworthy. When my sister came of age, she began to *change.* she was paranoid. she was irrational. she became more extreme, unreasonable, terrifying in her passion and violence. I don't know if she was cursed, or her core set off-balance or *what* happened to her. But she is *not* the sister I remember."
>
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In chapter 350, Narcissa angrily defends Bella to Sirius, claiming that "she went *mad*" and "you were *sane*" as the reason why she visited Bella but not Sirius. Sirius dismisses this as lies, causing Narcissa to give him a family history lesson on The Black Family Madness (or curse). She relates stories of other family members who exhibited similar symptoms and psychotic breaks in their teens or early twenties.

This is a common pattern for schizophrenia onset, with the average age of symptom onset being the mid-late 20's. Schizophrenia is thought to be genetic with an 80% heritability rate. In a family with lots of inbreeding like the Blacks, the genetic susceptibility would be very high. Narcissa states that there is generally one family member in each generation who "drew the tarnished sickle form the bag of fate". Richard Granger also directly speculates that the "Black family Curse" is schizophrenia in chapter 355.

Chapter 349: Visiting Narcissa Malfoy

Chapter 350: The Black Family History

Chapter 355: Slytherin Tongues

## Theories

Who will Sylvia use the elixir of life for: Suspect this could be used to treat Bellatrix and cure her of an otherwise uncurbable illness.

Bellatrix is Sylvia's Mother: Hence why Sylvia has gone to the effort to break her out of Azkaban (suspected) and why Sylvia wanted the Elixir of Life by Midsummer. Also why Draco referred to Sylvia as his cousin.

Causes of Bella's Insanity: Messing with ritual magic without being part of a coven. (Death Eaters are confirmed to have done ritual magic unbound in chapter 388) Bella was possibly encouraged to do so by Voldemort who had previously researched how to kick-start one's magical core. Bella's wild hair could be a result of her having done a similar thing to Hermione (a ritual to increase her magical power) without ever stabilising herself via an earth elemental or a coven bond.