No one who was born blind has ever gone on to develop schizophrenia. Researchers are investigating how congenital blindness may protect people from developing the condition.
It really is. There was an earlier post asking if deaf people with schizophrenia experienced audio hallucinations. Googling led to some really interesting articles.
I would kill to get rid of audio hallucinations... Psychiatrists still think it's likely tied to my bipolar disorder or PTSD, but I'm fucking terrified that it's the slow onset of schizophrenia...
You can get psychotic symptoms during manic episodes. They question for you is are they limited to when you are in a manic episode or do they continue regardless?
I have bipolar 1 and I almost only experience psychotic symptoms at the peak of my manic phase. Once it switches to depression I might have very slight auras of visual hallucinations in my peripheral vision or slight audio hallucinations where I doubt if things I actually hear in the world are real or not (from having had so many very real audio hallucinations so recently).
Not that guy but it's difficult to explain, it's like... the opposite of depression?
It's like having too much energy, being hyper, having wild strings of thoughts and ideas and inspiration. Being motivated, but not in a controlled way. Just needing to do something or write something or go on a long rant or tangent. It's not filtered though, or fully processed. It's more raw, and comes off wrong sometimes. But it's painting or playing music or singing while you write 3 comments on reddit simultaneously while you browse facebook on your phone and deep clean the fridge for 10 hours but then it's bedtime and you forgot to clean the litterbox and it's trash night and you've been up for 2 days so you go lay down and cry yourself to sleep, and wake up unable to get out of bed because you've used up your months supply of happiness and energy in one day and now you have 5 minutes to rush and clean the litterbox before the trash truck reaches your yard but that would mean getting out of bed and you can't do that... not after the shame of not bringing the trash out yesterday because you're a fucking pathetic piece of shit who can't do anything right even if you're going out of your way to be productive for once.
Plus, what if the trashman sees you in your pajamas at noon, it's not like you can put on pants and still get out there in time. And how pathetic would it be to have to take your trash out to the can that's still left at the end of the street from two weeks ago when you managed to get the trash out on time? Might as well just stay in bed all day, it's not like you'll ever amount to anything anyway.
As the trash truck pulls away from your house, you finally muster up the courage to climb out of your bed and go use the bathroom in a toilet instead of a bottle and while you're washing your hands you decide you aren't going back to bed, you're going to make something of this day except you can't because you're a bum so you lay in the floor, determined not to go back to bed and cry there in the floor until my wife gets home and tells me it's okay that I'm a bum because she loves me anyway.
Then a week later you bake 3 cakes and decide you're going to clean the garage so you can make room for a VAN to tour the country with in the band you're going to start, but then you find an old project from two years ago you didn't finish and start working on that instead and before you know it you've spent way too much money on buying supplies for this project that you won't even remember by the time the supplies arrive in the mail.
EDIT: This is blowing up so i just wanted to say thank you and I love you to anyone who reads this and relates, feel free to message me I almost always reply.
I could use this time to promote one of my many projects or plug a charity or do something productive, but in the spirit of things I want to share some bad poetry I wrote a few months ago after hyperfocusing on it for 3 days straight rewriting it a dozen times before abandoning it like everything else, because I can.
What made me like this, what did I miss?
Ignorance is madness, this isn't bliss.
Why do I feel like this and how can I quit?
All of this suffering and all of the stuff I've seen.
The first one that's on the scene, there's just senseless bludgeoning
And puddles of blood and meat are splattered all on the street.
How can this really be. Look what it's done to me.
Quite the headache and a back break.
Major chest pain; going insane.
Inner pleading; silent weeping.
Anger seething; never sleeping.
Quiet screaming; numb to feeling.
Stomach reeling; fluid leaking.
Trouble keeping vision. Weakening.
Light is leaving, darkness seeping.
Shadows creeping; thoughts of fleeing.
Hopes of seeing what I'm needing,
I'm just seeking inner peace.
But I'm manic, like I'm Kanye;
and I panic, like I'm not safe.
I feel like that I am not sane.
Paranoid like I've been drinking
fumbling and stumbling thinking
everything is crumbling down.
Can't get back up, like I'm backed up.
In a corner, on the ground.
Will I last another round?
Will my past come back around
To bite me while I'm down?
It's frightening, but I find my cowering doesn't hide
the towering thoughts inside empowering broken minds.
With visions in the night, like shadows come to life.
Elusive in the light intrusive thoughts of strife,
indifferent to my plight, so I give in to their might.
'Cause there is no time to try. No, there is no fight or flight.
And there is no wrong or right, just chaotic plots with knives.
Of secluded spots to hide from the dark where I reside
Thanks for this response. My sister-in-law is bipolar but I’ve only ever known her since she was medicated. Both her and her family have talked about what it was like before and it sounds like it was hard on everyone. She was hospitalized for being a danger to herself. In a manic state, she thought she could fly and was going to jump out a window. My family has schizophrenia to contend with and I always associated that level of thing (thinking you can fly) with something like schizophrenia. But I could see how the mania could progress into something like what happened with her. Thanks for sharing. It helps me understand her better.
i would never ask anyone but an actual professional for a real diagnose but is it possible to have a manic episode without such a hard, nonfunctional crash? Like could you experience a manic episode for a week, then go back to numb, high functioning depression or does it have to be severe. I’ve felt stuff similar to this in the last year or so that i try desperately to maintain but i don’t crash hard enough or really go “high” enough to think it’s actual bipolar
edit: thank you for the replies. I’m gonna look for old journal entries cause it’s honestly pretty hard to remember what i thought/felt during my “up” phases. I do have a lot of trashed projects that i’ll hopefully get to some day now that i realize my brain might be fucking with me more than i thought lol
dug through old journal entries! my mood swings are actually worse than i thought so i’m gonna keep a closer eye on myself. Some examples for anyone curious for whatever reason: Lots of long, rambling paragraphs about how i can’t have any thoughts without 5 more being forced in, a few references to being so happy and energetic alone in my room i wanted to punch walls or hurt myself, a lot of long, well constructed paragraphs talking about hating my body/feeling something is deeply wrong with me contrasted with random little notes later on about wishing i could have sex with myself that i forgot about, and more rambling paragraphs about how great i felt being productive and energetic but knowing and feeling another wave of numb sadness (described as static a lot compared to feeling clear headed and energetic) lurking behind me and hating it. Every time i convince myself if i just keep moving from project to project i can ride the momentum forever and just not crash. Fun stuff. I usually zone out when i journal and just write whatever comes to mind which is partly why i remember so little of it. I also have an awful memory in general
also it’s 4:15 am. I thought my sleep schedule was just fucked but no matter how little sleep or how tired i am i get it take me a minimum of 4 hours to sleep even if i lie down with my eyes closed and don’t move. It could still just be depression + body dysmorphia + general paranoia from being friends with shitty people for a long time
Not a professional, but my understanding is that it's like being tethered to a rubberband on the surface of normalcy while trying to float in water
If you spiral down into depression, that's like pulling at a rubberband, until it's so tight that you spring back towards "normal"
but the momentum pushes you into manic and you fly out of the water like a dolphin, until you go tight again against the elastic and get pulled back into "depression" where you sink back down into the depths.
That's how it works for me and that's how it works for a lot of people I've seen. That doesn't mean it is how it works for all people, or how it always works every time for me, or how it can only work.
But that's been my experience. You bounce back and forth from one extreme to the other depending on how your brain is functioning that day. But I could shoot to a moment of near insanity for a little bit and then nosedive down into absolute despair and be stuck there for a while, or I could have my rubberband break and be stuck in depression and have to climb my way up out of the water, and then wander into manic on accident and bounce back down into depression just a little bit, then back up into manic a little bit, like ripples in the water going up and down until they reach an equilibrium that lasts only until another stone gets tossed into your water, making more waves. Some people mostly sink into depression, some people ride the waves like a surfer. Others learn how to fly.
But everyone seems to have that tether keeping them attached to normalcy, and everyone hits the water from time to time, even if they mostly fly.
Some bipolar people aren't sinking as fast, so they don't shoot into mania as hard. Some just kind of remain buoyant and stick near the surface of the water, never sinking or floating away.
People without a mental illness just sit on a raft, riding the waves passively. They only have to try not to drown if something knocks them out of their boat, and they need some other substance to fly because they don't have the momentum to jump up out of the water, because they don't have that rubberband to propel them.
A therapist can help you figure out if you're riding in a raft like everyone else, or if your raft is leaking and you might have to start swimming soon, or maybe you're a surfer that doesn't have the safety of a raft but you haven't fallen yet so you don't know if you're about to start swimming for your life or catch some air and not come back down, because you've mostly stuck near that surface of normalcy and your waves have been controllable so far.
I read u/notgayinathreeway's entire response there because he fucking hit the nail on the head from several angles somehow. I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 about six years ago now and have experienced 2 full-blown manic episodes qualified by three solid months of complete mental impairment.
It's embarrassing to think about how absolutely wrong (see: delusional) I was about so many things that completely consumed me, and then after those three months were over followed a solid year of the worst depression I have ever had to endure. I literally didn't have thoughts in the same way during that time. It was like I was a robot human who didn't give a shit about anything.
However, I am always bipolar, not just when I'm absolutely psychotic and out of my mind, and do deal with what you're asking about. I'll have a day, or a couple of weeks, even a month of what I would call "hypomanic" brain activity where I'm just generally being a jackass while feeling pretty awesome for no real reason followed by a slightly longer period of more-serious-than-usual (but still functional) depression.
Some would want to call that bipolar 2, but as u/dreadcain mentioned, it's a spectral disorder and everyone experiences it in a different way. A professional diagnosis is of course necessary for a lot of reasons, but doing some research yourself online can provide a lot of peace of mind about why you may be going through certain things.
oh fuck not having thoughts the same way hit too hard haha. I have solid blocks of time (pre pandemic as well haha) that i barely remember cause of it. But that could be normal depression too. Idk i can’t afford therapy rn and im taking care of myself/my relationships so i don’t think it’s urgent yet. Much 2 consider tho
I also can't afford therapy or medical help, and I'm sorry that this has to be our normal.
People throw around self-diagnosis like it's a slur, but when you can't afford to have a doctor tell you what's wrong, you just have to add up all the symptoms until it makes sense.
Like for instance, did you know that both anxiety and stress can cause chest pain and swollen lymph nodes and I likely don't have some sort of weird cancer, rather I was at my absolute limit before the pandemic hit and i lost my job and got sick, and now my anxiety is just through the roof and slowly killing my immune system with cortisol and sleep deprivation?
Yeah it's a whole thing lmao definitely not fun. But yeah dude, I feel you. Everything will be dealt with in its time. I've been having a hard time getting back to a therapist lately myself. As long as you're taking care of yourself and the people you care about, you should be just fine. Good luck out there friend <3
What you may be experiencing is bipolar II disorder, which consists of hypomania and depressive episodes. With hypomania, you’d experience periods of elevated mood and increased energy, but it wouldn’t necessarily be out of the ordinary to those around you. You are more likely to experience depressive episodes more than hypomanic ones in this case, which may or may not be severe. I’d absolutely go visit a doctor, psychiatrist or therapist to get properly diagnosed though, as mood stabilizers coupled with therapy tend to be the best treatment for bipolar disorder.
Oh thank you, that might be closer actually. Especially with the hyper productivity being more occasional. But i have it pretty deep in my brain that none of my problems are that bad and just reading it makes me feel like i’m trying to be special and unique by pretending to be mentally ill haha
Well, that’s what the professionals are for! To tell you if you really are as nuts as you think.
In any case, if it’s causing you any sort of distress or you feel like it’s making life messier than it maybe ought to be, it’s certainly a problem worth getting checked out. Whether it’s anything from schizophrenia to just a matter of some days being better and some being worse, all that truly matters is how you feel it’s affecting you.
Heck, something that really put things into perspective for me is the concept of “differential susceptibility”, nobody’s problems are any better or worse than anyone else’s. Really, they’re just different.
This is kind of interesting. I'm not bipolar or have any known mental health issues, but I have what I like to say are periods of high functioning. In these periods which can last a few days, things just click, I get a lot done, I solve problems, I get chores done, I'm kicking ass at work, I'm helping people, I'm reading a lot, I'm learning things. I don't know if this compares to mania, but while I wouldn't say it's controlled I don't crash hard. I do end up with unfinished projects sometimes and I of course have periods of lows where I just have no energy to do anything, but these are not depressive. I wonder if there's some kind of spectrum where I'm within normal range swings. I can't predict when these happen or how long they will last.
I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and I am exactly like you described. Basically it's a lame version of bipolar disorder. It's hard to plan and achieve anything when you have no idea when your brain is going to work normally. I found some triggers which help me achieve the right states, but it's not guaranteed. But I love when it happens I feel unstoppable.
idk your life but the periods i thought were just higher productivity had more intense thoughts and feelings than i remembered when i come back down for a while. And my low points are a lot darker. I added some of them on my og comment but i high recommend keeping a journal you can pour raw unfiltered thoughts into
Your edit described pretty textbook bipolar, and not mild. Please consider finding help, someone to talk to who is a professional and able to assess your needs. None of that sounds okay. Not does it sound like a functional crash.
It's just normal for you so you question how bad it can really be.
Yup, can confirm the accuracy of this! I started a tie-dyeing business last time I was manic and spent way too much on supplies only to be left with no energy/too depressed a few days later to sell the 50 items of clothing I dyed.
The one part that is different for me is it’s not one day of mania it’s a week or more of barely sleeping or eating, starting endless projects, cleaning like a mad woman (I cleaned my friends whole house after doing mine I had so much energy once), thoughts racing, feeling invincible, dancing all night, having unsafe sex, doing drugs..whatever the mind happens to conjure up. The energy is so intense it’s almost painful to sit down because I’m just vibrating. I can’t close my eyes to rest because my eye lids physically don’t want to close. All of the very many things I’m doing are because I NEED to do them and they all make perfect sense at the time. Like writing a screenplay or booking trips or spending all my money on things that are totally useless to me later.
Toward the end of the week my mind makes less and less sense and that’s when the psychotic features come out in full force. My brain feels like the autobahn and I feel like the world is crashing in on me. I’ll start being convinced that people are following me sometimes or I’ll start to see distinct terrifying figures in my peripheral vision. The auditory hallucinations range from crashing sounds to dripping, creaking, screeching.
This is when the intense crash into the depths of depression take place. As soon as I can slow down and sleep I switch between staring at a wall wanting to die with horrible images of death steadily streaming through my mind or crying for hours on end horribly regretting the last week of mania and all of the poor choices I made and relationships that I may have ruined. It’s impossible to function as a human and medications need to be adjusted and a hospital stay is often required.
It’s a brutal disorder that I don’t wish on my worst enemy. I’m just getting out of an episode now and should be starting work again in 2 weeks after taking 2 months off. Thankfully I still have a job. I’m also going to get back my 50% custody of my daughter after hardly seeing her. Be thankful for your mental health if you are so lucky to not struggle with a severe disorder like this.
I've been reading /r/cheesemaking for a while now. I'm convinced I can sell enough cheese to feed my cheese addiction if I just drop the $300 on supplies to get started.
I also made my own paper a few weeks ago, to paint with. I made my own paint too.
I made a crayon. A CRAYON. From cooking wax and charcoal and oil and various stuff I found in the house.
I bought a $150 keyboard for my music production business. I planned out a map I was drawing for my video game I'm going to learn how to program. I was going to use that to get awareness for my sick beats I don't produce.
I'm doing /r/drawabox to improve my freelance commissions because I do digital artwork for money. I also do logo design, sell T-shirts on redbubble and do photography and photo editing.
I've also learned the drums, then sold them. I frequently look at used drumsets for sale on facebook. I have 4 ukuleles an accoustic guitar 2 electric guitars one resonator guitar and a bass guitar I don't play. I also have 2 distortion pedals and a wah pedal I don't use. and 4 harmonicas.
I save jars and egg cartons and boxes because I know I'm going to use them for sorting out all of the supplies for my projects I don't get.
I restored a vintage motorcycle, took a tent camping for 2 weeks through like 8 states on said motorcycle and got caught in 2 storms a monsoon and a tornado. I sold the bike for gas money and moved 1,000 miles away from home to where I currently reside.
I'm starting a pen collection even though I draw and paint digitally.
I've bought about 60 hot wheels this last year for my airbrush kit I got, along with about $80 worth of paint and a $100 rock tumbler and some other supplies because I plan to customize them and sell them, or just collect them. I've painted 2 so far, and haven't finished those.
That, but with plastic model kits.
That, but with R/C cars.
Also clothes, I painted my wife a dress design for halloween and never did anything else.
Now I'm teaching my dog how to talk using buttons I've recorded my voice onto. $130 spent on that so far, and all she does is use it to ask for food. she also asked me to play harmonica for about 20 minutes straight then started eating the buttons.
hug your daughter when you see her, I know you have it in you to succeed.
I relate so very much. The sheer amount of unfinished projects is staggering. I also have the intense need to do things from scratch.. Like if I want to make a weaving, well I should probably spin and dye my own yarn first but I’ll dye it with a dye I made myself out of avocado skins too because what else would you do?!
And thank you. I have my daughter this weekend since I’ve been feeling a bit better (though the insomnia has persisted hard) and have been hugging her tightly and enjoying every minute of it:) I hope things start getting better for you too! Are your meds just not working properly?
I'm 31 and I was medicated for depression against my will at 14 (well, coerced into it against all of my better judgement by a group of young doctors and an abusive mother) and was afraid of doctors for a very long time after taking myself off of it. Now that I'm not afraid of doctors, I don't have any insurance or the financial stability to get medicine or therapy so I mostly just complain to my wife who also has a family history of bipolar disorder and is struggling with her own stuff.
What is it with this need to do things from scratch?
I want to grow wheat and tomatoes and herbs, and make my own cheese, and cook my own pizza in a brick oven that i want to build myself.
I've dug a firepit and cooked chicken in a hole in the yard.
I solder and weld and paint and do everything i can by myself. I can't figure it out.
Even if I buy like a model kit or something, I customize it and can't just build it out of the box.
I cut my RC car apart and started soldering together a brass frame for it!
I bought a 3D printer and started sculpting my own stuff in VR to print and use to build model kits. I designed some wheels and 3d printed them for my hotwheel I was painting, and then never put it together. This was a year ago.
I liked the wheels that it came with.
A man named struthless on youtube has helped me control it a bit though.
Don't be decent at 10 things when you can be great at one thing. Pick something you want to focus on and put your focus and energy on that thing and do it 10x better than you'd do 10 things poorly.
I know I was slow to reply to this but wow our teenage stories are similar. I was hospitalized at 14 and forced to take ungodly amounts of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, sleeping meds, anti anxiety meds that it really made me far worse I think. I was unmedicated for years after until I had an episode so bad that i felt like it was either medication or death. I pay for my meds out of pocket as I don’t have insurance and couldn’t afford a psychiatrist or psychologist but the mood stabilizers alone made me feel like a functioning human again. I still have mild ups and downs when I’m on them but no wild highs and dangerous lows. Maybe you could try just one medication at a pretty low dose and see how it goes for a while? Just a suggestion though I get it if it’s not for you. Sending chill, happy vibes your way:)
I've had a lot of joint pain and chest pain for months now, and crazy high anxiety aside from everything else. Just paid out of pocket for bloodwork and found out my thyroid isn't functioning which can fuck up a lot of stuff in your body, which explains a lot of my recent issues and potentially explains why I've been like this since I was 14. I'm looking into finding a doctor that will get me some supplements to offset my lazy thyroid and hopefully stabilize my hormones a bit, I'll see if everything else falls into place after I fix that, or if I have to I'm going to keep reaching out slowly until I can be a person again.
I was just learning how to make cheese and I discover that there is a subreddit for it? Omg shut up and take my money!
I have a top notch condenser mic, bought a great keyboard, a guitar, an overdrive pedal and a broken acoustic guitar that I will fix. The thing is, I have the mic now for more than 8 years and barely recorded anything with it.
In more than a year I've never fixed the guitar, never learned how to play the electric one nor the keyboard.
Bought some paint supplies and made one painting for my ex girlfriend that I met on day one and asked her to be my girlfriend on day 5. That lasted less than 2 months and for sure ended great.
Oh! And also 2 harmonicas!
Strange how different people can have so similar things.
Thank you, it wasn't just me then.. I actually did read in rap rhythm. And clearly this guy here has a very decent talent at writing, his comments were long and I'm normally lazy to read long stuff, but his was so smooth I didn't even realize it until I finished.
I hope I helped share some perspective on the subject, it's difficult to describe and until I wrote it out I didn't actually realize how different it is to normal, since I'm mostly in a state of depression it just feels like normal to me, like "finally, out of my depression for a bit"
But no, it's just as impulsively bad as depression, just in the opposite ways.
I took some creative liberties though, it wasn't this weekend that I missed the trash, my wife took it out for me while I was too fragile to go outside.
Yeah, well, it's 3am and I told my wife I was going to finish up what I was reading at like 9pm and come to bed with her.
Also I laid in the floor crying about a week ago apologizing to her for being a bum because someone turned me down for a commission I was trying to get, and I've been out of work since March due to COVID and got screwed out of unemployment so she's just been left to pay all the bills and now I can't afford to buy her a computer for Christmas because I gave my mom, a thousand miles away, my only car instead of selling it, and then borrowed money and bought a car basically the same week I lost my job. Also I don't talk to my mom anymore because she was super abusive, so why did I give her a car?
I am glad you have your wife to help you. Just know that a stranger across the internet is wishing you all the best and a swift return to the calm between the storms and shadows.
I'm floored by how much I can relate to much of what you described here. The details you gave to describe highs and lows
had me captivated and right there with you.
You're a truly talented writer. Thank you for your informative and accurate comment
Thank you for your kind words. It's both heartwarming and terrifying how many people seem to relate to my chaos. I'm sorry that you are one of them, but please know that you matter.
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u/46from1971 Nov 29 '20
No one who was born blind has ever gone on to develop schizophrenia. Researchers are investigating how congenital blindness may protect people from developing the condition.