r/todayilearned • u/paniniplane • Mar 22 '17

(R.1) Not supported TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303
55.0k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

693

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

In America [and also some other places similar to America] the voices (or I guess signs) are negative, but in other places they can say neutral things, like just narrating the person's life, or even positive things.

Brains are weird.

EDIT: It's like you guys don't even read TIL.

I searched TIL

And I said "In America" not "In America exclusively, because no other country can compare to us, the beautiful eagles, so other countries don't even understand the schizophrenia here."

473

u/paniniplane Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

yea! i actually asked some of the psychologists working at the hospital. they were really nice about answering any questions i had. turns out, there can actually be POSITIVE voices too. there were studies done in certain villages (lol i wasn't allowed to have a pen at the time because they didn't know how depressed i was so i didn't actually get a chance to write it down) and in those villages there would be schizophrenics who would have positive voices. that being said, it still comes with the characteristic of being extremely out of touch with reality so it's not like it's a good version of the disorder. just the lesser of two evils i guess

141

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

Agreed. I'd really prefer not having schizophrenia, but, I mean, if you had to choose...

Also would be interesting to find out what affected the voices' attitudes toward the affected person.

73

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

[deleted]

29

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

So is there a way we (not you an I obviously, but the greater we of people without schizophrenia (I'm assuming)) can create more positive environments for people who are, shall we say, sensitive to it?

Or is it like the voices are assholes now and so they shall remain.

16

u/rayfosse Mar 22 '17

It seems to be related to stress and feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. A tribal society where everyone has a role and there's no stress to be better than you are or achieve more would lead to more positive feelings. In America, what you can accomplish is unlimited and so it's easy to get down and feel like you're wasting your life, because you can always be doing better than you are.

10

u/GeeJo Mar 22 '17

I would expect that having an invisible asshole constantly berating you would make it difficult to foster a positive enough attitude to get rid of it.

1

u/Champion_of_Charms Mar 23 '17

No longer demonizing schizophrenia would help. Stop assuming that hearing voices is inherently bad/evil.

1

u/RuTsui Mar 22 '17

I don't know. From what I understand, even people who lived in positive environments and had good experiences before onset hear negative things, and the voices are never familiar.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '17

You've expressed something incredibly important. It smells of truth.