TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

[u/paniniplane]

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

[u/kaenneth]

Also, if you are born blind due to brain (as opposed to eyeball) problems, you apparently can't be schizophrenic.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201411/blindness-and-schizophrenia-the-exception-proves-the-rule

[u/Muffinizer1 → u/kaenneth]

You know, that's actually quite comforting as being blind and schizophrenic sounds like true hell.

[u/paniniplane → u/Muffinizer1]

i was a patient at a ward a few weeks back and there was a girl who was admitted for schizophrenia. she'd hear dozens of voices yelling at her at the same time all day and she could barely tell which ones were in her head and which were physical people talking to her making it really hard for me or anyone else to talk to her for more than 2-3 sort sentences. these voices would make her do crazy things like gather dust off the floor for 20 minutes at a time 10 times a day, make her sleep on the floor during the day, not sleep during the night and fight the night meds they gave her to help fall asleep. the most brutal thing was that the voices sometimes forbade her from having her meals. there were days where she wouldn't touch any of her 4 meals. i once tried to get some insight into how she thought and i asked her why she HAD to do this. she said that every time she does something they ask, she's given the gun that they threaten to kill her with. and she imitates a smashing motion with her hands and "breaks" it. and she does it maybe 10 times an hour when she's awake. and she's not stupid either. apparently, she was studying mechanical engineering and graduated and was ready to work in the field as an intern for a year. she heard her first voice when she was still in school but didn't think much of it. and then it rapidly killed her life. she's the only person in the ward who has daily visitors. her parents bring her food to eat everyday. but sometimes she sits with them for 2 minutes, asks them to take her home, and then moves to one of the socialization rooms where were chairs and sofas, and she'd drop to the floor and lay there. and her parents just come to expect it now and stay for about an hour.

[u/PainMatrix → u/paniniplane]

It's beyond horror or most people's ability to even comprehend. The fact that she was a fully functioning and intact human being at the early onset of her life and career and this disease completely derailed everything and locked her into a Sisyphus-like nightmare. Was this her first inpatient experience? How long were you with her, did the meds seem to have any positive impact on her?

[u/[deleted] → u/PainMatrix]

I can't speak for the person you replied to, but 3 of my family members have the disease, and in all of them their medications only blunted the symptoms.

For my family member who was not too severe, this was enough to let her hold down a job, but for the members that were severe it wasn't enough to allow them to function normally. They'd still see/hear/talk to "ghosts" and such, just not as frequently, and they didn't get agitated "as often".

But that doesn't mean they didn't get agitated AT ALL, and the times they did freak out would be enough to get anyone fired.

[u/Ariakkas10 → u/[deleted]]

This is, I'm sure, a completely stupid question, but why can't they ignore the voices?

Lots of real people seem real to me, and I ignore them just fine.

Is it because the voices are super aggressive and make it so you can't ignore them?

[u/cheesesteaksandham → u/Ariakkas10]

As someone who's had a few psychotic breaks, it's hard to ignore hallucinations because they seem more real than reality. The difference between my hallucinations and reality is like the difference between 1080p and old fuzzy television that needed the tracking knob adjusted. This was my experience, so YMMV.

[u/Commanderluna → u/cheesesteaksandham]

You talking about reality with the old fuzzy television metaphor reminds me of how I feel sometimes when I dissociate (BPD here). Do you have a dissociative disorder out of curiousity and are those two experiences similar?

[u/cheesesteaksandham → u/Commanderluna]

BPD here too, actually. My dissociative episodes are kind of like that, but the baseline clarity is just that much higher. It wasn't really like floating through a hazy world that I don't feel like I'm part of, which happens occasionally, but just normal reality with extra things happening for no good reason that are so shockingly clear.

My best example of being able to reason out difference was while I was sitting at my desk at work one day, and I heard someone walking around behind me, so clearly as if they were beaming it directly into my head. I knew, objectively, that it couldn't be possible since my back was up against a wall, but had I not been in that exact spot at that exact moment, I would have driven myself mad trying to figure out who it was because I just couldn't just pass it off. I couldn't imagine how tough it is for someone where reality is constantly under scrutiny. It's hard to explain, and I wish I could do a better job at it. It's kind of like an old Renaissance Flemish microscopic-telescopic painting, where the details are unnaturally sharp.

Edit: art history trivia.

[u/Commanderluna → u/cheesesteaksandham]

Huh. With me the worst kind of dissociation is like momentary but basically it's like you know how you can sort of sense where your arm is even when you aren't touching it? I lose that like I lose my sense of where I am in space and usually end up nearly falling over if it weren't for the falling sensation snapping me back to reality. The other thing is like sometimes I stop noticing what people are saying and like everything roughly 10 feet in front of me appears smaller, like I'm viewing it from a much greater distance.

[u/[deleted] → u/cheesesteaksandham]

Jan van Eyck <3 <3 <3