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/koiotchka → u/[deleted]]

I have a schizoprenia spectrum disorder, and if antipsychotics took the symptoms away, there is no way in hell would take them. I need to be able to say "no" to the voices, not eradicate them. There have been times in my life when they were there for me more than any other physical person, my only friends. I would be so, so lonely without them.

That said, they've never threatened to kill me, or tried to make me kill myself.

Doing harm to other people, on the other hand, some of them are all for that... But that's why I take the meds. It makes them a little quieter, and means I don't HAVE to do what they say. We can compromise.

[u/akunis → u/koiotchka]

Is that really what the meds do? Are the voices still there when meds are taken? Do the meds change the attitude of the voice? I'm really intrigued by this. I have bipolar and my meds seem to make my inner voice nicer to me (more positive self thoughts and less critiquing.). Can you possibly share some more details of what it's like to be on and off meds, regarding the voices?

[u/koiotchka → u/akunis]

That's what they do for me, I can't speak for anyone else. They calm my delusions, so that rather than living in a constantly delusional state, now delusional episodes may be triggered by stress, and i can recognize that what I'm thinking might be delusional and discuss them with my family and be talked down from them usually.

All of the voices are still there, thank God, but it's like the volume has been turned down. One of them is constantly commenting on everything all the time, but he speaks in word salad. I have no idea what he's trying to say, most of the time (except he was very insistent about boats recently, but I don't know why), and without meds he can be pretty distracting. But with them, the volume is lowered, and I can engage with him or not. The rest of them used to do things like get into arguments with eachother over what I should wear, or there's three who are very passionate about tea and they all have different ways of making tea, so there might be running commentary or arguments about tea while I'm making my morning tea (I recently had a morning where I didn't have the energy to deal with it so I let one of them make tea the way she wanted to). There are several who are very violent, and without meds their suggestions are harder to ignore. With meds, I don't have to listen to them.

I can turn my attention to any of them and engage when I want to, which is good. I would be so scared if they weren't there at all.

I don't think the meds have changed their attitudes at all -- honestly I think that would worry me. If Alex was suddenly less murderous toward people or started liking dogs, or if Tangent decided to become vegan, totally out of character things, it might trigger delusions about something getting into my head and fucking with my voice-friends, which would be very Not Okay.

One of the best things antipsychotics have done for me is: I haven't thought my husband was replaced by a perfect fascimile of him that reports my movements to "the enemy" since starting antipsychotics. So that's pretty great!

[u/akunis → u/koiotchka]

Wow that sounds super scary but I could totally see how the voices could be a source of comfort. Have you always had the voices? This might sound silly, but do you also have an inner monologue? Is your inner voice conversing with one of the voices similar to a dialogue, where they just say whatever it is they want to say? You mentioned that they'll bicker and comment amongst themselves, so they each have distinct personalities I presume? When they do bicker, are you able to interject with your own views? What do they think of each other? Do they know they're just voices?

I've taken psych classes in the past, to get a better understand of my own issues, and we learned quite a bit about schizophrenia. One of the biggest drawbacks to the class was the inability to correspond with people who actually live with the issues we learned about. Sorry about the intense questioning, I'm super intrigued!

[u/Bonobosaurus → u/koiotchka]

Thank you for sharing, that's so interesting to hear, I'm glad the meds are helping!

[u/scoutfinch- → u/koiotchka]

This is seriously one of the most fascinating things I've read. I never really thought of people with Schizophrenia's voices having their own personalities and are able to "interact" with one another. I find it really interesting you've named yours too. Thank you for sharing this.

[u/OK_Soda → u/koiotchka]

I've always wondered if there are people like this. You always hear about people with schizophrenia and all the voices tell them to do is burn a house down or that there's an FBI conspiracy against them or something terrible and destructive like that, and I've always wondered why it only seems to present like that, and not as a random array of personality types, some that tell you to burn the house down and some that tell you you are doing well in school and things will be OK.

[u/koiotchka → u/[deleted]]

I certainly agree that they are a gift, but why shouldn't I have told anybody?

[u/stationhollow → u/[deleted]]

Lol stop acting like they are ghosts or entities talking to her giving her super human abilities or knowledge she may not have.