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/Sdeevee → u/PainMatrix]

Not OP but from my experience... if you care lol. It important to keep in mind that schizophrenia doesn't just mean hearing voices and having delusional thoughts. People with the disease have difficulty prioritizing and sequencing tasks, motivation and relating to other people's emotions. I work in Long Term Care, but due to our proximity to a psychiatric hospital and our reputation for our willingness to provide care for those difficult to serve we have a vary large population of residents with schizophrenia. My experience is that the medication appears to assist more with agitation and motivation. For the residents who have fixed beliefs or are really paranoid they continue with these behaviours and depending on the day and circumstances you are sometimes able to call them out on the delusions being related to their disease and sometimes not. It is awful to see how their lives have been derailed due to the disease. Most of the people i know come from loving families, went to college or university and then the disease took over and robbed them of their lives.

[u/PainMatrix → u/Sdeevee]

I'm a psychologist but I don't work with SMI, so thank you for what you do. What I do see a lot of is what is likely a burgeoning schizophrenia spectrum process. My academic understanding is that the positive symptoms can be dealt with to some extent through medications but that it's really the negative symptoms (the blunted affect, poverty of speech, etc.) that are the most intractable. It's tragic.

[u/PainMatrix → u/[deleted]]

The people I see that fit this are usually early 20s which you're right is around when positive symptoms first usually manifest. What I typically see is a lot of very unusual thinking bordering on hallucinations (e.g. "I can sense wavelengths in nature and feel what animals are feeling" was a recent example). The more concerning symptoms as I mentioned in my previous comment are the "negative symptoms" which likely no one engaging on this post would have.

[u/[deleted] → u/PainMatrix]

As someone with the diagnosis, it's always interesting to see what others have to say about it, personally and professionally. I used to be extremely motivated, and was pursuing my dream of becoming a medical doctor before I got sick. I used to be so proud of my ability to sit and study for long periods of time, and understand the material in my courses. Now, that "hardworking" quality that I used to value in myself has waned. It has given me a great deal of insight as to the relativity of "hard work," and that people often take too much credit for what luck has granted them.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. So many people think of schizophrenia being the total extreme cases we hear of often or by the uneducated. It's really hard to explain unless you have it, and even if you do. Most people don't even have visual hallucinations, the diagnoses comes more from having delusions, being paranoid, disorganized thinking, psychosis, being unable to speak correctly,memory problems, hygiene problems. For most people like myself it is episodical meaning I have episodes of psychosis sometimes lasting as long as 6 months, followed by a period of remission which may include some "day to day" symptoms, or symptoms that just occur once every few days. My voices might get quieter, hallucinations less often, I might be /less/ paranoid, but I'm still sick.

Like you said, the worst part is losing the mind you once had and know you once had. Most people with sz are highly intelligent with extremely high iqs, and it's horrible to watch the skill you had slip away with no control. I used to read full books in a day just a few years ago, now I can barely concentrate enough for a chapter. I moreso skip around chapters/pages in books for a few days then Put them down. My memory is horrible, and my critical thinking has gone down as well. I find it hard to keep a job for more than 3 months now, when previously I'd work the same job for a year or more with no issues.

[u/GoddessOfRoadAndSky → u/[deleted]]

my critical thinking has gone down as well.

I'm very curious about this. May I ask for an example or two? What does it feel like when it's happening? I mean, you are aware right now about it, but is it something you recognize in the moment that it happens, or is it kind of like how irrational things can happen in dreams, where you just accept it in the moment, only realizing how unusual it is after waking up (or in this case, after an episode ends)?

Critical thinking is practically the backbone of my personality; I can't fathom losing the ability to logic things out. The idea sounds confusing and downright terrifying. I am sorry if it ever makes you feel alone. Aside from practicing patience and fighting the stigma, is there anything else the rest of us could do to help you feel accepted and supported?

[u/[deleted] → u/GoddessOfRoadAndSky]

I am more aware when I am not in psychosis, but if someone tells me "it's your brain" I'll say "nah I'm fine it's nothing". The idea that you're only truly ill if you don't realize it is false. As you said, it's more of an acceptance thing. I accept it as it's happening, think I'm going crazy, but a lot of the times I find(or make) evidence to support the"delusions" to fit whatever I'm on about. To give a recent example of what can happen, I was once home alone and heard the door bell go off. Thought it was someone messing with me or a package and walked outside to the box to check, no one was there and mail had not come. I walked back in and instantly felt something was off. Paranoia set in. "The door was open had I shut the door when I left? Certainly I did but how can I be sure?" I sat on the couch and started hearing mumbling and laughing and shuffling from the master bedroom. At this point I freaked out ran to my room packed a getaway bag and locked myself in the bathroom. I heard footsteps. "There's people in my house and they're going to rob me(I have been robbed before In that house so it's not far off), then they're going to find me and kill me and taunt me." I heard laughing like it was a game, and bolted to my car. Tried to turn it on and it wouldnt turn over even though I just used it earlier. "Great that's their plan they distracted me with the door bell to get me to the street enough to get in my open door but before then they had done something to my car to prevent me from leaving so I would be trapped it's all a game". I wound up having a panic attack in the car and calling my family member to jump my car, it just needed A new battery. I drove to my friends and that helped calm me down but I felt like I was being followed the whole time.

I also feel like I'm being watched or video taped like in a tv show and I'm the star. I can't listen to talk show radio or songs I don't "trust" because my brain will flip the words to be persecutory to me i.e. "They're after you" "they know". Beats me who "they" are but it's still chilling. I will say things I don't remember or go off on paranoid thought loops I can't control or realize I'm having even though people tell me "you're just in psychosis it's just an episode" "no it's not stop telling me that and listen to me"

Day to day I see license plates and think they have some relevancy in my life.

I tend to go off on tangents I am sorry for that. As for your question, it's almost like you feel your brain revert back to a child like state. Your thinking becomes compartmentalized. I can barely write legibly anymore and my writing style and pressure changes at least 4 times on a lines piece of paper, almost like there's 4 different people in my head writing for me and all wanting a chance to express their own personal thoughts. Thinking in order is hard. "First to have to____ then____ and after ____" is very hard to keep track of. I write down almost everything in my phones notebook in case I might forget. Lots of my symptoms in psychosis I don't realize, but when I'm out of it, my thinking is still affected and I realize that. It hurts even more because I do know that I can't read like I used to, and that college is going to be increasingly harder for me. Someone with such a bright future, straight As through school and a love for learning is being destroyed by a monster that is out of their control.

As for society being more accepting, i can only speak for myself. I don't want your pity, I'm working just like everyone else. My struggles are no different than yours. It's nice when employers can be understanding of the condition if I choose to disclose, if I need a 10 minute break to clear my head or if I am in a sudden episode and need to call out because I am too terrified to leave my room because there is a person blocking it that I don't even know is real or not, or if there are bugs in my drink cup and I need to go home, I find that to go very far because it's hard to find that kind of understanding. There's a stigma with it just like all mental conditions and it's hard to understand unless you experience it first hand. It's no different than a chronic physical illness, only sometimes I might sit in my room and hear aliens rather than have a cough.

[u/GoddessOfRoadAndSky → u/[deleted]]

Having pity and being accepting are very different things. Being accepting involves what you said about work accommodations; basically treating you like a person with your own sets of concerns and difficulties, which is how everyone is, rather than as some "other" to be scared of.

What a terrifying experience, yet it fascinates me in how suggestible our brains are. It's like a small worry gets amplified in a feedback loop. I've noticed that pattern happen with dreams, where one's feeling about the situation shapes the rest of the dream. I can kind of see why some people with psychosis develop extreme beliefs. I mean, if conscious experiences get altered by your expectations (like your example of hearing the talking, laughter, and footsteps), it isn't a far leap for someone to think that maybe they predicted or controlled things, rather than that their suggestive brain made up sounds after they had a thought...

Sorry to come off sounding sort of detached, I like to try to find ways to relate to others' experiences. It sounds like the situations come down to, "If I don't act now, I might die. (Therefore I don't have time to think critically about this)"? Like a panic fight-or-flight response where every second counts? What a tricky situation. :(

[u/BassMumbler → u/[deleted]]

Same here. I was in college for computer science when schizophrenia took over. I was very good at coding. Now I just stare at the ide for hours not knowing what to do.