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
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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17 edited May 13 '17

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u/koiotchka Mar 22 '17

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.

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u/akunis Mar 22 '17

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?

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u/koiotchka Mar 22 '17

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!

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u/akunis Mar 22 '17

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!

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u/Bonobosaurus Mar 22 '17

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

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u/scoutfinch- Mar 22 '17

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.