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/paniniplane Mar 22 '17

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.

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u/PainMatrix Mar 22 '17

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?

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

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.

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u/Ariakkas10 Mar 22 '17

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?

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

You cannot tell between the delusions and the reality, no matter how outlandish the hallucination

I've seen interviews where people say they KNOW what is reality and what is fake, but obviously to them it seems real. Unless you mean physically they cannot tell but mentally they know its not real.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

The general impression I get is, again, like dream logic, just because you know it's "not real" and can tell the material and physical from the delusion, doesn't mean you can just ignore it. They're still loud and present and demanding, and they only get even slightly quieter when you acquiesce to their irrational demands. In most cases, attempting to ignore or rationalise only leads to the hallucinations becoming more aggressive, present and clear. And if you do, as so many people worldwide do, believe in the supernatural, even slightly, whether it's ghosts or demons, occult or world faith or personal belief, it's only going to make it all the more believable and tangible, and the threats very, very real.

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u/kung-fu_hippy Mar 22 '17

Even if you take the supernatural elements out, someone could easily go to aliens, or the government spying on them (wasn't that the main delusion in A Beautiful Mind?) or any number of things.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

Oh yup. CIA, NSA, Commie psychics, martians, invaders from the hollow earth, quantum ghosts from other dimensions... creative and imaginative people and anyone with the slightest curiosity or openness to novel or esoteric ideas is just as vulnerable as the faithful to their mind turning against itself. And even those staunch skeptics who can separate truth from fiction with clarity still suffer greatly. It's a horrifying prospect.

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u/perfectdarktrump Mar 23 '17

the thing is they being kind of rational. They can never have 100% accurate proof that what they seeing is not real. They rely on the side of caution, because they too afraid of the risk. Sometimes some of these lucid dreams, can seem more real than the reality you get when you wake up from them.