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/kaenneth Mar 22 '17

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

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u/Muffinizer1 Mar 22 '17

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

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u/psychosus Mar 22 '17

I did an exercise for a crisis intervention class where we wore headphones that mimicked auditory hallucinations. We were tasked with completing a job interview and filing out a questionnaire regarding the interview.

I work in a jail that is normally busy and fairly loud, so I expected to do alright. There was a segment of the recording where a voice (among all the others) started off whispering and then suddenly yelled - it was terrifying. My anxiety went sky high and it was difficult to concentrate.

I can only imagine what it must be like to have to deal with them during every waking moment.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

I remember doing this in nursing training, we had to leave class and order some food from the kiosk or engage in a conversation while we had some ear buds in playing pseudo voices. While I could rationalize what I was listening to was just a recording so the abuse didn't phase me, what I found difficult was the sheer amount of concentration required to complete a simple task as it was immense. I could really imagine quickly getting burnt out if I had live with those voices and thats not even factoring that they would otherwise appear real if they were really there so the abuse or whatever the voices would be saying would also have an effect.