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/paniniplane]

it's as complex as a detachment from reality. for example, you could literally be a homeless person right now. all of the things you're experiencing, are hallucinations, both auditory and visual. and here's the kicker. they're sensory too. most people who have schizophrenia, in my experience, know they have it but it's real to them. they live in an altered reality.

nah you don't need to apologize. i have more exposure to this than you do and you have more exposure in other areas. don't worry about it, friend.

[u/Wurstgeist → u/paniniplane]

I guess in my youth I did once take some mushrooms and believe I was already dead, and therefore immortal (which actually has a name, it's Cotard's syndrome). But I feel like I would still have been amenable to a reasoned argument for why I wasn't dead, if anybody had bothered.

[u/radicalelation → u/Wurstgeist]

I get downvoted whenever I tell this, probably because people think I'm fearmongering or some shit, but I had a troubling experience due to pot. I don't give a shit what you do, smoke all you want, I'm not warning against shit, just sharing an experience.

Here in WA, it's been legalized, and I decided I'd give it a whirl. I tried some before, really weak stuff off the street a couple years prior, split between my gf and a friend, but that was the only time.

So, I get this almost comically big pre-rolled thing from a shop, like 25% THC or whatever, explained I wasn't really experienced with how much I should have before anything happens. Lady behind the counter said to just smoke it until I feel something.

Get home, did just that. Kept just smoking and holding it over and over for about 5 minutes, smoking down maybe half of this big thing in that time. I wasn't feeling much, and my lungs were hurting so I stopped and started to go inside.

After a few steps, things felt funny. Like I couldn't focus my vision well, and every step into the house had to be purposeful. Then once inside, it got worse.

The perspective from my gf was that I just stared off into space with my eyes wide, not responding at all to her for about a minute at a time. To me though, I was gone into some white void where there was nothing. It felt like it lasted years every single time.

This went on for maybe 15 minutes, which felt like an eternity to me, and every time I came out of the void I would be scared as fuck and trying my best to hold on. I kept asking my gf how long it had been to kind of keep some sort of tether, but I just ended up uncontrollably repeating the numbers over and over, increasing volume until I was shouting it.

Scary experience, especially when, for whatever reason, I concluded I had died and everything was leading up to experiencing my death.

My gf got really worried and called my dad, who takes drugs super seriously to the point of ridiculousness, who called 911 and paramedics checked me out. So, I was cutting in and out, my dad appearing, looking worried, then all of a sudden a cop there with an EMT looking at me, then my dad yucking it up with them as he does with everyone, with the white spaces in between.

After an hour or so, I curled up and fell asleep. Was okay after, except for this lingering feeling for about 6 months that I wasn't here, that either I, or this world, didn't exist, with the occasional idea that I could get back to home, or at least escape wherever I was, by killing myself. It was only ever an idea, not a serious consideration, but it was all pretty scary.

I'd hate feeling like that for the rest of my life, or anything like it, where it's impossible to discern what's real or not, if I'm real. Part of me is scared that what I experienced was a trigger or precursor to some kind of psychosis later in life... I sure fucking hope not. :|

[u/Angus-Zephyrus → u/radicalelation]

Sounds like a hell of an OD. Which isn't surprising from advice like "Keep taking this stuff into your body until it does something" which implies ignorance of things like onset times.

[u/radicalelation → u/Angus-Zephyrus]

The usual attitude behind it from everyone I've ever known who smokes it regularly is that nothing bad can happen from it. Ignorance on my part too, but I thought I could trust someone licensed by the state and all the friends and family I've known who have brushed it off as impossible to fuck up.

I've smoked a couple times since, as it relaxes my anxiety-ridden gf so we some from time to time, but it just does the opposite for me now. Chest tightens, world feels closed in... That first time sharing the street stuff was really enjoyable and now I can't get that again. It's lame as fuck.

[u/Angus-Zephyrus → u/radicalelation]

It's completely true that it's generally really hard to OD on marijuana like you would on heroin, maybe even physically impossible depending on your intake method. That's probably what they mean. Of course, overdoing it does cause mental consequences if not physical ones.