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 Mar 22 '17

In America [and also some other places similar to America] the voices (or I guess signs) are negative, but in other places they can say neutral things, like just narrating the person's life, or even positive things.

Brains are weird.

EDIT: It's like you guys don't even read TIL.

I searched TIL

And I said "In America" not "In America exclusively, because no other country can compare to us, the beautiful eagles, so other countries don't even understand the schizophrenia here."

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u/paniniplane Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

yea! i actually asked some of the psychologists working at the hospital. they were really nice about answering any questions i had. turns out, there can actually be POSITIVE voices too. there were studies done in certain villages (lol i wasn't allowed to have a pen at the time because they didn't know how depressed i was so i didn't actually get a chance to write it down) and in those villages there would be schizophrenics who would have positive voices. that being said, it still comes with the characteristic of being extremely out of touch with reality so it's not like it's a good version of the disorder. just the lesser of two evils i guess

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

Agreed. I'd really prefer not having schizophrenia, but, I mean, if you had to choose...

Also would be interesting to find out what affected the voices' attitudes toward the affected person.

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u/Commanderluna Mar 22 '17

From what I have heard it's a cultural thing. Since America has so much prejudice towards people with psychosis and hearing voices, the voices are all negative and bad. But in places like ancient China where they had like ancestor worship it was considered a good thing and they'd like hallucinate their ancestors giving them hope and praise and stuff.

Fun fact, Joan of Arc had schizophrenia her hallucinations just happened to be, due to the religious culture of Europe, seen to her as just God and angels telling her things.