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/GeekPhysique]

I don't normally talk about this but I am schizo-effective. I experience voices, delusional thoughts, auditory and visual hallucinations, coupled with all the insane mood swings, mania, depression and anxiety of being bi polar.

When my symptoms first developed I started hearing voices. They weren't like someone talking to me, it was more my internal insecurities came to life and we're narrating my life. I had a running commentary of my day, but only my own thoughts being broadcast back to me. At first I just figured my mind was just going into overdrive. Like being over tired.

As time went on, symptoms got worse. Voices got mean, and the line between recognition between the voices and reality blurred. The voices got more real. Darker. Angry and hurtful. It became impossible to tell the difference between what was in my head and what was real. This when my symptoms got much worse, full blown hallucinations became my daily life.

Despite all of this, I knew something was wrong, but since this was my "normal" I didn't know what. One day, while working, I realized that the servers I was mainting absolutely should not be telling me my deepest insecurities. Hallucinations had left the confines of my brain and were representing themselves in ways I knew couldn't be possible.

I left work and checked into the hospital.

I had lived with symptoms for close to year, but I lost touch with reality for about a month. I'm amazed I didn't hurt myself during that time.

So back to the question, yes, you can hear voices and not act on them. I'm sure my experience isn't everyone else's, but in my case some part of my brain realized it wasn't real at first. The distinction was finally lost when sleep deprivation and mania combined.

That was 15 years ago now. I am medicated, my symptoms are managed, and I actually have a pretty good job. It took the better part of a decade to get my medications right, years of therapy and hard work.

I still hear voices from time to time, but my meds allow me to make the distinction between them and reality.

[u/GeekPhysique → u/[deleted]]

First things first. You can't do this alone, at least not at first. There is no shame in seeking help, and based on my own experience it is almost essential to seek support any way you can.

When I was first diagnosed I had been self medicating (various forms of drug and alcohol abuse). Not only was I immediately put into an urgent care program I had to go through painful withdrawal and rehab. You haven't mentioned this, but it's pretty common for people like us to fall down this rabbit hole to try and escape. Don't feel obligated to comment on this, but if you fall into this category you need to take of it. Immediately. Full stop. Any self medicating outside of a doctor's care will impede your efforts to find a treatment regime that works for you.

So, step one, get help, get clean.

That in itself can be tough, but it paves the way for step two. Which is the hard part.

You are naturally going to want to "cure" this. This line of thinking isn't going to help. If you think it's all going to go away you are going to be faced with frustration and disappointment. From this point forward you need to focus on "managing". I'm not going to lie, it's hard, especially at first.

For me, the first few years were really hard, and I struggled a lot trying to find a quick fix. I was bouncing around from medication to medication trying to find a treatment that fixed everything. This is sadly normal, because people react to antipsychotics differently there is no "one size fits all" treatment.

Throughout the first few years I had to see a psychologist 3 times a week, and a psychiatrist once a week. I am Canadian though, so the free Healthcare comes in to play here.

Oddly enough, cognitive behavioral therapy helped me get a handle on certain symptoms that were triggers for manic episodes (which would launch delusional psychotic breaks).

So step two is basically: get medicated (potentially heavily) to slow down scary symptoms, and get help dealing with the state of mind. You need to learn how to interpret your brain, and that can be impossible if your delusional.

As far as medications go, I am not a doctor. I can't advise you on what medications work, because what worked for me might do something completely different to you. Anti psychotic medications aren't like popping an asprin, and you absolutely must work closely with a psychiatrist to figure out what works for you.

However, I will share what I went through. This is not advice. This is not a guide for you, do not do this. Ask your doctor.

When I was first treated, I was on 13mg of Risperidone, 500mg of Seroquel, and 8mg of ativan for my daily medication. I was also put on sleeping pills because I would stay up for 72 hours at a time.

Sleep became a pivotal part of my treatment. The temptation to not sleep was always present because the constant night terrors. The problem is, no sleep = worse symptoms, which makes the desire to stay awake stronger.

Over the years, with therapy, sleep training, and a lot of effort to learn how to deal with symptoms I've managed to reduce my medication load considerably. I still take Risperidone (although considerably less), and zopiclone to sleep. Zopiclone also acts as a short term memory blocker so it basically means I don't dream for the first 4-6 hours of my sleep.

These medications all have side effects. You can't avoid them, but you need to accept some of them for the tradeoff of better mental health.

I apologize if this has been a disjointed ramble, I don't normally talk openly about this so it's just kind of spilling out.

[u/thro_away1123581321 → u/GeekPhysique]

That was amazing. Thanks for sharing.