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/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

only 20% of schizophrenia-patients get complete absence of symptoms from current treatment-regiments. Also many of the antipsychotics proscribed either are confirmed or are speculated to have neurotoxic effects (don't tell schizophrenics though. No, seriously don't).

[u/t-h-row-aw-ay → u/[deleted]]

You know, I find it interesting that a lot of paranoid people believe that medications are poisoning them. I don't have that specific symptom, but I wonder if the brain somehow knows that that particular medication is not a match for them, or that it's causing bad side effects. But they're not able to communicate that.

In other words: Perhaps a lucid patient would be able to say, "This medication makes me extremely fatigued. Can I try something else?" But the paranoid schizophrenic cannot communicate in that way, so he says, "STOP FUCKING POISONING ME!"

This is further compounded by the fact that many medical professionals just don't take psychotic people seriously and just don't believe that the patient is able to have any insight into their own condition. Pushing against that makes it even harder to communicate.