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 Quake3
Total Carbohydrate
 
Registered: 08/31/06
Posts: 924
Loc: Relatively New York
Last seen: 2 years, 23 days
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 Does schizophrenia exist? 
#7614861 - 11/09/07 01:46 PM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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I know it exists but I want to understand it exactly. The illness seems very ambiguous. I know there are different types of it, but - for example - wouldn't 'paranoid schizophrenia' just be a severe case of anxiety? What is it exactly? Does the medical community have any specific symptoms you must have? What happens at the chemical level and beyond? Is it just a label for 1-2 other illnesses put together?
Voices: Some people say that hearing voices constitutes psychosis. However, from my own family member's accounts (they are schizophrenic, been in mental wards and on meds for decades, danced around naked, etc.. the works) All humans have voices in their head, all the time. It's called day dreaming or introspecting. I don't know any schizophrenic that hears external voices. It's sort of like when you say shrooms make you hallucinate. They obviously don't. Nor do they make you hear voices. The same logic can be applied to the illness.
I usually "playback" conversations I've had during the day when I'm sitting in bed, or I'll "hear" a voice saying "fuck, I hate getting up in the morning" when I'm laying in bed at 5 AM. This is normal and is a result of our brains having evolved in a heavily-stimulated environment.
Irrational thinking: From my interpretation of people's accounts, my own experience, and from literature - THIS is psychosis. Hearing voices is normal, and so are irrational thoughts, but believing them is when it becomes a problem. "Linking" otherwise benign things, sensations, or ideas to form a big picture is psychosis. You hear a sound and think hmm, somebody is trying to break into my house, then walking outside and seeing a car speed off the minute you open the door and thinking the murder sped off. This is irrational. This happens on drugs, especially high doses of Cannabis and other psychedelics. Things "make perfect sense" that become laughable when you're sober.
Paranoia and visions: Psychosis doesn't make you "see" external hallucinations; Just ones in your mind's eye. This, coupled with paranoia, seem to bring about the hallucinations that psychosis patients talk about. If you've tripped and hallucinated in the sense that you "see" somebody as something/somebody else (like your friend as Mario or the devil), then you know what I mean. You don't externally SEE Mario, but you perceive your friend (which externally still looks exactly the same and you're aware of this) as something else (Mario) in your mind's eye. This myth comes from movies like a Beautiful Mind (great film) or Donnie Darko (excellent! both highly recommended!)
On panic: Panic is our brain's way of protecting us. When we panic, our mind suddenly begins a speedy search for the danger, before we are given a choice: Fight or flight. In the jungle, this is obviously handy, but if 'panic' is set off in your room, what happens? think of it as a false alarm; It goes off and your brain starts looking for danger.. nothing external, so it starts going internal and it picks up random thoughts and thinks OK I found the danger! These are almost always fake and illogical. Then a panic attack ensues and what have you. Getting over anxiety just requires persistent training to overcome the fear (i.e., sit in the dark alone to get over your fear of darkness, a panic attack wouldn't hurt you, it's scary but harmless).
Paranoia, visions and illogical thinking.. these seem to be mixed in a pot. A subject might suddenly believe or hear a voice saying, for example, there's a dead man in the closet. They might see a dead man in the closet in their head but they will not open the closet due to paranoia. Again, it all goes back to believing irrational thoughts. Why would people have irrational thoughts in the first place? both of these are probably due to the panic sensation - origins of THAT? I believe it can be both chemical and/or conditioned.
I've spoken to a few people about their accounts with psychosis and here's the basic pattern I've been able to discern:
It starts out with anxiety and dwelling on thoughts. Usually for years or decades. You worry that you left the stove on, you forgot to lock the door, that your friend is dead because he came late and hasn't called, etc.. worries that you can't push out of your mind.
Something triggers an emotional breakdown, or the existing anxiety to escalate to very high levels, or maybe causes an otherwise normal person to breakdown (although I doubt a "normal" person would breakdown. I think most people are mentally ill to a certain degree, but it's not until we pass a certain point or it starts affecting our lives that we are labeled 'depressed' or 'psychotic' or what have you). This can be anything; An unwanted pregnancy, being hurt/raped/threatened, had your stuff stolen or place broken into, death of a loved on, loss of wealth, etc..
This seems to cause a psychotic episode, which in my own interpretation sounds exactly like somebody slapped a very high dose of psilocybin on you without your knowledge. I don't know if this is permanent, because in all cases, the subject was hospitalized and medicated after 2-3 days of being in this condition.
The actual episode: Since I'm on the Shroomery, I'm not going to go into detail as most people can understand this: Imagine you're totally sober but suddenly begin tripping balls minus the dilated pupils (nothing is bright, but there are some distortions).
The difference between psychosis and tripping is that tripping is controlled and expected. A good example of this is when our favorite member here 'Agar' drank electric kool-aid and became extremely paranoid, whipping out a pistol before realizing what he drank.
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/6339172#6339172
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Booby
Agent Mulder
Registered: 09/14/05
Posts: 3,781
Last seen: 3 years, 6 months
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 Re: Does schizophrenia exist? [Re: Quake3]
#7615427 - 11/09/07 04:02 PM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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I saw in the news that cops are being educated on the management of schizos during the line of duty. I guess this means that there is a consensus that schizos exist and can be recognized by their behavior. What the signs they are told to look for, or how their management of the situation would differ I don't know.
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e3k
Stranger
Registered: 02/20/04
Posts: 72
Last seen: 3 years, 4 months
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Re: Does schizophrenia exist? [Re: Quake3]
#7625335 - 11/12/07 01:37 PM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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it exists. can be all of the symptoms you mentioned. generally your brain goes on 1000% performance and is completely exhausted because of it. sleep is not possible. you cant think in complex terms but you can find a link between usually not related perceptions and memories (some of which are far in the past) - usually you run in one of several thought loops always repeating the same things.
at the beginning you know something is wrong but if this state endures long enough you can start to believe all the "funny" stuff your brain can compose.. something like a permanent bad bad bad trip.
my advice: stop thinking:P .. . . . in the way you are used to
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