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Schizophrenia Experiences and Suggestions?
Jagercola asks: "My sister was recently diagnosed with Schizophrenia. It's a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease that we don't know a lot about. The movie, A Beautiful Mind, paints an accurate picture of how the disease affects someone in a best case scenario. I would like the vast audience here to help me understand the disease through experiences and that it might help me aid my sister. If you know someone how has the disease, how has it affected your and their life? How have you been able to cope with it? What are the long term implications for quality of life?"
How do you mark an article submission as "Troll"? Beautiful Mind was not a terribly accurate film; it took a ton of non-realistic liberties for "artistic" sake. Also, it was (poorly) showing a relatively severe case of schizophrenia... Hardly a "best case" scenario.
Slashdot already provides people with enough inaccurate Science and Technology information... lets not shoot for Medical as well...
is if Slashdot posts this again tomorrow. :P
Too many people confuse Schizophrenia with Multiple Personality Disorder. The two are related, but are not the same thing.
no, you don't.
Go to Kuro5hin. There's a number of fascinating, lengthy, relevant articles on the subject there.
You should certainly read more about it (sorry I have no books to recommend). My brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a kid; he eventually committed suicide when the doctor decided to reduce his medication (a little too quickly apparently). Also since there is a genetic component to schizophrenia, you might want to investigate early symptoms and keep an eye on your kids. This website would probably be worth taking a look at too.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I'm sorry to hear of your trouble. I offer prayers for you and your sister.
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
That was an excellent movie, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an "accurate picture". I also read the book and I don't know if I'd describe Nash's experience as a "best case scenario" - maybe it is, for that particular disease, but it didn't sound too good to me.
Try www.nami.org to start. It is an orginaztion for both family, friends and consumers. Also your local state office of Mental Illness can help get you resources. Mental Illnes is nothing to be embarressed about, it is a physical disease like any other disease.
A friend of mine in college was schizophrenic. He was fine as long as he took his meds and in fact I knew him about 6 months before I even knew he had the disease. Two problems. First, he occasionally liked to smoke pot and that seemed to interfere with his medication. Second, one of his symptoms was paranoia so if he missed a couple of doses (or smoked too much) he would start thinking the medicine was just there to control his mind, and he'd quit taking it - then would begin a weeks-long slide that would end with him becoming homeless and getting arrested for assault or vandalism. He would get violent so they would institutionalize him for a while and he would recover in a few weeks and get released, able to function normally again. If only I could have got him to quit smoking pot he could have held down a job and finished college. Last I heard he had moved back in with his parents and was doing fine because they made sure he took his meds.
He thought everyone was out to get him. In the end he was diagnosed with cancer and refused all treatment because he thought it was a plot against him. He sued several government agencies because he thought they were after him.
Best treatment is drugs which seemed to help somewhat. As far as coping watch what you say around the person.
There have been many stories on Kuro5hin by people with mental disorders. Take a look at Living With Schizophrenia. More recent, but not very relevant to the question is Living with Asperger's Syndrome, also a fascinating read.
I knew a girl who had schizophrenia. As long as she took her medication she was pretty much indistinguishable from everyone else.
One time we were all taking a long ride in a car. Just having the usual conversations that people have. She totally flipped out. In her mind, she thought that everyone in the car was talking about her, saying that she was ugly, stupid, a slut, whatever. She was having some major auditory hallucinations or something. But that was the only time that I ever saw her do anything strange.
The above incident is what prompted her to tell all of us about her schizophrenia. If it wasn't for that I never would have even known that she was schizophrenic and I had been hanging out with this girl at least twice a week for over a year.
Schizophrenia treatment has advanced by leaps and bounds since the days of John Nash's disease, so don't consider that a "best case scenario" for anything but the 60s-90s. Realize that the main barrier to effective treatment is cost - the "worst case" scenarios are the poor and lower economic classes. The destitute and lonely. Those without support, they who cannot afford the best care.
Therefore, unless your family is already wealthy, it is up to you and the other able members who are willing to provide for your sister to create and pool wealth to use for this purpose. Some families are not willing to do this, or are only willing to contribute enough to ensure basic care. To ensure the best possible outcome, ideally you and your able family members must adopt a completely altruistic stance regarding medical care for your sister, and work hard to the end of improving her condition as best it can be improved.
All this depends on the severity and type of schizophrenia she has, and this advice only comes second hand, but:
It may take a long time for your sister's doctors to find the right combination of drugs and dosages to best manage her symptoms, but there is hope that eventually she can live a reasonably normal life.
However, it is very dangerous and sadly common that once her therapy starts working she'll feel so much better she may stop taking her meds, relapse, get remedicated, feel better, stop taking the meds, relapse and so on.
Good luck to both of you,
-dameron
I used to volunteer on at a schizophrenia ward at a psychiatric hospital when I studied psychology. People would be admitted, get put on meds, stay for awhile until the meds took effect, and then go back out on their own. Once on their own many would think they were 'cured' and stop taking their meds. Then they would have another episode and end up back at the hospital. So my advice is to support her in taking meds. The right type and dose of medication is crucial to a good quality of life. It may take awhile for the doctors to get that right, and it is important to support her while they try.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
My uncle particularly managed to live with it quite well. He went to special schools when he was growing up. I don't know what they did, but apparantly they have special teaching techniques that could give him employable skills. I remember my psychology professor talking about how experiments have been done like teaching autistic children to perform fairly complex tasks through repetitive conditioning, rather than traditional teaching. It could be something like that. He certainly didn't get a full education (no science or history, minimal math, basically enough English to read the newspaper)
Between medicine and education, he's managed to make a decent living as an electrician. They recently put him on a new set of medications, and he seems perfectly normal to talk to now.
Ah, you speak of that rarest of posts, the +5 troll
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I drive this cat around town about once to twice a week to the doctor or to pick up his SSI check. Since he has been living on his own in a little rent control apartment he has been doing moderately better, but I think it would be best if he would also go back to college and finish his psychology degree (only has a year left). He knows better than anyone amongst his family and friends what the disease is but still thinks he is special that his demons are real, it is very sad. I wish they could cure things like this, but barring a wholesale revolution in the way we treat mental diseases that will not happen.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Because, in addition to being legal experts and marketing geniuses, we're all also highly qualified psychologists and medical doctors.
Because the people who keep chasing him threatened his life if he didn't get something posted on Slashdot.
My sympathies for your sisters condition. About the only thing I can think of saying is treasure the best times more than the bad times. Remember that even in outbursts you hate or cant understand she is suffering too.
I would take any response you get here with a grain of salt and a suit of armor. Some of it will be geeky resentment at the topic not mentioning an operating system and some will be complete lack of empathy or experience.
Find a newsgroup or a circle of people confronting this illness. Its not well uderstood so its even harder to explain.
There is a schizophrenia.com that looks to have a bunch of stuff to start.
http://www.schizophrenia.com/
ls
First of all, anybody with moderating experience, please remove any of the attempts to be funny I've just observed in the comments above here. Schizophrenia is not to be taken lightly. My closest friend was diagnosed with it about 8 years ago. It comes in many different forms of varying severity. For me as his friend and closest support outside his family (who didn't help, they had a similar aversion to the disease as displayed by the FOOLS who have commented above) it was traumatic. Someone who I felt I knew because someone who I didn't feel I knew, even though it was the same person. It did, in the short term, destroy his life. Heavy drugs and intensive therapy (etc) were the run of the mill for a good deal of time, and an element of that remains with him today. His life never returned quite to normal. I don't want to fill you with gloom, like I say every case is different. What I will say is they'll need you every step of the way, and if you hang in there, you will be rewarded - and by that I mean the person you cared about before will still be there and show through, and they won't go away completely - it can feel like that. My sister was diagnosed with a different form of mental illness, and so I fully sympathise with your position. If I can be of any help as a third party in sharing your concerns, feel free to email me at fraccy4@hotmail.com. ps to the purveyors of the foolish comments above, you're ignorant, and if I had you here in person, you'd get a smack in the mouth.
Well....let me think of it this way. I was diagnosed schizoprhenic about 6 years ago....I am a hallucinatory schizophrenic, which means on top of hearing things, I see things. Makes life a bit difficult. Things people take for granted, I find a challenge. Imagine, if you will, driving down the street, and not knowig if the people you see walking in the street are real or not. I haven't been on meds for quite some time, due to lack of health coverage, and the fact that those things can get expensive. If you have any questions, my email is open for anyone who wants it.
but there are several physicians (including myself) that post here regularly, and under our own accounts.
That said, you'd be wise to be wary of medical info from some of the ACs aroud here.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Linux on the pacemaker - gives "kill -9" a whole new context
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I babysit a kid with downsymdrome quite often and to be honest I don't go "OMG YOU ARE TEH RETARD!", he is still human and sure his marbles maybe missing one or two but he isn't some lepper or something.
This sounds really harsh but you (the ask slashdot poster), sound like you're asking about something "weird" or "bad". Remember she is still your sister and because some one said she has a mental disability does not change a thing.
She is the same person she was before the person said it, and she will be the same person years after he has. Try to just "accept it" and don't act like she is disabled or however you perfer to think about it
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
Cliff:
In case it helps, I once heard about someone with a sudden onset of schizophrenia. After going through a divorce (consequence of schizophrenia), she had her mercury fillings removed and fully recovered. The symptoms from mercury (heavy metal) poisoning are essentially asymptomatic (non-deterministic), so it affects different people differently at non-lethal amounts. FYI, another common (perhaps the major) symptom of mercury toxicity is (often undiagnosed, asymptomatic) CFS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which creeps up on you and can be debilitating.
I've had all my mercury (aka amalgam, silver) fillings replaced and would recommend doing so. If your sister has any silver/amalgam/mercury fillings, I'd suggest getting them removed --- for general health if not to address the possibility of causing symptoms of schizophrenia.
Not to complicate matters, but I'd also recommend going to a dentist who is not a quack (the silver filling fiasco has been abused by unscrupulous, incompetent dentists) but sensitive to the issue. Removal of mercury fillings can be toxic in itself, so extra measures can and should be taken including an air/water dam around tooth (to avoid swallowing any additional mercury) and a ventilator (to avoid inhaling mercury fumes as byproduct of drilling, removal).
And, no, the ADA (American Dental Association) won't corroborate any of this advice since, according to them, mercury (silver/amalgam) fillings are only toxic when outside your mouth (i.e., before filling, and after removal --- where it's required to be dealt with in toxic disposal!). (Can you say huge liability lawsuit (a la tobacco) for conflict of interest in supporting amalgam fillings?) Unfortunately, the NIH is no more accountable on this issue.
Best luck.
Reading the original post and the above posts makes it very obvious that schizophrenia is one of the most misunderstood diseases. Schizophrenia is actually quite well studied, and there are some great medicines to help treat it. The problem is that schizophrenics are not well-prepared (gross generalization here) to take their medicine consistently, and sometimes need help with that.
Also (and this is a big pet peeve of everyone who actually knows anything about the disease), schizophrenia does NOT mean you have multiple personalities. That is multiple personality disorder. Schizophrenia literally means "split mind" if you look at the roots of the word, but that means that their mind is split from reality and that they live in their own internally-created world, not that their mind is split into two or more pieces.
To answer your question, though, it's something that you need to take seriously, and you've done that by asking the right question (although frankly from the wrong people). There are probably a lot of online groups where you could learn more facts about the disease (i.e. schizophrenia.com seems legit). Educate yourself as much as you can.
I'm not a marketing genius.
A very nihilistic perspective.
What you are suggesting the submitter do is just accept that their lives are insignificant and forget about it. If everyone had that view, we would never have built any beautiful cities, there would have been no great art, and humans would be nothing animals, driven by base desire to satify their urge to eat, deficate, urinate, and procreate.
Further, this has NOTHING to do with schizophrenia which is the result of too much dopamine in the brain. There is superficially no difference between someone diagnosed with schizophrenia and someone who has taken too much cocaine or amphetamine. The first thing a doctor checks for when he meets someone who he believes to suffer from schizophrenia is whether or not they have used any stimulants or hallucinagens recently.
It has nothing to do with depression or sadness, this is a disorder that fundamentally affects how you perceive the world and how you think.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
However, I have to ask: Why on Earth would you ask this question on slashdot? Go post do a search on groups.google.com and POST IN A NEWSGROUP OVER THERE.
OK, I guess we should expect this kind of statement from Slashdot (particularly from an Anonymous Coward), but there are folks with M.D.'s and Ph.D.'s here on Slashdot (like me) and some of these folks work in areas like this. Slashdot is news for nerds and stuff that matters.....right? Well, you might be interested to know what the incidence of schitzophrenia is? I'll give you a hint: It's more common than you thought and it affects a great number of folks that are nerds and folks that use computers. Try thinking of something or someone other than yourself for a change and perhaps you might learn something.
And to those moderators who modded this as insightful?.......Shame on you.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
My ex-girlfriend is a schizophrenic. When I met her, I could tell she was a very unique person, but I'd honestly never have guessed that she was so seriously ill. When properly medicated (antipsychotics, antianxieties, antidepressants), she was for the most part a normal person.
For the most part. 6 months couldn't go by without some sort of psychotic lapse. She could always feel it coming on days or weeks prior, and could voice her anxiety about it, but was terrified because she couldn't do anything about it. Doctors would up her doses of medication, but it wouldn't help. Before I knew it, little episodes would become more common...we'd be in the middle of a conversation and she'd be staring off into space, her voice would lower to almost mumbling, and I'd not be able to get her attention for up to a minute or two. She'd have no recollection of it, deny that it happened. She'd spin around to catch people that she 'saw' in the mirror behind her. These were the signs that a real lapse was coming.
The real psychotic lapses were the dangerous ones. Self mutilation, overdoses on massive amounts of pills, or worse...finding her screaming, clawing at her skin, not able to recognize anyone (myself included) from whatever horrible visions she was in the midst of. I got used to visiting the "behavioral medicine" department at all the general hospitals in the area, as well as the full-blown mental hospitals.
She turned out to be generally terrible with long-term personal relationships (surprise.), whether with a friend or a boyfriend, and I stuck around much longer than I should have. It's very difficult to fall in love with someone so internally tortured.
Oh, and the medication they use to dull a schizophrenic's brain with have some horrible side effects. She slept 12 - 15 hours a day, and couldn't enjoy sex because the antipsychotics prevented her from ever having an orgasm.
Hrmph, posting anonymously for the first time ever because this post actually chokes me up.
I did some research for schizophrenia not too long ago and found this great link. It's from NPR, and it actually has a multimedia simulation on what it's like to have this terrible disease. Check it out.
My uncle suffers with Schizophrenia to quite a severe extent.
I can only assume from my grandmothers accounts the difficulties in dealing with this. I have always been somewhat distanced from him due to his illness and \ or treatment (he is in a hospital far away), so this may not be too accurate.
The first step is to completely understand the illness, and how the person suffering. Be that suffering due to perceiving things that are not real and mental anguish rather than traditional pain.
It is difficult when someone fails to recognise their own mother, hears voices or sees things but remember this is an illness.
As far as I am aware my uncles quality of life has improved since moving to somewhere specialized to deal with things like this. While he was local to me he actually got the reputation as the village tramp. This page is a community edited guide to places in the UK and it's quite a shame to see his name included.
People don't understand, one of the things you could do to improve quality of life is try to educate the people around you.
Sorry if this doesn't make a great deal of sense as it's a bit rushed (I want to go home).
Feel free to contact me to discuss my experiences further and while I'm not so rushed.
Avontech | Play dirty! They started it!
I'm a former Psychiatric Social Worker. The hardest part about understanding and empathizing with someone with Schizophrenia is that a healthy mind really can't understand what it is like. The fundamental thought processes in schizophrenia are off...so where you and I might be able to make a logical and reasoned conclusion that A and B therefore C. Schizophrenia often messes that up to the point where A and B therefore Bannana and ALWAYS snakes. And that would be perfectly reasonable to someone with schizophrenia because they cannot concieve of it otherwise.
I've worked with people with very severe and active positive symptoms (symptoms that are in excess of normal behavior) like auditory and visual hallucinations. At times it was hard to even communicate becasue the hallucinations were so intrusive.
I remember attending a workshop about schiozphrenia (bear in mind there are 5 types of schizophrenia) and we took turns wearning headphones that played a simulation of auditory hallucinations. It was pretty disturbing. It played for about 30min and changed volume and the sound on the tape was intermittent. The content varied from really annoyoing buzzes and beeps to whispered speech and ocassional screaming or demands to perform some action. The idea is that would be the NORM for someone with schizophrenia.
There is hope however, despite the medication conspiracy theorists, the folks that I worked with felt so much better while taking their medication. Many had their symptoms reduced to manageable levels and could hold down jobs, live on their own in an apartment and have a social life.
I would suggest working very close with your sisters psychiatrist and asking the doc about support resources that he/she knows about. Learn all you can about and be an active participant in treatment planning.
There is a lot of good and bad info on the web so be careful there. Schizophrenia.com is a good place to start.
HTH
who are you replying to?
A friend of mine went undiagnosed as a schizophrenic, then attacked someone completely at random one day when he was around 19 or 20, got a couple years in the pokey, got diagnosed in there, did pretty well on meds until he got out, then while on probation, did something, cops came to the door, he freaked out and thought they were coming for him, so he grabbed a shotgun, ran out the back door, jumped a couple yard fences into someone else's backyard, then as they started to close in on him, he put the shotgun up under his chin and took his own head off. Apparently, no one checked to see that he was taking his meds, and he started saying "the voices are telling me to kill you, but I know they're not real, so don't worry, I won't listen to them."
- The DSM IV (diagnostic and statistical manual)
- National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (find your local chapter and get as much support for the rest of the family as for her)
- schizophrenia.com (get literate and read like crazy [oops], and eventually get a sense of humor rather than just crying)
- Voices by Dream Theater, part of A Mind Beside Itself
Get literate and highly community active, and double check all your mental health professionals. You may still have time to contain or reverse the most severe symptoms.Don't confuse schizophrenia vs. manic depression with paranoid delusions or other personality disorders. As I understand it, the distinction is that schizophrenics hallucinate (have false senses in realtime, as if something is really seen or heard) whereas that type of manic depressives do not (they may confabulate memories of having seen or heard something).
The anonymous coward who said I should stop driving....the one who is too damn chicken to even put a name to the insults.
I don't blame you for posting this on Slashdot. It's a big crowd of people...there are bound to be a few that have experiences with schizophrenia. And when this news hits, it's pretty scary and you just want to know more from anywhere!
I have a friend that may be schizophrenic. They keep changing the diagnosis between bipolar and schizo. The initial events were pretty scary. She ultimately disappeared for a month or so (both mentally and physically). After some institutionalization and meds, she's much better. I think sticking to the meds is probably the best advice. Of course, with the number of crappy side-effects, I'm sure that will be hard. Avoiding stressors is also good advice, but..yeah...hard to do in a 'normal' life.
But, so far, my friend has been doing quite well and she seems happy and healthy. I think she does get bothered/scared when symptoms flair up (voices, hallucinations, etc.) Something she'll have do deal with for the rest of her life I suppose. But, I'm glad she's alive and with us again. Good luck.
-buzz
He got gradually worse, to the extent that we didn't really notice. First of all he was wierd to begin with. Second, he was a horny fucker, no doubt. We used to say that he would fuck anything (not anyone). Third, we were partying a lot. Not to mention that we smoked weed on a quite so daily basis.
All in all, we were used to weirdness from his this guy. It took some time until we figured.
So when he started saying that "he could see that those girls wanted him", from hundred meters distance or so, nothing less , he wasn't mental in our eyes, he was just horny and weird.
In the end his mother realized he needed help, and he agreed.
When he got committed, he was pretty much in his own delusional world. From his point of view, and he loves talking about this, so this is not speculation, he were held captive by agents trying to manipulate him. I am not kidding.
And he believed that he were part of a big syndicate smugling heroin, so he really couldn't talk to these agents. Which ofcourse were the people attending him at section 8.
He also believed he had raped, extremely brutaly, a not so little amount of young girls. He believed these agents were trying to tag this onto him, but he did not want to get caught. So he shut up as much as he could.
He also was manicly trying to control his own thoughts. Believe it or not, he thought that others could see what he was thinking, and he wouldn't want to embaress himself in front of others. After all he was quite a perv.
When I called him at the instituition, he talked to me somewhat refusingly. He believed I was in on the agent plot... You get the picture.
But with time and medication, he is returning more to his old self. It has taken a couple of years, but now we can hang out and have fun.
But recovery takes time. Just a few months ago when talking to us, he realized for the first time that people actually cannot see his thoughts.
And he still isn't entirely customed to "being sane" as he himself put it, so it happens he makes a few bloopers. But all in all he is recovering quite well now.
If I hadn't known that he had been committed, and hadn't seen him since he was, I wouldn't see the difference.
If you are lucky and get good treatment, all you need is patience.
Hope this helps in some ways. Feel free to ask any other things if you like.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I have a friend who manifested minor, secondary symptoms of schiz for years. he was misdiagnosed with depression, and the prescribed medication understandably did little.
Finally he had a complete break with reality. Voices...psychic transmissions...shadowy groups controlling his mind, and the minds of those around him...I patiently listened through this, and suggested that while those things might be real, it was also possible that it was schiz, and that he should see a doctor to be sure. if it wasn't schiz, then i would believe him and help him vs. the psychics.
He wasn't too agreeable at first but luckily his parents convinced him to go to a doctor before things got too bad. He was really turning into a danger to himself or others.
Today he is on medication and under therapist supervision. The meds are rough on him but he's making progress. He's taking classes and finally about to go back to school fulltime to get a degree. In time, once the meds get balanced and he learns how to handle it, he'll be leading a perfectly normal, though regulated, life.
He's different now than before, more subdued and less volitile, but its still him. Schiz is very misunderstood, and difficult to treat -- its hard and it takes time, but it can be done.
Moo.
that had it. I can only sumarize my advice in a few words:
stay on the meds stay on the meds stay on the meds stay on the fucking meds.
Problem is, the patients do not like them, and quite often get emotional or physical rushes from not being on the meds. They have to have a good support structure to keep them on the meds.
It's hard to keep up with it, but if your sister avoids things like self-mutilation and so on it's worthwhile.
I always cheer myself by reminding me that at least I don't have a brain the size of a planet.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I did a bit of research about schizophrenia a few years ago, and one thing that I read stands out in my memory more than anything else. One very common symptom of schizophrenia is hallucination, and I was a bit surprised (although I immediately realized that I shouldn't have been) when I read that hallucinations can involve any of the five senses, or combinations of them. Tactile hallucinations are quite common.
Anyway, the thing that stands out in my memory was a schematic diagram of the brain that had two boxes, each with arrows pointing to a third box in the center. The two boxes were labeled "SENSATION" and "THOUGHT" and the third box in the center was labeled "INTEGRATION". The narrative on the opposite page explained that you can think of the brain as an integrator of thoughts and sensations, and that hallucination represents a "crossed wire" in the integration center so that the brain perceives a thought as a sensation. For example, a person may think of spiders crawling on their skin, but the brain interprets that thought as the actual sensation.
This simplified schematic model made good sense to me, and helped me to understand the phenomenon in a more analytical way, rather than just being scared of the unknown.
I've never seen the movie, but I have seen a PBS documentary about John Nash called A Beautiful Madness. It was quite interesting and talked about his condition in some depth.
Also, check out the Wikipedia article on the disease. (There's probably a good article about John Nash as well, while you're at it.)
It's been my experience (I've just been accepted to medical school) that medical conditions or procedures that are initially "scary", "disturbing" or "gross" become easier to cope with after a bit of education. Science can do wonders to calm the soul, if the condition is one that is well understood. You're correct that our current understanding of schizophrenia is relatively incomplete, but it is much better than it was in Nash's day. Where the answers are not available (or are not satisfying), you can always find comfort in some good, old-fashioned prayer or meditation.
- Medication: A lot of the quality of life is going to depend upon her medication. Stelazine, for instance, made me completely numb to life. While it stops the audial/visual hallucenations, it also blocks creativity, sex drive, and emotion. Unfortunately, those are very common side effects to many anti-psychotic medications. I can't tell you the medical reason why, only that it heavily depends upon the individual's brain chemistry. She may end up going through 5-10 different meds before she finds a balance between supression of the illness, and supression of one's emotional life.
- Paranoia: This is probably the worst effect she will have to deal with. It can be mild (ie. "Did you hear something?") to extreme (ie. "You're trying to poison my food!"), and it can bounce between the two based on stimulus. Two bits of advice. NEVER lie to her. Once you have, you get categorized as someone who has lied. It doesn't matter about the reason. Even if the truth hurts, and she screams that she hates you, as long as you maintain her trust, you have a chance to be her confidant. Secondly, don't dismiss her paranoia. Sometimes, in the throws of "everyone is out to get me", a schizophrenic just needs to vent. Instead of saying "You're just being paranoid", give them rational fact against their feats, and accept the fact that it might do nothing to dissuade them. Illogical fear is simply a fact of Schizophrenia.
- Nymphomania/Frigidity: Without medication, she might either become a roaring slut, or a frigid ice queen. Or neither, but most likely, expect some sexual tendancies that are deviant from the norm.
- Hallucinations: There will most likely be audial and/or visual hallucinations. The frequency and intensity will largely depend again on her chemistry, medication, and how severe the illness is. I fortunately have a very light case, and mine have usually been limited to something as mild as a woman leaning against a wall, and whisperings. As long as she can keep aware of what logically should and should not be there, she can dismiss these as "background noise". Sometimes she won't be able to ignore these, and it will cause sleepless nights and agitated working conditions. In this case, I recommend a soporific. With sleep, the symptoms will often die down. However, thanks to paranoia, you might have trouble getting her to take them. Seriously, though, a doctor's opinion is vital on this aspect. She might have them so bad she cannot drive.
- Severe Mood Swings: Schizophrenics are often ruled by their emotional state. I call my bad days "Black Moods". You would probably do best to steer clear of her on these days, unless she actually seeks you out. Then be there for her, but don't try to be "proactive" in solving whatever sparked the emotional problem. This will usually pass, followed by remorse and apology. Try to be understanding.
- Barriers: Set barriers as well. If her case is light enough that she can more or less live a normal life on her own, she needs to know what barriers there are going to be, up front. As with many other mental illnesses, there are certain individuals who latch onto someone, much in the way a drowning victim does, and won't let them go, effectively ruining their life. Don't let this happen to you. Fortunately, I've always been of the isolationist variety. It's others that must respect -my- barriers. This might also happen to her. If it does, then respect her wishes as much as is reasonable.
I hope this helps. If you want to know more detailed information, I would recommend first having her fully diagnosed, and find out the degree and specific symptoms. You can ask me whatever questions you like, and I will try to answer, but the truth is, schizophrenia is different for each person who has it. The best person to ask "what's it like" is her. -TheTXLibra"You've got no kids, no wife, no job, and you're not in The Tigger Movie!!!" - my best friend's son, Gabe, at 5 years old.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
Occassionally people saw him brushing his teeth in the bathroom, but no-one thought that was weird. I think some people knew he spent the night at the department sometimes, but even that is not too weird. Heck, I've done it myself when I had a final exam due at 8am the next morning. But somehow, someone finally checked his ID carefully against official documents and discovered that he was neither a student nor a postdoc, nor a professor. It turns out he was an escaped mental patient that was living in the department, carrying around math books.
So the point is, if an escaped mental patient can live in a big math department for a YEAR before being found out, that tells you something about how close real mathematicians are to mental patients, and how tolerant they are of mental "quirks" in their colleagues. It's no accident that John Nash (of A Beautiful Mind) was a mathematician.
My advice to all schizophrenics: become mathematicians (or artists).
First and foremost, I am sorry to hear about your sister. Be prepared for everyone to mix up schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. Until a handful of years ago, they were thought to be the same thing. We now know they are not. Much IS known about the disorder, so spend some time googling around.
To be 100% clear, the disorder is MUCH harder on the family than it is on the afflicted. Since family members freak out and do not know how to cope, most people with the disorder live in isolation which agrrevates the problem.
"how has it affected your and their life?"
If you truly love your sister, this should have NO impact on your life. She is still a person and still your sister. She may act differently than the rest of the world at times. Who cares what a world full of idiots think anyway?
"How have you been able to cope with it?"
You cope by coming to terms with it. Don't "freak out" by abnormal behavior.
What are the long term implications for quality of life?
For whom? You or her. If you are asking about yourself, then all is lost. I assume you are asking about her. In this case, it depends on the severity of the illness and the reaction to medication. In mild forms and/or with medication people with this disorder can lead normal regular lives (YMMV). As I stated before, the worst thing that can happen is all of her family and friends abondon her - that, is the tragedy of the disorder.
Good luck. Post any other questions under this thread. I have a ton of information.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
> I'm not a marketing genius.
The classic ploy of undermarketing yourself to make people curious. You ARE a marketing genius!!!
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (Part I)
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (Part II)
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (Part III)
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
My best friend and roommate became schizophrenic while I lived with him. I left the medical stuff to the doctors and just tried to calm him down so he could sleep (which is a big problem when you hear voices). Don't try to argue with them, just make them feel better.
I learned that the mental health care system in this country sucks. Unless someone is an imminent danger to themselves or others nobody will see you for several weeks. I made dozens of phone calls saying "my friend is hearing voices". Half of the people were like "suuuure...your friend".
The new medications they have are better than the old stuff. The problem with all mental health medications are that people feel "fine" and decide they don't need the medicine anymore. With schizophrenia, that can have disastrous results (my uncle's friend killed his gf that way). This is sad, but don't expect the person to have the same personality that you remember. They're going to be different and you have to deal with that.
I know it's a goofy Ask Slashdot. But considering that Schizophrenia mostly affects males 18-30, I'm sure several Slashdotters out there are dealing with something similar in some way.
-B
Well... after reading the forums for a while, Jagercola concluded that many Slashdotters are schizophrenic. Eve1: No, we're not. Eve2: Yes, we are! (Sorry, low fruit. And yes, the joke plays to the obvious misconception about multiple personality disorder being the same as schizophrenia, which it is not. Eve2: Yes it is!)
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in May 2001, and pronounced recovered in September 2004.
:)
The first thing you must accept is that this is long term. No one gets better over night, 12 - 36 months is normal. The medication for the illness is almost as bad as the illness itself; make sure your sister can take all the time she needs to rest. I was sleeping 16 hours a day on average. If your sister was in school, or had a job, she most certainly will not be able to get there everyday. Pushing her to continue school, or continue work is far from a good idea right now. She must take her medication everyday. Missing just one dose doubles the chance of relapse. You and your family may have a hard time coping, but your concern about how you feel that is complete selfishness. Your sister is the one with the illness, and one quote I read "If depression was the common cold of psychological disorders, schizophrenia would be the cancer." is entirely true. She needs a lot of loving care, and she needs to take things very very slow. One question to ask, "What's another year?" What's so bad if it takes her another year to complete school? Forcing herself to live her life as she usually did will have horrific results. She does not need any stress right now - just understanding and comfort.
I lost 2 years of my life to the illness, but I did recover. Recovery is possible, always remember that. It will take a year, maybe 5 years... but 1/3 do recover with no chance of relapse. There are a lot of scary statistics, but as long as she takes her medication everyday, and minimizes her stress, things may improve.
I'm sorry I'm not able to give more specific information, but from the details you gave, that's all I can say now. If you have more questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
Long term, even thought I had the illness, I did recover, and I am going onto second year psychology in University for a Ph.D. (My final mark in first year psychology was 90%) Once she recovers, she'll have as good a life as anyone, if not better.
Dollar Highway Financial News
I've gotta disagree with you here. While Schizophrenia may be "more common than you think" that's a pretty lame reason to include it as an "ask slashdot". AIDS is probbably more common than you think, is that the next Ask Slashdot? The point is that Slashdot is a techno-geek news site, and this just doesn't relate to techno-geekdom. You could have an article about "new treatment for schizo", or "what causes schizo", or even "schizo on the rise in US, computers to blame". But an article discussing everyones experiences is NOT techno-geekdom. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it, this just isn't the place to discuss it.
I'm almost positive there are FAR better places to ask this question than a techno-geek news site. There certainly must be blogs specific to this disease. I'm sure there's been many books written, and medical professionals can be found in better places.
And to those moderators who modded this as insightful?.......Shame on you.
Shame on them? What's wrong with modding something up that probbably 9/10 people thought of when they first read the article? Oh yes, we're never supposed to question the motives of someone who's suffered. Now you "shame" them because they haven't played the appropriate social game. I find that extremely manipulative.
AccountKiller
There is some truth to this approach. I experienced some very significant problems that were partially related to food and partially related to antibiotics. I've been able to overcome those problems by changing my diet. The diet change turned out to be the solution to a chronic problem that required antibiotics to solve. Since I haven't needed the antibiotics for clse to a year now, the more severe mental issues they were causing have gone away. I can't promise that a diet change will cure a mental problem, but it could if that problem is induced by other health problems or their medications. As I learn more, I trust medicine less and less. I'm not saying that medicine is evil, but I think we are too quick to jump on them as a cure. Diet is certainly a major factor in our well-being. Just in case it may help, I will say that I experienced severe depression and an odd out of control psychotic episode that was induced by the antibiotic Levaquin (a quinolone family drug). It was quite scary. Now I am reading that a related drug that the military has been using, Lariam, is being connected by some people to murder/suicides occuring in military personel. The only reason I was on Levaquin was to cure some really severe sinus infections. And, at this point, it looks like those sever sinus infections were caused by my diet. So don't rule diet out, but don't count on it being the only cause. Sometimes we also just drwa the short straw genetically. The main key to a good diet is to avoid as much processed food as possible. Up your vegetable intake. Cut out white processed sugar, honey, nutrasweet or basically any simple carbs. Increase fiber. Avoid white flour and products made with it. Hope this helps someone. It certainly worked for me in a BIG way.
Un-news
What can you do? Not a lot. Research doctors, encourage her to take her meds, give her lots and lots of love and be strong when she rejects it. And good luck.
I want to start by agreeing with many other slashdot posters - You came to the wrong place in general to ask questions about medical health and/or mental health.
That said, I am a not a doctor, yet. (I'm finishing my PhD in Clinical Psychology) I've worked on a locked inpatient unit with people who have had schizophrenia, and in an outpatient community clinic with a variety of people. So here is my starting advice: You may want to investigate The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, for further information regarding support groups for mental illness, and make sure that you get supported while you go through this process of learning and working with family and relatives who have a serious mental illness.
The bad news is: There is not a cure for schizophrenia. The good news is: It's a chronic illness that can be treated using medication (Some people understand better if they draw comparisons to diabetes, or other chronic physical illnesses). The bad news again is: Medications are still in need of improvement, because a lot of side effects (weight gain, lowered energy and libido) can certainly drive a person away from treatment. The best things that you can do are to provide a stable and caring environment for your relative, encourage them to stay on their medication (even when they're doing well).
For others of you interested, the "usual" symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations (a person sees or hears things that other people do not, usually hearing voices, but it can be anything), delusions (a person believes something illogical or bizarre, like they are under surveillance of the police), and disorganized thinking or behavior. Medications help mostly with the hallucinations, and sometimes with a persons mood; new medications can also help clear their thinking. Psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients can really range, from simple problem-solving and health management (which could cover taking medication or even just taking a shower), to learning how to interpret the emotions and gestures of other people so they get along better with family and friends.
Again, schizophrenia is a chronic illness, but it is treatable. When a person recieves proper treatment, a person can lead a happy and fulfilling life.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Hey, look! Someone offered a piece of information rather than join the fine hairsplitting session developing here!
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
I think one of the most important issues in dealing with schizophrenia is medication. I'll be totally honest in that I don't trust doctors much when it comes to medication. All too often, doctors act like automatons when it comes to prescribing medication. They prescribe the medication, declare they have done their job, and go home.
In reality, particularly when it comes to mental disorders, finding the right medication or combination of medications should be a long-term exercise in trial-and-error. Some drugs are partially effective, completely ineffective, or have intolerable side-effects. It's almost completely specific to the individual in question.
For example, I used to suffer from panic attacks and still suffer from some generalized anxiety. Typical treatment is a seratonin-specific reuptake inhibitor (or SSRI, a family of antidepressent). But every drug in this family is slightly different, and while one may work for one person, it may not work for someone else. In my case, Paxil was 100% effective for panic but completely ineffective for generalized anxiety. And don't even get me started on the 3 month withdrawal I went through (while withdrawal from Paxil isn't all that uncommon, 3 months of it is). I was tried other drugs in the SSRI family as well as other anti-depressants in other families.
The same issues apply to medication for treating schizophrenia. Often you'll want to go through various different medications until you find the one(s) with a combination of efficacy and tolerable or no side-effects. Some of the drugs take weeks to a few months to determine if it works or not, so you really have to hang in there and just ride it out. It can take a long time to find the right medication. Be patient.
The only other piece of advice I'd give, and it seems like you're already following it (though Slashdot probably isn't the best source), is educate yourself about the condition.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are peer support web sites around for this. I would try to locate them and get involved. In the case of panic and anxiety, I found the online peer support groups to be a much better source of knowledge than doctors. Largely because, unless the doctor has suffered from the condition, they don't really understand it. Somone who has lived with a schizophrenic relative for 10 years is going to be able to give you a lot more sound advice than a doctor who's only exposure to schizophrenics has been in his office. He hasn't had to manage their lives.
There's no doubt you're in for a really rough ride. Schizophrenia is a really difficult condition to deal with both for the person who suffers from it and those around them. I wish you the best of luck.
I find it interesting that no one seems to even be hinting that nutrition plays an INTEGRAL role in most, if not all, medical (including mental) illnesses. Having suffered from chronic depression for several years and receiving NO RELIEF from any Medical/Psychiatric Dr. I finally found true relief when I began taking St. John's Wort and a super green food called Barley Green. My mood improved overnight and I was finally able to get back into the public and rebuild my life. Of course everyone's body is different and requires constant nutritional "tweaking" to stay at an optimal level. I no longer need the St. John's Wort but have added Coral Calcium because of the high acidity of my body. More information on the affects of nutrition on schizophrenia can be found at The Life Extension Foundation an excellent source of nutritional information IMHO. There is a wealth of information that cannot begin to be tapped in this forum. My prayers are with your family in this endeavor.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
People who are diagnosed as schizophrenic are often characterized as a bit "different," even before diagnosis. Granted, it's always easy to say that in retrospect, but there are often subtle signs before the first actual psychotic "break."
It also sounds like your friend was in the right age group... Schizophrenia usually pops up in the late teens/early twenties in most men (and women get it a few years later than that, but usually before age 40). New-onset psychosis in an elderly person should prompt a search for a medical reason... drugs, infection, intracranial bleed...
Your friend had some very classic signs of schizophrenia, probably paranoid subtype. He was delusional and paranoid. He also exhibited "Thought Broadcasting," which is when the patient thinks others can read their thoughts.
Curiously, your friend also exhibited some signs of mania... a component of Bipolar Disorder. In fact, his psychosis and other symptoms (hypersexuality, racing thoughts) are also consistent with a Bipolar patient in the manic phase (manics are the most dangerous of all psychiatric patients).
Truthfully, he could easily have been given either diagnosis... but these are the cases where you need a trained psychiatrist to better-delineate the nature of the disorder.
You also make an important point: medications usually help, and these are life-long disorders. The most common reason I get schizophrenic patients in my ER is because they're off their meds. If you hang out with your buddy enough, and witness a few exacerbations of his condition, you may learn to recognize behavioral cues that will tip you off that he's "off his meds."
Good luck... and encourage him to keep taking his anti-psychotics.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Wow, who would have thought I'd see this on slashdot? It makes little sense to post this question here, but yet, it was posted. And I am reading it. Which is ... interesting, since my brother too was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a little over two years ago now. This thread shouts out to me to say something about it, but I find now that it is harder than it seems.
He's my twin brother, not identical, but still very much a kindred spirit of mine. We got along very well in our youths, and were each other's best friend for many years. But then, slowly, almost unnoticably, we began to grow apart. While I, in my own geekish, unassuming way, started to mature into at least a semblance of adulthood, he seemed to resist it, opting instead to retreat further and further into his own internal world.
His is truly a Beautiful Mind; he is brilliant in many fields, not least language and lingustics. But more often than not, his mind was incorrecly applied, with sad results. For instance, one long period of his life was mostly spent lamenting the fact that the world does not share a single language. It seemed a little funny to others, including me, of course, but to him it was no joke. He would truly suffer emotionally as a result of this and other obsessions.
When the 'crash' came, he had deteriorated quite badly. Although he never did drugs or alchohol of any sort, as is common with schizophrenics, he might as well have. He was unemployed and not in school, moping around the house (our parents' house, where the both of us still lived at the time). He would seldom go outside, and would sit inside his room listening to esoteric music and writing furiously on any scrap of paper he could find. This had been a long-time habit of his, and he was (and is) a brilliant writer, but we would soon find out that these latest writings of his were of a rather sinister nature. It was typical schizophrenic musings; his imagined conversations with a supernatural being who was leading him through some sorts of rites of power, through which he would realize his true spiritual potential. If only that had been true.
Like I said, it has been 2 years now, and the situation isn't much better than it was in the beginning. My brother is still in and out of institutions, heavily medicated, and inactive. He is, frankly, a shell of what he used to be, and we can only hope this will change ... someday. Yes, the film 'A Beautiful Mind' was truly a best-case scenario. Although my brother is probably not a worst-case scenario, he is pretty far from the almost-happy ideal portrayed in the film. He cannot control his fits in any rational manner.
Schizophrenia is not just seeing imaginary people. More often than not, that doesn't happen at all. Extreme, debilitating bouts of irrational, uncomfortable ideas, thoughts and feelings are more common, often followed by hallucinations of many sorts. Most of the time, it is things you cannot simply block out just by concentrating. The disease is hopelessly irrational, and it hijacks the brain completely. In fact, it becomes your brain, in a manner of speaking. How can you use your brain to supress something when it's your brain itself that needs to be supressed?
I know this isn't very comforting, but it is the truth. And, perhaps I myself will feel a little better after having shared this with the world.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Chances are that the "mild schizophrenia" your uncle had in that case *is* autism -- actual schizophrenia doesn't show up until later in life, and the old name for autism (before they has a clue what it was) is "childhood schizophrenia."
The repetitive teaching method you're speaking of is Applied Behavioral Analysis, and virtually every adult autistic that I have spoken to is against it. Instead of helping the autistic leverage our natural savant skills, ABA just spends years forcing us (in an extremely abusive manner) to do mindless tasks precisely as told on command, like dogs. The drugs jammed into the autie are primarily to keep him/her from showing autistic signs of distress or that they're different.
(I'm telling you this because autism *is* genetic... Don't be shocked if you get another autie in your family -- and speaking as an adult Classic Autistic, if you do have one, please don't torture it with ABA. We develop at our own rate and become much *more* functional members of society by adulthood if that isn't done to us.)
I had a family friend whose college buddies/boyfriend where in a tragic car reck and they all died. It was a horrible horrible experience for her...
She started saying that her friends were talking to her and kept telling her that they were coming for her. She also called up her dad (divorced parents) and asked him why he never told her about her other siblings (besides the one she knew about). It was really weird. They diagnosed her with schiz. and she started to get help.
She was doing a lot better. It was about a year later. A man was driving down a country road looking out into the field for deer. He wasn't paying attention and he hit her head on. She died. She died a year later in the same way as her friends who she claimed were coming to get here from the other side. It's a true story, but you got to ask yourself, was it delussion or a super natural awareness?
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
"I've gotta[sic] disagree with you here." This IS slashdot... so Schizophrenia *is* more common than anything transmitted by another person... especially sexually.
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
Sorry, I don't have contact with schizophrenia in my personal life. All mine is in the lab. I do basic perceptual and cognitive psychology experiments on all sorts of people to figure out how the brain works, and fails to work. Schizophrenics is one group I work with.
Understand that a diagnosis is not the same as a disease. Schizophrenia is a result. It probably has many different causes. The fact that there are several successful yet different lines of research supports that. Hence, any advice may not help, because it may help someone with a different condition that's resulting in schizophrenia, or it may help someone who's trying to cope with someone who has a different cause/kind.
Outcomes and quality of life are extremely variable. I've done experiments with people I didn't realize were schizophrenic until I read their charts afterward.
How someone has coped in a position such as yours may or may not help you, but the fact that they did certainly can. Take it as it comes, knowing it might not be easy, but it's possible.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
You're wrong. From the Slashdot FAQ:
CmdrTaco and his gang are still in charge here, and I personally like it that way.
Reminds me of: Lucy
The troll is [in]. Advice: 1 mod point.
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
Yet there is no evidence there is less incidence of the desease than in countries where this 'hype' has not been promoted.
My brother in law who is a dentist thinks it has mainly been promoted by money hungry German dentists as the procedure is expensive and the alternative fillings need more repairs.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
By treatment, I mean helping them to be who they want to be, not drugging them, electrocuting them or institutionalising them. I hesitate to use the word cure, but as far as you and I are concerned, that is what happens in 60% of his cases.
He does not believe in the dopamine theory of schizophrenia - if that was accurate, a dopamine antagonist would turn schizophrenics into normal people - it doesn't. But he does understand schizophrenics, which is something no-one here (nor even of all the writers of Beautiful Mind) can claim.
He freely provides these understandings, backed by many prominent psychiatrists, on his website, which you'll find interesting in any case.
Chances of you reading this post are slim. But I hope you find it anyway and she may one day thank you for researching beyond the limited help the medical community provides.
I mean this in all seriousness and without trying to slam mud on the people you love, but
very often mental illness like schizophrenia is not an individual illness, something that some unlucky person just gets like the clap.
Rather, it can be the product of years of upbringing in a particular family environment. And, if you've grown up in a particular family, no matter how out-of-norm the behavior patters happen to be, you will be likely to see yourself and your family as "not too far away from normal".
More than a few case studies have shown how much the family environment has to do with various mental illness.
My advice?
Find a competent family counselor and make some appointments with them so you can start to see the bigger picture, where you might be harboring some misconceptions, ways of thinking that might be doing harm both to your sister and to yourself.
It takes a little courage, but it's worthwhile and you and your sister will feel a lot better in the future.
If you don't seek help, then you condemn yourself to living in the same old behavior patterns that make you and the ones around you sick.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Why is it lame to include it as an 'ask slashdot'? RTFH[eader]...there's a "Stuff that matters" part in there dude. Apparently someone screening the submissions thought this fit those criteria. Frankly I'd agree - I've found this discussion interesting...much moreso than the usual MS FUD or what stupid legal trick SCO was trying to pull this week. Personally I don't think ANY topic of discussion should be off limits here on good 'ol /. I would caution anyone from taking advice given here as gospel without conferring with someone with an educated and informed opinion.
My sister was diagnosed as schitzo-affective, a combination of schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder (manic depression), about ten years ago.
:-> ) and took an active role in monitoring and controlling her condition. Doctors can prescribe her drugs, but she is the only one who can tell them if they are working.
At the time she was diagnosed I was about 16-17, doing exams, growing up, and being a general teenage boy; she was in the middle of a PhD in physics so was at the other end of the country most of the time. As a result, I only saw here at holidays, and even then I was busy revising and stuff, but I still realised that something wasn't right (I knew she was i'll, but she had also been diagnosed as epileptic around the same time so everything kind of blurred). The most striking thing is that the personality can change quite dramatically, there were times when she seemed like a genuinly different person. This can be as a result of the medication, and the disease.
I personally found this quite hard to deal with, it is very strange seeing someone you thought you knew turn into someone else. I'm not trying to scare you, but it is something that you may need to be prepared for.
As pointed out by another poster, it will take a long time for the doctors to figure out medication levels; mental illness of all kinds is very person specific, there are no drugs or treatments that work for everyone. Electric shock treatment is considered barbaric and horrific by some, while others report that it worked miracles. There are a wide array of anti-psychotics out there, and even the anti-side-effect meds can have a big effect. It is all about finding the balance, and that takes time.
The most important thing that you, and the rest of your family can do is be honest and open. My family are not that close, we don't really talk about personal stuff much, and that caused problems, not just for my sister, but also for me. Remember, mental illness in the family can be quite stressfull, and can affect you. You can only help your sister if you look after yourself. Be open and honest, talk to each other. It is important that you create a supportive environment where there is no stigma, and no secrets about what is going on.
You will need to find a balance between providing support for your sister, and smothering her. She will have to live with her mental illness for the rest of her life, and the best you can do is help her adapt to that reality, and provide support and help when and where she needs it. While medication will help, ultimatly it is down to the individual.
To give you some hope, my sister is now married, has just had a baby, and is starting a part-time course in medical physics. Up untill last year she had held down a high stress job and performed brilliantly, unfortunatly the firm laid off a large proportion of its workforce, closing down her division in the process. She is stable and living life to the full because she took control of her illness, became pro-active in dealing with the doctors (being a born scientist helps
So, don't dispair, keep it real, keep it normal (when she is stable she needs to be in the real world), and keep supporting her. Most importantly, be prepared to just be there and be someone to talk to, or go to when she needs help. Feel free to e-mail me if you need someone to let off steam. Sorry for rambling, I don't have time to make it more concise. Paul
Paul Leader
Be aware that the anti-psychotic drugs given to control schizophrenia, while they do help to keep the more peculiar symptoms under control, are highly toxic in themselves and cause spacticity and brain damage. When you see someone twitching and drooling in the street, they aren't twitching and drooling because they've got schizophrenia, they're twitching and drooling because they're taking drugs to control schizophrenia. Some people who have the diagnosis 'schizophrenia' also have problems sustaining relationships, but again I think this is related to medication. And finally at least some of the medication offered for schizophrenia causes progressive and permanent brain damage.
Don't worry about the popular perception that schizophrenics are 'dangerous', 'violent', or 'out of control'. It just isn't true. A very tiny group of people who have very severe paranoia are dangerous, but on the whole people of the type who get diagnosed as 'schizophrenic' are quiet and gentle and are dangerous only to themselves.
Most of the time, for most people who have schizophrenia, schizophrenia isn't a problem. Occasionally it will be a problem. They will experience things the people around them don't experience, and consequently there's a severe dissonance between reality as they experience it and reality as the people around them experience it. And this is very distressing - for everyone, but most of all for the person who is out of step. It is possible for people diagnosed as 'schizophrenic' to live successfully in the community without medication, but this requires a good deal of committment from the people around them to support them and stay with them through the difficult times. Schizophrenic episodes seem in my experience to be at least partly related to stress, so trying to keep stress levels low is a good strategy. Finally, with the best will in the world, if you are dealing with someone who has severe psychotic episodes there will be times when you can't cope and may have to call in the psychiatric services.
But do bear in mind that however concerned and professional they are the psychiatric profession really do not know what schizophrenia is. They don't know your sister as a person, only as a 'case'; and they don't love her. Their committment to her is is professional, not personal. If you and your family are prepared to put the committment in to supporting her through the difficult patches, there's no reason why your sister shouldn't live a mostly normal life, hold down a job provided it isn't too stressful, and form her own relationships.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I have a neighbor who gets delusional. It is always an odd experience talking to her in that state. One thing I've often wondered is whether its better to go along or to try and talk her out of the delusions.
If I start down the path of "I don't think that's true" she will immediately incorporate me into some paranoid belief about them-vs.-her. But if I go along with her delusion, it seems like a cop-out. What do other people do?
like i said a ver interesting topic for slashdot.
Well let me start off. I was dianosed with SchizoAffective disorder, it like Bipolar mixed with Schizophrena about 1 year ago. I have not been able to concentrate very well and thus am not working right now. Getting the medication straight was the real first thing, getting some anti psychotics really helped everything work. Just if you want to know I am on 150mg of Lamictal, 4mg of Risperidone, and 20mg of Prozac. This helps slow you mind down and get it back on track.
Also I am involved with a young adult group, most of them are bipolar and some are schitzo. This really helps me come to grips with what has happened with my life. Adapting after shuch a mental break is hard and you will never get over comparing yourself to how you used to be. But talking about it with other people in the same situation really helps quite a bit.
Truth be told, I take medication for sever depression. My first clue to my problem was due to irrational thoughts of suicide. And it would often come in waves, say a few times a week. Turns out it's because of a low level of serotonin in my brain. Because of the lack of this neurotransmitter chemical, I was misdiagnosed with ADD in the 80s. Interestingly enough, when I went on medication both my depression and ADD went away.
The reason I bring this issue up is due to being "off the meds". I believe people do this for the very reason I will go off them; be it consciously or unconsciously. The reason I will go off them is because I will feel fine while I'm on them to such a degree that I see no logical reason to be on them anymore. But when I do that, depression will set in gradually over time. I find that my cognitive abilities rest with the laws of physics (chemicals in the brain) and not with my soul. I guess you could say it's a very sobering revelation to the human psyche as to just how mortal we really are.
Life is not for the lazy.
'this just isn't the place to discuss it'
The why the hell are you discussing it? Don't like it? Then don't read it and don't reply to it, but don't be so critical of those who choose to post, read and discuss things that YOU're not interested in. There's no rule that I know of that states that geeks must only be interested in tech related subjects, or that people should never ask geeks for their opinions on non-tech questions.
I feel better. Thanks,
If you can't just be yourself, then be more like me, ok?
However, one thing has been demonstrated repeatedly: in cadavers, when amalgam fillings are extracted and tested, only a fraction of the original mercury content remains, variable directly with the age of the filling.
Can you provide a reference on this? More than one would be nice since you say it's been demonstrated repeatedly.
Mercury poisioning is not an imaginary malady, by any stretch of the imagination; ask any dentist about the precautions required for handling mercury as the amalgam is prepared... the precautions are extensive. Yet they will happily insert this substance immediately into your mouth.
Two things:
1 - Since dentists work with Hg over and over and over, they need to take precautions others don't. It's like X-Ray technicians - they hide away from the X-Ray device while happily bombarding you with high energy photons. That's because they're around it every day.
2 - Nobody denies that elemental Hg is dangerous. Precautions do need to be taken, especially before the Hg is amalgamated.
This is the position paper of the National Council Against Health Care Fraud on the topic of Hg amalgam fillings.
I don't know if you'll see this so late in a post but I know three people who have had this disease, one of whom was my brother.
Just from my own experience it changes a person character totally. My brother was always a sharp minded individual but the disease changed him so that he is now very vacant and uncommunicative. I also have a cousin whose personality has been altered. He was very quite; when I herd about him last he kept getting into fights and talked too much.
Lastly a friend of mine, who was known for his tact, became the most irritating individuals you could have ever known.
The disease from my experiences changes people, but many people recover (like my friend) and get back to normal, just don't expect it to be soon.
though my exhortation to keep taking his medication is based on the empirical observation that they appear to have worked for him... ala the poster's description of his clinical improvement.
Your description of feeling better off your medication is common... and dangerous. Bipolar patients often feel better off their medication, particularly when they're entering a manic phase. They feel GREAT... I've had them tell me they feel like God. They're often grandiose (obviously), don't need to eat or sleep, and can be very hypersexual (I've seen some of these patients masturbate continuously for hours and hours). Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there... some manics will continue to progress to the point of raving, psychotic madness. Some develop so much psychomotor agitation that they require intubation and IV sedation to prevent rhabdomyolysis.
Like meth/crack abusers/ODs, manics have been known to successfully fight a half-dozen police officers... then drop dead in the back of a patrol car (the human body is capable of a lot more than most people realize... manics are capable of tremendous exertion, and will fight, fight, fight. Exert yourself long enough, and you can dig yourself into a very deep metabolic hole... sometimes so deep that you die as a result).
You can stop your medication... but untreated schizophrenics and bipolars commit suicide, get arrested, etc at a very high rate. It's your choice, but that's a cold comfort to your family visiting you in prison or a funeral home. Choose wisely... somebody out there probably loves you, and would miss you if you were gone.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
There is an entire spectrum of Schizo-effective disorders. Being at either extreme is never good, but it is important to consider that virtually everyone is on the spectrum somewhere.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The guy you replied to made a valid point in saying that he knows nothing about you. Then you turn around and call him names and mock him for posting AC.
You're the one who posted in a "juvenile fashion."
True story.
My son recently started to manifest some signs of schizophrenia. Last Year he suddenly announced that he owns Linux and that every body should pay him to use it. At first we where thinking that this was just a premature April fools day but then we realized that he really was meaning it. Thousands of people tried to explain him the ridicule of is claim but unfortunately he was each day more and more in denial.
In one of his crisis, thinking that he was now some kind of Dr Evil he asked a ransom of 3 billion dollars to IBM. He have a friend, who I don't know if he is a pimp or sell drugs or something but the fact is that the guy named Bill have a lot of money and gave him some 30 millions to encourage him to continue to live in is fantasy. Shame on him!
Each day he is getting more delusional and I really start to worry that he hurt himself by doing something stupid or just annoys to much people until is ass get seriously kicked.
Should we check him in a psychiatric institution?
Mrs Macneil
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Don't be afraid to speak out when you think the person is losing touch, they often appreciate the reality check themselves, but be compassionate. There's a lot of fear based reasoning to contend with but it's a rollercoaster ride that doen't always leave them incapable of seeing themselves, or you, as constants. Be a constant and may you have many pleasant days with your sister.
NPR has an excellent story on schizophrenia.
The most compelling part is the schizophrenia simulator (Real player required). Headphones will give you the best experience. From the story:
Hearing voices is a nearly universal symptom of schizophrenia, and the simulation reproduces that in a way that Frey says is very authentic, and Silberner says is alarming: "The voices jump around you -- they're in front, now behind, now to your left, now on your right. They're persistent, impossible to ignore or filter out."
Read the moderator guidelines. A Troll is something that is factually inaccurate, and intended to start a debate on false premises, or to get helpfull "Corrections". Flamebait is just being offensive.
Firstly, it is none of those things. It is a relativly minor imbalance that is easly treatable. Even untreated, you don't go insane. You'll certainly have trouble concentrating, and perhaps hear voices...many teens diagnosed with depression and pumped full of drugs actually have Schizophrenia, and should be on completely different drugs. (As a side note, antidepressents are NOT known to work on people under the age of 21. In fact, double-blind studies show a signifigant increase in symptoms of depression over those receiving a placebo treatment, and a 50% increase in suicide attempts)So there you go, that bit of the article is wrong. "A Beautiful Mind" isn't very accurate, either in what happened, or in what Schizophrenia is like...but the article never said it was, just "If it is...". AFAIK, the modern medicines do not make you impotent, or have any other nasty side effects, but I havn't looked into it.
However, the submitter is admitting not knowing about the disease, and is asking for information. He made some inaccurate statements at the beginning, but that is because he doesn't know much about the diease (And hence, is asking for help). In conclusion, although the submission is not 100% correct, it is not a troll. A troll would have to be full of things that the poster knows to be wrong, and is hoping to get a rise out of people with. A troll article would have made more references to a Schizophrenic being crazy, refered to multiple personalities, and perhaps used the movie "Me, Myself, and Irene" as an example ;)
IANAP (Psychiatrist), but my mom is ;)
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
"A Beautiful Mind" posits the notion that a person who has severe schizophrenia can simply "will" his delusions away, and ignore them.
Bullshit. Total bullshit.
A person with serious schizophrenia can no more ignore the input of what their brain is telling them than you could simply say that a (real) speeding car heading right for you is "just all in my head." A schizophrenic is receiving input from one part of the brain to another that feels UTTERLY real -- a product of real-world input from their senses -- and they can do little consciously to stop it.
David Cronenberg, in talking about his movie "Spider" (a MUCH more accurate portrayal of mental illness), said that "Mind" was ridiculous and dangerous, i.e., if you have schizophrenia, hey, you can just "deal with it" -- you can just learn to ignore what your brain is telling you (which to YOU, is utterly indistinguishable from objective, externally-confirmable reality), and you'll even get a beautiful woman who looks like Jennifer Connelly to fall in love with you, and STAY by you even though you're delusional to the point of being a danger to yourself and others.
Nonsense!
FYI, I have bipolar disorder, and go through serious manic/depressive phases -- but I wouldn't wish schizophrenia on anyone. (My second cousin has it, and unless she's on her medication, she'll simply wander away from home.) No matter how up/down my moods can get (for limited amounts of time), I always realize the difference between how I feel and how that affects my attitudes about the world AT THAT MOMENT, and I always know that this, too, will pass.
My advice to the original poster is, get reliable, reputable medical attention for your sister, and if she's prescribed medication, make SURE she stays on it. One of the biggest problems with people who are taking drugs for mental illness is, after the symptoms wear off and they "feel better," they often come to the conclusion that they no longer need the medication -- and they quit, with predictable results.
On Google Answers there was once a guy who asked a question that alarmed many of us researchers...
It started off innocently enough; a question on how to block radio waves in his home. An odd request, sure, but... Faraday cages and such were being talked about, and someone asked in passing if there was some particular frequency he wanted to stop...
He basically stated that there was a group near him that was using some sort of broadcasting equipment to play thoughts in his head in an attempt to brainwash him. He didn't know what the frequency was, so he needed to block everything.
In addition he stated that he had been recommended to various psychologists, but since they were a part of the group doing the broadcasting he could not accept their diagnoses. I think the final answer to that question was a detailed explanation of radio physics, faraday cages, and also a caution suggestion that radio broadcasts can't be received by the human brain directly. I hope that guy, whoever he is, found some help...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
My mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was 3. She took her meds until I was 5, when she decided she felt so good and symptom free that she didn't need the meds any more, and stopped taking them. Permanently.
She was an intensive care nurse, she should have known better.
This began her slide into increasing insanity as the years went by. My father stuck around, knowing that if he left her she'd take me and ruin my life forever, and waited. When I was 12 I figured out she was completely out of control, and told my father "Mom's crazy, I'm leaving so she won't hurt me, are you coming?" and he left with me and divorced her. Getting a legal separation from her ruined my father, and myself, financially. She took him for all he was worth, and took my entire college fund along with it. There are many other lasting problems in our lives that she caused, like that she didn't let me have friends as a child so I still have difficulty socializing, that she destroyed most of the family photos, so my father has practically no pictures of me as a child, or that 20 years later I still have nightmares about her regularly, or that 20 years later I can tell my father still misses the beautiful and loving woman he married, who just disappeared into insanity.
Over the next 6 years she made at least three, and possibly four attempts to kill me. It's hard to say what to think about the fourth, because while it was unquestionably a murder attempt, she was so delusional by that point that she was trying to kill my father and couldn't tell I wasn't him.
When I was 18, I moved 350 miles away from her and didn't tell her where I'd gone. My aunts and uncles, not realizing the severity of her illness, told her anyway, and she showed up on my doorstep. I eventually had to move several times, change my phone number several times, and stop telling my family where I lived in order to escape from her. I have not seen her in about 15 years, and pray that I will never see her again.
When I was 20 or so, she murdered my uncle, and has been institutionalized since.
I have two bits of advice for people dealing with a loved one with schizophrenia. Firstly, dameron is right, MEDS MEDS MEDS. If they get on their meds early after developing symptoms and take them regularly FOREVER, they can live a relatively normal life. Unfortunately, schizophrenics are notorious for going off their meds. My father took me to several mental health professionals who advised me on how to deal with my mother, and what they all told me was that schizophrenia is cumulative: the meds prevent it from getting worse and reduce the immediate symptoms, but the longer it goes untreated the worse it gets and it will never get better. So, after 17 years of no treatment, my mother was incurably insane, and all meds could do was stop her from getting even worse and make her more controllable.
The second piece of advice I give you is, if the person goes off their meds and doesn't get on again almost immediately, push them out of your life, get them as far away from you and your family as you can, and if you have to, pack up and move to get away from them. Once they get really bad, nothing will stop them from trying to come interfere with your life. Nothing. Not court orders, not police, they won't care about those things. (Or, if they're paranoid, those things may just agitate them into worse behavior. My mother's reaction to a restraining order was to show up at my house and try to beat down the door in a blind rage.) You'll never be safe again. Escape while you still can. This is what the doctors advised my father, it's why he divorced my mother, and it's why he and I are alive today. Even if they're not violent, they'll just keep showing up and making a severe nuisance of themselves and disrupting your life until they make it into a living hell.
I have some Schizophrenic Writings you can look at. They're were written when I was having schizophrenic episodes back in college. From my own experience, schizophrenia is both bizarre and terrifying. From thinking that I was a knight of Satan to thinking my own doctor was conspiring against me to believing that I was SKYNET wanting humans dead, I've had some off the wall experiences. I've gotten better at catching delusions before they've amounted to much. I just have to make sure that I avoid excessive stress, don't do drugs and get enough sleep. Otherwise, the voices, delusions and hallucinations start.
I suffer from clinical depression, and believe me; it can also fundamentally affect how you perceive the world and how you think.
It certainly isn't the same as schizophrenia, but it is a real and sometimes debilitating disorder as well.
I'm don't think you were attempting to minimize it at all. But since you mention "sadness" along with it, I need to point out that there is "depression" which most people, sooner or later, experience (after the death of a loved one, etc.); and then there are clinical cases.
That's a whole different animal.
Unlike how it was implied in the movie "A Beautiful Mind", John Nash was a successful mathemetician, without illness, for quite a number of years.
He graduated with PhD from Princeton at a very young age (given his talent), and had at least 10 years of a very promising career until his illness hit. It was apparently atypically late for schizophrenics which also may account for his later ability to control it.
Once his illness struck he was useless professionally.
Many years later with his discipline and partial remission he can now function in society but he can't produce research mathematics any more.
My younger brother was diagnosed with a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia only a few months ago. The transition was not a gradual one -- he seemed fine and normally behaved all his years (he's 24 now) until one day he didn't made it home from work until many hours later than his usual arrival time. He telephoned home confused and frightened and was in the middle of nowhere. We didn't make much of it at the time. He eventually found his way back.
It really became obvious to our family that he was afflicted with something serious on an outing he and I went on. We were headed to a wrestling event downtown and he was to meet me at a certain train station in the city. He lives in the suburbs with my mother and I live downtown where the event was taking place. He arrived looking extremely stiff and frightened and appeared to be drenched in a cold sweat. When I asked him if anything was wrong, he denied it. He complained of feeling sick and suggested he might have been poisoned. I still didn't make much of it then, until he became increasingly incoherent and uttering something about being followed by a girl he once knew, and harassed by a bunch of acquaintances. I wondered if he'd taken any medication he may have had a reaction to. Nope.
Throughout the evening he kept looking behind him and the bewildered look worsened. Sometime earlier I got frustrated with his lack of communication with me, since he wasn't totally talkative but completely preoccupied with his delusions to the point where I had extreme difficulty getting his attention. He kept asking about said girl, and I said she's nowhere to be found. Perhaps the worse of his delusions was the belief that there were people out to kill him and his family. He believed his mother was in danger, he believed people had visited and ransacked the house, he called me frequently to ask if I was okay. He also believed people were filming him with a video camera, odd things of that nature.
To make a long story short, we cut the evening short and I took him back home and gathered the family. We immediately took him to the emergency room to have him looked at. They then suggested he stay awhile for a more thorough examination. That "awhile" ended up being more than a week in the psychological ward.
There are two categories of indications that suggest someone might have a mental disorder -- positive and negative. The positive behaviors are those gained with the discovery of the illness. Likewise, usual behaviors that have lessened or disappeared altogether are considered "negative" behaviors. If your friend or relative becomes increasingly anti-social (negative) or displays a nervous condition (positive) or has a body language that is no longer expressive or stiff (catatonic, negative) or wildy gesticulates (catatonic, positive) or bites his or her nails a whole lot (positive) or a typically passionless expression, you might have a person on the verge of a mental illness.
Overall today, my brother's behavior has changed a lot. While on his medication he's fine, except he doesn't leave the home anymore where once he used to be very social. The medication rids him of his experiences, but the subtler ones persist -- the nail biting, subtle rocking back and forth while seated and a very mild catatonia. He also doesn't laugh as much as he used to and appears to not react to humour the way he used to.
Generally illnesses of this sort strike people young, usually around their late teens to early twenties. I'd leave all sorts of information about things to do (in Canada) if you find yourself in this situation, but a good place to start would be your local emergency room, where they'd be able to put you in touch with a qualified psychiatrist.
- AC
As they say in statistics, the plural of anecdote isn't data. I fully expect to see several postings of similar tales. In this instance, the Devil's Advocate might note that the friend was under a lot of stress related to marriage trouble, and may have suffered clinically significant mental effecs because of it. She recovered afterwards because a) she divorced the guy that was causing the stress, and b) she could blame the fillings for the divorce and not herself.
A more charitable interpretation is that the 'schizophrenia' was the result of some other undiagnosed disorder--a burst blood vessel in the brain, perhaps.
The symptoms from mercury (heavy metal) poisoning are essentially asymptomatic (non-deterministic)
As they say on Slashdot, I don't think that word means what you think it means...'asymptomatic' means 'without symptoms'. If the chief symptom of poisoning is that there are no symptoms....
The parent poster presents as fact some highly controversial ideas--the 'link' between mercury and schizophrenia or chronic fatique syndrome, for instance. There is a statistically significant increase in the body's mercury load from amalgam fillings, though it is extremely small. Well-controlled, randomized, blind trials have not found a link between mercury amalgam fillings and any illness, though there are ongoing clinical trials in several places.
Perhaps one of the most troubling observations with respect to dental amalgam is the number of individuals who self-diagnose an amalgam related disorder--of course removal of the fillings cures the psychosomatic illness.
From The Lancet,
Further thoughts--in addition to damaging the teeth during filling replacement (and possibly leading to unnecessary surgery and the associated nonnegligible risks) there are concerns that the replacements for mercury amalgam may be more dangerous to health than the mercury fillings themselves.
~Idarubicin
He was first diagnosed at 15 and he has gone downhill from there. We have had him hospitalized twice and both times he did better as long as he was on his meds. Once he was released he quit taking them and he detiroiated and was back to "normal" (his normal or what we call baseline) in 6 months. We could force him to take meds till he was 18 and now we have to get a court order. Since he is not a danger to himself or others the liberal courts want to protect his rights. Well this is how he expresses his rights. He steps out in front of cars becasue he cannot be hurt or killed. He eats jars of peanut butter for breakfast. lunch and dinner. He stays up for 80 hours at a time and then sleeps for 4 hours and does another 48 hours before catching another nap. He lives with my wife and and has his own room. We used to give him things like clothes and Walkman's because he loves music. But he cuts up the clothers and gives away his stereo, TV, computer and everything else. Now he uses the family computer and gets angry when he asks why he can't have his own and I tell him becasue he gives them away. Some advice. Go to NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) meetings to meet others that have relatives in the same boat. Lower your expectations. Your sister will not recover and will not be successful in the normal sense of the word. Having lower expectations will not put you in a position of being dissappointed. If she does better than you expect you will be surprised rather than dissappointed. Don't be ashamed of her. Mental illness strikes lots of people in every socioeconomic group. While there are some of those that will look down on you by association they are small people with small minds. Not being ashamed will show the world that mental illness is real and needs attention. My wife just told me that her favorite Schizophrenia book is Surviving Schizophrenia by Fuller E Torry. She manages the mental health phone room in a major city and is well respected by her peers. I am a Paramedic and also know how to deal with mental illness in my patients. One comment that my son said when he first got sick was very telling. He told me that if my wife or I wanted a quite time we just turned off the stereo and went into the bedroom. For him the voices were always there and no matter what he did they kept talking to him. He gets no rest. My heart goes out to you. It is a life long struggle but eventually you will get comfortable with it. Realize there is little you can do for her except love her and supprt her. If you try to struggle against it you will only wear yourself down and then you won't be any good at supporting her. Chuck
I know this will never get read being so nested, but I think its worth mentioning. Multiple Personality Disorder does not exist, instead there is Diassociatative Identity Disorder (much like as with Retarded to Developmentally Challenged). The difference is the the 'personalities' are really personalities. Personalities are multi-faceted while each so-called personality is flat, uni-faceted, one mood, one identity, etc. Instead the term DID better reflects the current understanding the disorder. In it the individuals disassociates aspects of them selves to better compartmentalize the trauma and to be better deal with the situation. It is a lot less like multiple personalities and more accurately a single fractured personality in which one aspects does not recognizes other aspects of the self.
IANA Psychologist so stake this a grain of salt, but my mom is (MSc)and I talked her about this out of general interest and have read some abnormal psychology.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
I'm one of those lucky lads who have an hereditary bipolar disorder and, during my later teens, a marijuana-induced semipsychotic stupor (I smoked weed chronically). During that time I manifested many of the common schitzo reactions, and this only abated after I had quit.
;) In this manner it's possible to set up logical bulwarks vs. some of the problems that come with the territory, at least. I know a few other tricks which I'll jot down for you later if there is sufficient interest and when I have a little more time. Hope this semicoherent brain-fart helps ;)
Up to this day I'm not sure whether it was the weed or true schitzophrenia, though I suspect the latter. And while I have been tested, tried, drugged and shrinked from childhood for my bipolar disorder, I had/have never been tested for schitzophrenia. I would guess that, if it IS the case, it is simply difficult to detect since I'm already eccentric by myself. I also feel no need to find out because whatever the case, I've learned to deal with it insofar as possible. I also have tolerant friends who don't freak out if one of my colorful observations are off the mark in whichever way. But I DO remember clearly that during my stoning times, I was in my own hell where I trusted almost no-one out of pure paranoia and had plenty of delusions to go with it. My bipolar disorder in manic phase was, ironically, the only time that I functioned well; I had the energy to have a normal life and it sharpened my wit far enough that it compensated for the inevitable slowdown that weed gives you.
These days I've given up on drugs (except for beer and the occasional cigar), including perscription drugs. My bipolar disorder is mild enough that I can control it by simply keeping an eye on myself - eating and sleeping habits, spending tendencies, etcetera - and compensate by applying the brakes wherever necessary; also, under certain conditions, you can keep yourself slightly manic without danger of the fallback into depression by not overworking.
I suspect that the backslide into depression is caused by heaping up too much work on your plate when you're manic; by keeping yourself in shape, getting plenty of sleep and decent meals, and knowing when/how to give your brain a break - and that means something which requires little thought, such as reordering your baseball card collection, or ironing, or cleaning up, or going for a walk or jog (NO tv, no internet!) - you can keep yourself an a heightened mentally active state indefinitely. I suspect that bipolar disorder may have been an evolutionary advantage once, and that due to social pressures and/or the differences in our modern ways of living compared to, say the stone age, it became a liability rather than a bonus. It might even be that depression wasn't always a necessary component, I don't know.
The delusional aspects from the schitzo-like affliction from my teens (I am now 27) gradually faded through time; one thing that really helped was writing down my delusions and seeing if they stood any statistic chance of being true. For example, when I was convinced I could control stoplights mentally; I simply drove around and compared how often it worked to how often I thought it worked. Needless to say, there were a few discrepancies
Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Anyway, malaria gives you nightmares. Serious, terrifying nightmares. Everyone who was in our group reported having dreams about dead people. It also gave me weird lucid dreams -- after a few weeks, at one point in a dream I asked a character, "Is this one of those crazy Lariam dreams?" and he said, "Yes, this is a lariam dream."
Anywho, a girl who was on the program the year before us would wake up screaming in bed, sweating. They were ready to ship her home before they thought it might be the Lariam and took her off of it.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
As a Psych major ~10 years ago everything we "knew" about schizophrenia was being re-written. For the DSM-IV (the dictionary of mental illness) there was an effort to remove or rewrite the definition of schizophrenia from that edition because it didn't fit observed behavior.
Basically there are 2 observed "types" of schizophrenia - positive affective and negative affective. Positive affective means that the person is experiencing things that aren't there like the police shooting rays into his brain t control his mind. Negative affective means that they are not responding to stimuli that are there (like you snap your fingers in front of his face and he doesn't move / respond). Positive affective is generally controlable with meds - negative is not.
Generally my advice it to find a newer book (better yet - check the psych journals) - this info was new enough when I took psychopathology that it wasn't in the texts yet....
what a story... there you have it, folks... straight from the horse's mouth. Tom, my heart goes out to your family; talk about living a nightmare.
While schizophrenics are often characterized as violent and dangerous (and some definitely are), they are usually more dangerous to themselves... about 10% end up committing suicide. Paranoid schizophrenics can commit violence against those around them, particularly if those people are included as a part of their delusions of persecution.
I'll never forget an older grandmother that a middle-aged daughter brought into my ER... that older family member was schizophrenic, lived with them, and had made dinner for the whole house (BIG family). Thank God the daughter caught the mother as she was stirring the rat poison into the food... a lot of it. (she was convinced the family was trying to kill her, and was going to do them in first).
It happens, folks... and schizophrenia is a life-long illness. One of relatives has an 20-years-past ex-wife that he STILL gets called about every time she gets arrested or institutionalized. Why? She always gives them my uncle's address and phone number as her "husband." Incidently, she always seems to have his current contact info, despite being unlisted/unpublished, despite moving multiple times, and despite the fact that they haven't spoken in 15 years. Yeah... think about that in the wee hours of the morning...
It's already been said, but mental illness is sometimes just as hard on the family as it is on the patient.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I did an undergrad paper on shamanism and schizophrenia .. not much of a great work, but you might want to look into practices of shamanism that train the illness to help provide orthagonal solutions to problems... I would recommend exploring her spirituality as a means of channeling her new challenges.
I've heard B6 (vitamin) has been used in treatment.
Alternately, more for your own sake, you may also want to go on a good 'shroom or acid bender once in your life to get a good idea of what psychosis is like. Sounds stupid, but it will give you a good handle on how altered your perspective can be, and yet you'll still accept it as truth, even as a better/more reliable truth (at the time) than everyday sobriety. And maybe, if its frightening enough, might give you a little more compassion when times get rough.
meh
I think "schizophrenia" is a catch-all for misunderstood mental problems. For example multiple-personality disorder and autism have been called schizophrenia in the past, until they figured out more specifically the nature of these cases. So have this person examined by somebody who's up with the latest research. Probably in a century or so that word will sound as quaint as "consumption" because they will have figured out a lot more about the real causes of such behavior; and in the meantime it is sad they are treating it with blunt methods with bad side-effects, like certain drugs, and the behavioral "treatment" one receives in an asylum. In general the closer such a person's life can be to "normal" the better off he or she is, IMO, even if it's inconvenient or looks unconventional to everyone else. Like with the guy in Beautiful Mind, his own denial was actually the cure - in contrast to most other situations in which "being in denial" is considered a bad thing. But, some people are mentally stronger than others; some are stubborn and self-correcting, like that guy, while others feel sorry for themselves and act as if they are just looking for some uncontrollable force to which to succumb (like all those self-committed inmates in _One Flew From the Cuckoo's Nest_). I believe strongly that many conditions, both mental and physical, can be cured with love, encouragement, humor, complete honesty, and mental fortitude; but the medical establishment doesn't recognize this enough.
My dad's second wife had MPD, and she is cured now, because her therapist was not so old-fashioned, and knew that what she needed was to merge the fractured parts of her psyche, as opposed to drugs, restraints and denial (even though in other cases some of those things might be more effective). I just hope that whatever your sister has, that somebody can be so insightful for her as well.
The brilliant mathematician stopped taking anti-psychotic drugs in 1970, and then slowly recovered over two decades. This is much more the rule rather than the exception. In ''undeveloped'' countries, nearly two-thirds of schizophrenia patients are doing fairly well five years after initial diagnosis; about 40% have basically recovered. But in the USA and other developed countries, most patients become chronically ill.
The outcome differences are so marked that WHO concluded that living in a developed country is a ''strong predictor'' that a patient never will fully recover."
Hollywood is known to never let facts get in the road of a good story. Or would the lack of drugs be a better story? It is also worth while to check out Psych Watch for various items about psychiatry going down the tubes, etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I hope this doesn't come across badly. But it someone is hallucinating people, are all the details filled in? I mean do they have shadows? Does the wind move their hair? Do they leave footprints?
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
I speak from experience. A member of my family suffered episodes of bipolar disorder requiring several hospitalizations. A period of a few painful years and she stopped taking her medication but seemed okay. She was occasionally difficult to live with, but functional.
Flash forward ten years or so. A sudden, weeklong descent into mania was capped with psychotic delusions. Under delusions that the devil was after her, she ended up stabbing a family member in the chest with a kitchen knife while they slept (no permanent injury resulted, miraculously). This all happened so quickly... there simply wasn't time to get help. She'd seen a doctor already and begun taking an antipsychotic, but there wasn't nearly enough time for it to take effect.
Consequently, several years of her life were wasted in institutions even though, with medication, she almost immediately returned to the most functional I've ever seen her in. If you say you'd rather live in one of them than be depressed outside of them, I seriously question whether you've ever visited an institution. They are not nice places. I've been in them a lot in order to support my relative.
The meds might make you feel different. You may feel "off". Work with your doctor. Find one that works for you. You will get better acclimated to it. Frequently bipolars mistake the absence of mania for feeling "dulled". The thing to remember is: you are not the best judge of whether you need to take your meds or not. Your doctor is.
To the original poster: I'm sorry you and your sister will have to go through this. Some people respond very well to the medications; those medicines are getting better all the time. Hopefully your sister is one of those people. I would strongly suggest getting some counseling for yourself and the rest of your family, particularly if your sister turns out to not be one of the lucky ones. You will need it in order to be able to supply the support your sister deserves.
Your ignorance is resoundingly displayed by your invocation of agoraphobia. Bringing up phobias in a discussion about schizophrenia is like sharing your thoughts on bandaids with a guy who's just had an arm ripped off.
The mind is a complex thing. The treatment of it continues to evolve. Modern treatment is not perfect, but to imply that it is unnecessary, as you have just done, is callous and irresponsible.
Just goes to show. Once the head-shrinks get their hands on you, for any reason, claiming to be normal is proof of your insanity and reason for them to hang on.
If you're not, sorry to accuse you of such--but you sound EXACTLY like a Scientologist. They will tell you that all "psychs" are evil and want to "get their hands on you." Then offer you an expensive course at one of their centers and tell you to avoid "entheta" (i.e., criticism of anything they believe in).
The poster above CAN NOT overemphasize the rule: TAKE YOUR MEDS!
Schitzophrenics especially have a BAD habit of going off of their meds -- they'll take their meds, and because they feel better, they'll think they're cured. Then they'll stop taking their meds. Then they'll go batshit insane.
YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WILL HAVE TO HELP MONITOR THE MEDS. You will almost certainly not be able to trust your sister to stay on them, not for at least TEN years of her taking them, with the associated slides of her going off the meds.
I have an acquaintance who could not be trusted not to go off of the meds for literally 20 years after starting them.
Let me repeat: TAKE THE MEDS. DO NOT LET HER SELF-MONITOR. CHECK UP ON HER. TAKE THE MEDS. TAKE THE MEDS. TAKE THE MEDS.
I do not usually use caps this much, but it is that important. TAKE THE MEDS. MONITOR. TAKE THE MEDS TAKE THE MEDS TAKE THE MEDS.
Besides that, often times, the illness combined with the medication make it impossible to work. DO NOT EVER MAKE THE MISTAKE OF ASSUMING THIS CAN BE CURED. I know a couple who spent literally millions of dollars trying to avoid their kid having the stigma of having "schitzophrenic" on the record, and they refused to have her put on social security disability, etc. DO NOT PERMIT YOUR PARENTS TO MAKE THAT MISTAKE. If it looks like she's not going to be able to work, IMMEDIATELY start working on getting her on social security disability. It will pay a stipend and medical, which is one less thing your family will have to cover.
But most important, TAKE THE MEDS.
The advice to "take your meds, take your meds," is utter and complete garbage. The only time I began to become better was when I stopped believing in meds and thrust my salvation and deliverance into the hands of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Well, with the hallucinations I have, wether they be auditory or visual, are very detailed, and very very convincing. Half the time I cannot tell the difference between reality and the disease, so I tend to rely on coworker's reactions to certain things, and also, my husband helps too. Say, for instance, a few weeks ago, someone walked into my store witha gun in his hand...no one else reacted to it at all, so I figured it wasn't really there. Other times, I have run into people walking home, that have said hello to me, but when I turned around a split second later, they were not there. It gets interesting. They have shadow, substance, sound, everything. It's a second world.
And, in addition, if anyone wants to say anything to me in private forum, or just find out what it's like, feel free to aim me....it's armygirl398. I'm always willing to talk, sort of keeps my head a bit more in reality.
I once dated a girl who was severely 'messed-up' (if you'll excuse the terrible phrase - she was undiagnosed and my knowledge in this field is still in it's infancy - if anyone reading this can give an insight into what her condition is and some links to some self-help stuff it'd be greatly appreciated, I'd dearly love to help her as I still care about her a great deal) and went through a similar experience to yours - for the purpose of this post let's call her 'M'.
Now M had a history of severe mental, physical and sexual abuse by relatives, and as a result of this had created her own internal world - let's call it 'escapist psychosis' - to protect her from these experiences. She had grown up with these things going on around her and with very little contact with the outside world and so had turned in on herself to escape them.
For the most part, she was perfectly normal, but she had 'episodes' where she would snap and hate everything, including herself that would last from a few hours to a few days. During these times she would have panics and delusions, including intense (and I mean intense) paranoia that I was going to leave her (mostly for her best friend, which I was never, ever going to do, but this didn't stop her threatening to stab us both) and panic attacks about the perpetrator of her sexual abuse coming to get her.
Her permanent belief she was worthless caused her to drop out of college (even though she is one of the best creative writers I've ever met, and could easily go very far in that field) and attempt suicide several times.
She was also very bad at long-term relationships, her hatreds generally destroying anything she builds up with anyone, as the cruelty of her attacks are unbearable at times (she used to leave me in tears over things such as my father dying, losing my 'first love', and other things) and I doubt there are many people that could tolerate it on a regular basis, plus she couldn't enjoy sex or anything to do with sex that much due to her history of abuse and it's repercussions. (on a similar note, my current girlfriend may be incapable of having children due to a physical complication - but that's another issue.)
I sympathise completely with your feelings, it hurts to see someone you care for suffer like that and be unable to do anything. I just wanted to hurt all the people that had hurt her because I couldn't do anything to help her, but that would have only made things worse. I cried many a night away because I felt so helpless for her. Believe me, you're brave posting this at all. All the people in this thread who are posting painful issues like these are.
But hey, I know me saying that doesn't mean much...
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
May I add, self-diagnosis and treatment in general are severely contraindicated for all serious mental illnesses. I know doctors who have recomended marijuana for severe depression. For SOME people, it helps. Others, it fucks up even worse.
Mood and consciousness altering drugs are the only drugs commonly prescribed for mental illness, by its very nature. Ask the average joe to name an herb that helps with depression, they might say St. John's Wart. Ask an herbalist, they'll tell you St. John's Wart should never be taken longer than a month and causes severe sun-sensativity. They might recommend Skullcap or Black Cohosh or some other herb or combination of herbs, based on their professional opinion of your overall condition. A psychiatrist will do much the same, substituting, say, Prozac or Wellbutrin. Both will monitor your condition, looking for known side effects and contraindications as treatment progresses, and modify the dose or change the medicine as necesary.
Rather than playing around with self dignosis and treatment, especially when both your condition and the drugs you are taking to treat it alter your consciousness and ability to judge the effects, it is imperative that you get outside help.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I recently discoffered that my girlfriend has some form off Schizofrenia. I always noticed that she really could have big moodswitches and had some serious problems with herself. But I really started to worry when she became psychotic one night. She had the idea that people where chasing her. It was really frightning, like I was was playing in a bad movie. She was allready very stressed for some time and behaving more distant (less affection). But when I started to search the internet for the things I had seen I stuck on some sites about schizofrenia, to my horror the picture (all the things that can point to schzofrenia) fitted to well. Allthough all this knolledge didn't help me a bit. I had come to close to her. I wanted her to get some professional help, but she didn't want to see that there was anything wrong with here. It all resulted with the result that she broke up with me after 11 months - she coudn't manage a relationship anymore - thats what she said to me. In that same week she was still making plans for our future and told me nummerous times how very very much she loved me!! Six weeks passed by since then. I have seen her once since, wich wasn't planned. But the person I knew eleven months wasn't the person I ran into. The girl I know is completely gone. Her face expresions, her voice, her behaviour all is different. I loved her to death, but know I dont know anymore who I have loved. It seems like the person I loved doesn't exist anymore. I also discoffered that her story to everyone is quitte different from what actually happened. I find it very hard to hear that she blames me quitte a bit for things and has moved on like I never have exist! Not really a story that is helpfull. But it has tortured me for the last weeks. Goodluck with your sister!
This is not suprising behavior for people who are trying to mentally supress something, such as a traumatizing event. When a person experiences something traumatizing, and it is not 'dealt with', sometimes the brain will begin to do things on its own, attempting to get you to fix the pain, which it knows it tearing at you no matter how much you try to supress it.
Things start happening in your head which you know you aren't doing, which is terribly frightening. It literally is loosing control of one's own mind. Upon loosing control, the person struggles and fights harder to regain and maintain control. In response, the brain fights back harder, all the while the person thinks "Who is that? What causing these thoughts?" You know it isn't you, so who is it?! Paranoia ensues. Can things hear thoughts? Can things transmit thoughts? What's going on? People do not realize it's the brain because of typically something they fear that 'could' be capable of putting thoughts into a person's head.
The brain can and does act independantly of 'you' often. Like walking or driving and going on autopilot, and suddenly realising you're almost at your destination, and can't remember one bit of the trip. The brain walks/drives on it's own.
Most of the time the brain is not handed the reigns. But if it sees you doing something stupid or harmful, it won't hesitate to either try to persuade you (having a feeling about something / fear) or grab them away from you (reflex, pain).
This also happens in cases of fears and mental / emotional pain, especially when people supress things. People try to rationalize the brain acting on its own out of normal situations based upon what they know (or think they know). It is not common knowledge to people that the brain will act out on it's own in in subtle ways in response to certain emotional and mental pain, such as trauma - and that all those scary thoughts that the person thinks are coming from outside their head are actually coming from inside their head. It's the brain's response to try to heal, like how the skin heals from a cut. When the person actively interferes, it's going to try to take matters into its own hands. The problem is that it cannot heal without you wanting to, or working with it. And so the battle to get you to try to heal is waged. Unfortunately, people don't realize that's what they have to do to heal and kick and scream just as a child would, while having someone try to heal a wound. It hurts to heal.
When a person suffers from such 'thought paranoia', showing a person what it's not will do nothing without showing them what it is.
Anyone at risk of developing a mental disorder of some sort, the worst thing for them to do is be alone. Alone, there's no one to help combat the thoughts. Reality begins to disintegrate, and the basic rules that govern how the world works get rewritten. Numbers are an example. Having to do something a number of times. A number meaning something.
The brain attacks with images, thoughts, voices, memories, whatever it can use. Where are they coming from? People suffering from this often refer to them as "they" and come up with some outlandish explanation that cannot be proven or disproven, as they cannot confirm the existence of 'them' themselves. Voices aren't really something the person thinks they hear - it's like having a song stuck in your head. You can 'hear' it, but not really. Written words tend to get translated into an annonymous voice.
I could write way more, as I have been suffering from lies and rewritten rules for years. Seriously, that person needs to realize that the thoughts are coming from his brain and heal whatever he fears. Search for the truth, for it is the only thing which can set a person suffering from fear and paranoia free.
And when you find it, ACT LIKE YOU BELIEVE IT, because actions speak louder than words, ESPECIALLY in our heads.
You cannot help her, no matter how much you may wish to, if she will not first help herself. She does that by taking her meds, seeing the doctor, and going to the therapist.
When things go wonky, and they will, she has to go get help. Right then.
The truth hurts, but it's required. Anyone that is more than a passing friend should be told about it (by HER, not YOU) and asked to say something to her if things look "odd".
Never, ever lie to her. Ever. For any reason, about any thing. You can say, "I don't want to say.", but NEVER lie. If you are unsure, make sure she knows you are unsure.
When you can see the "voices" talking, talk to her. Doesn't much matter about what, but don't let the voices go on unchallanged. Tell her to tell the voices to go away, or what ever.
Isolating, or "decompensating", is a danger signal. Don't let her nest about. Get her out and about.
When you see danger signals, tell her.
Always care, but be prepared to refuse to enable her.
Find and join a support group. You'll need it. So will she.
Really, you will have to find your own balance with her. No one here, including people that have this problem, will be able to give you all the right advice. I was married for almost 20 years to my best friend in life. When she got ill, I hung on for another 4 years or so. She would stop taking her meds, go on a "trip" to the ends of the earth, leave the kids at the mall or somewhere, and run up credit card bills that were more than I made in a year with nothing to show for it. She would lose her car, I'd buy another. She'd abandon her clothes, keeping only what she had on her back, I'd buy more. The hospital bills were something fearsome.
After many, many hospitizlations for her, I had to give up, file for divorce, and cut all ties to save my own sanity, life, and living. Suicide was a frequent thought during that bleek, dark, and depressed time. (Thank God for kids, I think it was the only reason I didn't do it.) The week before I filed for divorce it hit me; I can't fix this problem, nothing I do will make it better. I did nothing to cause the problem, nor did she. I have to let go. It is hard, painful, and depressing, but one thing still holds true. You can't help someone else if you can't help yourself first.
Now go find that support group.
Maybe it isn't helping you, but it helps many others. And it helped me.
I suffered from schizophrenic type symptoms in early high school. I heard voices tell me to do things and all that jazz. I was utterly confused about reality; sometimes I would have to leave class balling crying because I was so confused. I thought people were talking to me subliminally, and heard other voices too. It really wrecked my life. My deliverance from all that crap was nearly instantaneous the summer of my sophomore year, and it happened when I placed faith in Jesus Christ and prayed to Him to be my Savior. That instant I knew that I was healed. It gave me an anchor of reality, of absolute Truth in a world of relative thought and morality, which allowed me to determine truth from fiction and "real" reality from inner thoughts or temptations. As I read His words and submitted to the Creator'sworldview, I was delivered more and more.
For some prayer may not work, especially when not combined with faith (which is deeper them simple intellectual belief, it goes one's core and effects their actions and morals). For some it may not work because God doesn't will it to work for whatever good reason He may have. Sometimes medicine is the only way to find relief. But for many, prayer has worked and continues to. Prayer has helped me in so many ways it isn't funny.
I also used to speak with such a terrible stutter (later on in high school, after becoming a Christian) that I could not even read to my classmates in school. After praying as directed by Philippians 4:4-9 (which is a verse I'd found in the new testament of the Bible) for a few weeks I was able to give my testimony and share my faith at a home for troubled boys and girls in front of 400 people. It went off without even a hint of stuttering. I was amazed. That night several other people decided who the Answer to their problems was and began to be transformed by Christ. And one I have kept up with to this day continues to find help and comfort through faith and prayer.
Prayer works. I'm 25 now and I have many personal experiences proving it through and through to me, as do many friends of mine and family members dealing with everything from depression to addiction. All I can say is it works for me, and many others.
And so I'll pray for you, that one day you might have a more open mind and more freedom of thought then you've shown in this thread.
Jay
Since I was 21 to 26, I had several crisis of schyzophrenia. They lasted from three days to several months. I am fine since august 2003, knowing that it can happen again. First of all, let's give an exemple. I remember one of my first schyzo experience which occured while watching a movie. I hearded voices (which is a quite usual in our case), actors in the movie speaking of me. What could I do? I hearded those voices and they were as real as the sounds of the street outside. So I interpreted them, trying to give to it a meaning, the same way anyone naturraly gives a meaning to things he feels, heards in the every day life. The interpretation which occured was of course completely insane (I am the last inherited of a great secret family, etc, etc...). Knowing the disease and reckognizing to be sick, this interpretations movements are more limited, but the exaltaion it provocked is substitude by the presence of the insanity, and a huge feel of impotence. This exemple (excuse my poor english as i am french) may help you to understand your sister. Even if the process an the symptoms of this disease are very different from a patient to another, and that my case can not be generalized. Let's talk more generrally, and trying to give advices. During crisis itself. Not a lot to do: being patient, stand the fact schyzo is in another world (of suffer and nightmare, with need of exaltation that I personnaly felt as a sort of atenuation). How did crisis ended in my case? First time, a good sleep of 24 hours. Some times neuroleptics. last time change of place of living (in august it finally ended while i followed my mother in hollydays and went to a different city, with other people than usually in my home, in another house). About medecines. neuroleptics are the only sort od medic known. Its effect is quite easy to explain: it blocks the neurotransmettor (which are in charge of the communication between nerves). The problem with it is that if it is usefull to stop delirium, it makes the patient vegetative. If your psy is ok to give neuro limited times (to stop crisis, and a little while after the crisis ended), it's good. But most of them give neuro for very very long times, even where ther is no more symptoms, in a preventive purpose. In my opinion, this is no good. Even if a patient out of crisis and taking neuroleptics gives illusion of normality, it is fake, because every simplest thing of the every day life becomes very hard to do. Your brain is attached. Watching a movie becomes complicated, cutting the grass is hard. Neuroleptics are a big issue when speaking about schyzo. How did crisis occured. The first time, it began like a romantic delirium. But the disease well established, I think stressfull experiences provocked the crisis. A last thing: how the disease influenced my life. I could speak about how I lead my life so as the disease wont hurt me again, may be another time if what i said this time is helpfull. It is very simple, it breaks it. It is true that even before the disease people used to say of me I was a little different one. But, being more lonely than others doesn't make schyzophrenia. I lost friends, jobs, failed in my studies. My family helped, and at the bottom of the hole it was my only sociabilisation. You have to know it is a long and difficult experience as well for the familly than for the patient. But progress have been made: 50 years ago, it was still a disease with no hope of remission, know, some time you can cure. Hope it helped you a little. Pierre
At times I experience depression, mania, visual hallucinations and paranoia. Less commonly I've heard voices and experienced dissociation, which is a sort of disconnection between reality and one's experience. Life seemed to be like a movie I was watching but not participating in. I also get anxiety at times - so bad I want to climb out of my own skin. I've had disturbed sleep for my entire life. One time I slept for twenty-nine hours, on another occasion I was awake for about a week, which made me hallucinate so heavily I could hardly see where I was going.
I've been in psychiatric hospitals five times, for periods ranging from overnight to six weeks.
I was first inspired to discuss my experiences with mental illnesses online when I read Lori Schiller's book The Quiet Room. Schiller was also diagnosed schizoaffective. She had it much worse than me, but managed to recover and had the courage to write a book about it.
Schizoaffective disorder is a spectrum of conditions. It's not completely clear whether it's a unique disorder or that one is unfortunate enough to have gotten both illnesses at once. I'm much more manic depressive than I am schizophrenic, with depression being my most prevalent symptom. Lori Schiller is much more towards the schizophrenic end, having hallucinated so badly at times she was hardly connected to the real world. I'm the bipolar type of schizoaffective, there is also a depressive type, where one does not experience mania.
Lori Schiller spent years in a number of mental hospitals. Hers was a very difficult case, and I think she, her family and her doctors had despaired of ever finding a treatment. What saved her was a new kind of medicine, the atypical antipsychotic clozapine.
The "classic antipsychotics" like haldol and thorazine work by reducing the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. The atypical antipsychotics do that too but also act on one of the variants of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
The classic antipsychotics were troublesome in that they didn't work all that well and had a lot of bad side affects like deep sedation, hand tremors, muscle cramps and a motion disorder called tardive dyskinesia that is a form of incurable brain damage, that causes repetetive, involuntary movements and can even put you in a wheelchair. If you see a mentally ill person who appears to be in a stupour, it's quite likely that it's caused by his medication rather than his illness.
One time I was in the hospital, profoundly manic and hallucinating, and was being given enough haldol to stun a horse. It caused a sort of seizure, where my jaws locked up so I couldn't speak, and all of my limbs curled up so I couldn't walk. I was carried to my room and injected in the butt with a large dose of cogentin, which is usually prescribed in a lower-dose tablet form to treat the motion disorder side effects of antipsychotics.
(As I lay on my bed slowly uncurling, with the cogentin causing this odd thing with the focus of my eyes, the nurse who injected me said: "You worry too much. You should go to Hawaii and get laid.")
Classic antipsychotics didn't help Schiller much, which is why she was entered in the drug trials for clozapine. Besides haldol, I've also taken prolixin and stellazine, and never found any of them particularly helpful.
Clozapine is more effective, but it has its own problems with side affects. It can kill you by damaging your blood, so you have to have regular blood tests. It is also very expensive, with treatment
Request your free CD of my piano music.
bad advice.
i went on an acid bender in my late teens, trying to understand what it was like to be psychotic. it set off my latent bipolar disorder and then i had a REAL opportunity to see what psychosis was like, one that wouldn't stop.
please don't take powerful psychedelic drugs without supervision by a psychiatrist. at least find out whether you're predisposed to mental illness before you do.
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
I would guess that is how we wound up with religion. Its kind of odd that most great religious leaders, founders, and followers could easily fit the schizophrenic mold in modern society. Actually, the really "gifted" scientific and religious gurus seem to be on that borderline threshold to the point of falling over the edge. Staying up working on a scientific theory for 4 days staight with hardly no sleep or food; fasting and self-denial in the name of a religious experience. These are hardly "normal" behaviors. They are examples of "focused" mania. Its the "uncontrolled" mania that places the label of "psychosis" on an indiviual. Perhaps it is just genius that has no direction.
I suggest you read the medical literature. Specifically, you should read Lancet, the New England Journal of Medecine, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and the Journal of Neurochemistry.
Yes, there are plenty of nuts on the Internet suggesting a link between aspartame and cancer, alzheimers, "Gulf War Syndrome", etc.. I'm not one of them.
Here are some reputable journal cites.
I'd be happy to examine any contradictory peer reviewed journal published papers you care to cite in return.
Thanks.
Aspartame. Review of safety issues. Council on Scientific Affairs. Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol. 254 No. 3, July 19, 1985
Department of Health and Human Services. Quarterly Report on Adverse Reactions Associated with Aspartame Ingestion. DHHS, Washington, DC, Oct. 1, 1986.
Johns, D. R. Migraine provoked by aspartame. N. Engl. J. Med. 315-456 (1986)
Drake, M.E. Panic attacks and excessive aspartame ingestion. Lancetii: 631 (1986)
Yokogoshi, H., Roberts, C. H., Caballero, B., and Wurtman, R.J. Effects of aspartame and glucose administration on brain and plasma levels of large neutral amino acids and brain 5-hydroxyindoles. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 40: 1-7 (1984).
Fernstrom, J. D., Fernstrom, M. H., and Gillis, M. A. Acute Effects of aspartame on large neutral amino acids and monoamines in rat brain. Life Sci. 32: 1651-1658 (1983).
Stegink, L. D., Filer, L. J., Jr., Baker, G. L., and McDonnell, J. E. Effect of an abuse dose of aspartame upon plasma and erythrocyte levels of amino acids in phenylketonuric heterozygous and normal adults. J. Nutr. 110: 2216-2224 (1980).
Fernstrom, J. D., and Faller, D. V. Neutral amino acids in the brain: Changes in response to food ingestion. J. Neurochem. 30: 1531-1538 (1978)
Oldendorf, W. H. Brain uptake of radiolabeled amino acids, amines, and hexoses after arterial injection. Am. J. Physiol. 221:1629-1639 (1971).
Milner, J. D., Irie, K., and Wurtman, R. J. Effects of phenylalanine on the release of endogenous dopamine from rat striatal slices. J. Neurochem. 47: 1444-1448 (1986).
Pinto, J. M. B., and Maher, T. J. Aspartame administration potentiates pentylenetetrazole- and fluorothyl-induced seizures in mice. Neuropharmacology, in press.
-- Terry
Do a Google search on "synthetic telepathy." This is a directed-energy weapon that uses microwaves in the 1.3GHz range to stimulate the auditory neurons in the brain. When the microwave's duty cycle is correctly modulated, the target will "hear" your voice in their head without any receiving equipment whatsoever.
I have schizophrenia which was diagnossed in 1997, actually schizoaffective which is schizophrenia and bypolar mixed together. Family members have told me that the symptons date back to when I was a child and especially mannifested when I got into my teens with some pretty close calls when it came to maintaining my life. I'm 24 now, the decease is still running strong but I am currently hacking my way through University and living on my own. The reason for my success would be caring family and having a strong support network to fall on when I get sick. My family has found going to schizophrenic society meetings benificial and taking on a role there. I do not personally go to the meetings, though my parents feel much better after these meetings and overall are a positive experience for them. Self Mutalation has been a major problem for myself, actually I burned myself just three days ago. I just take things one day at a time, think positive, and I mean positive. Anything that bothers me I focus on a positive aspect of it, and if there is no aparent positive then I make one. This focusing on positive points really helps, when I start to fall into a mood I often see it coming and try to get out of it, often successfully through medication. Appologies for writing so much, but I will end with my overall thesis that: find positive points to everything focus on those positive things if falling try meditating be careful in the situations you put yourself in if you have a prevailing issue that set's you off then seek councilling for it to avoid future mishaps take your meds! do hourly assesments on the state of your mind; or whatever timiing you think would be good, this is very valuable as you can catch problems before they start. I say this as a treated schizophrenic that is fairly functional 80% of the time, with prevailing things that I know are not real but cannot handle. Just remember when talking to someone with schizophrenia that they do not always see reality, things may be different for what they see, as much as I tell myself, you cannot read my mind, but when I'm talking to people I'm constantly censoring my thoughts as most of the time I think that the person I'm talking to is reading my thoughts, that's just one example, and I am 7 years treated with working medication, it's a long battle, be strong, do not be a stastitic.
First of all, I am not a psychologist.
This is a tough situation for a lot of reasons. You obviously don't want to impose on him or his rights, which I respect. However, If he is not capable of making rational decisions about what is real and what is not, I think the internet would be a bad place for him if unsupervised. There is too much false information out there, and the internet requires people to understand that some of what is on it is not real. My inclination would be to have him surf the web with someone he trusts completely, and will be able to help him understand what's real and what isn't. Obviously, this depends a lot on the seriousness of his mental illness as well.
It sucks because removal from the "real world" could have ill effects on him as well, but sometimes a judging the lesser of two evils is needed.
Again, this post is all opinion based
I wish you and your friend the best of luck.
I used to be bipolar, particularly very manic. I was the happiest person you ever met, which is why no one ever assumed there was a problem.
Through medication and self evaluation, I have returned to "normal". That is the most important part to remember. You CAN return to "normal". It's not an end-all. I have now been off of all medication for a year and a half, and I'm doing fine.
Sig.i>
I have found your account on my fans list and have read quite a few comments and journal entries of yours, where I have even found a link to one of my older texts--you might also find this one interesting--and as much as I usually like your reasoning, this one is sadly based on not a particularly strong argument, I am afraid.
Nevertheless, I find your comparison of organized religion to a bus terminal quite intresting. Also, I generally like your masturbation analogy (no pun intended) however its strength might be questionable.
Despite many interesting similarities, I usually take offense when someone tells me about either of those activities in somewhat different situations and for quite different reasons. More precisely, the question whether I want to hear about someone thinking of me while praying depands almost entirely on the subject, reason and purpose of said prayer, while with the masturbation it is almost entirely dependent on the person doing it, the reason and purpose is usually the same, the subject notwithstanding.
For example, when someone tells me she is going to pray for my health, I will take offense (and in fact I will get terrified) if that is my doctor and I might get irritated if that is someone who prefers praying instead of physically helping me. If someone tells me she is going to pray for my soul, implying that I am evil, I will always take offense. If someone just tells me she prays for me because she likes me, I might be very happy with it, like if one would say she thinks a lot about me. It might be a manifestation of feelings and emotions, or even some dependence or submission. Of course it all depands on whether one indeed is going to literally pray or is just using it as a rhetorical figure, for the strenght of my reaction, positive or negative, will be usually proportional to the time and energy one actually devotes.
My reaction to someone thinking about me during the prayer is rarely dependent exclusively on the person in question without considering its subject. Quite to the contrary with masturbation. The subject itself seems usually irrelevant or at least secondary to my opinion regarding the very person who tells me about it and the sexuality thereof, subjectively perceived. It is also interesting to note that people tell me about their prayers at least twice as often as about masturbation. But the most important is not the frequency but the very reason of my reaction.
(Of course I might be committing a genetic fallacy mixing argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad verecundiam depanding on the subject of my ipse dixit reasoning, but I believe one might consider it perfectly justified in the subjective matter of sexuality, or at the very least I do really hope so.)
For that reason I wonder whether your analogy, while certainly interesting and intellectually entertaining, might indeed need some better introduction and further explanation, for it might seem weak for some people with similar experience as mine.
It is very interesting nonetheless and undoubtedly deserves some serious analysis. I will think about it more thoroughly.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."