If this treatment is “surprising”, it might point to a unskilful way of conceptualizing the disease in the first place.
I wonder how many people make things worse for themselves by worrying that they’re going crazy, which ends up feeding the cycle.
As opposed to “What can I do with this/How can I work around it?”
Giving people agency and making them know that they don’t need to own every random voice that comes into their head is nice. Even for non-psychotic folks.
In my deeper psychosis, asking myself “What can I do with this/How can I work around it?” is literally impossible. I am too busy running down the street secretly taking pictures of people who I think are agents from some unknown organization.
What happens when it passes? I've never had that kind of thing, but I did find "internal family systems" therapy useful and have wondered if those extreme conditions might be extreme manifestations of the same concepts. If so, there may be a way to tame that stuff.
I say "Sorry" to a lot of people and they I try to find the trigger.
I do not think internal family systems is designed for biological triggered mood disorders, but I see where you are going here. I do not see the person that comes out in my everyday pschye.
Think of what happens to me akin to giving someone methamphetamines and trying to get them out of the high by talking about internal family systems. It just will not work.
i think if the main thing is “hearing voices” this kind of thing is probably a good strategy, but there are lots of other probably worse symptoms of psychosis.
An article in The Guardian described an alternative treatment called Avatar Therapy [1] that has the therapist create a digital simulation of the voices, interact with the patient using the simulated voice and work through a script that gradually gives the patient more power over the voice.
It can get surprisingly radical for a therapy session, at one point even inciting the patient to commit suicide! [2]
Isn't this a main idea in the film A Beautiful Mind?
If rates of psychosis are going up, why? It seems very worrying when rates of depression, suicide, psychosis, and other mental illnesses are increasing with what seems like no understanding of why or what to do to prevent the increase.
I was just researching John Nash. In the film, he takes antipsychotic medication because the film producers didn't want to encourage people to not take their meds. In real life, he never was on antipsychotics and learned to live with his disease.
> The rate of schizophrenia-related emergency-room visits for men ages 18 to 44 years old is 16% higher so far in 2024 compared with 2018, according to health-analytics company Truveta; men ages 30 to 44 showed a 24% increase.
A better working treatment is good but understanding these numbers seems important. That's a large increase in a very short time.
I have schizophrenia and both times I caught COVID my first symptoms was a horrible psychosis. First time almost went to the psych hospital but that is worse than just dealing with the psychosis. Luckily I had a friend who talked me through it and got me some meds. I told my doctors this and they just shrugged. No one cares if you are mentally ill.
To add another trope, do not be shocked if EMFs are also found to be contributing. I know, this is coming from a schizophrenic, so whatever.
Having schizophrenia does not in any way invalidate your conjecture on a possible link between EMF exposure and schizophrenia. However, there has been a very large amount of research on EMF exposure and various health concerns, including schizophrenia specifically, without much effect shown. So, unlike you, I would be quite surprised if it was found to be contributing.
Interestingly though, there have been some studies that show a possible link between schizophrenia and ionizing radiation. (for instance: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11087010/ )
> there has been a very large amount of research on EMF exposure
What type of EMF exposure? You see, there really has not been studies of real world newer EMF frequencies and none on mmWave exposure that are not only based on the thermal effects.
However, the available studies have not investigated the health effects resulting from exposure from the 5G mobile phone and base station antennas from 700 MHz to 30 GHz on the cognitive performance, well-being subjective symptoms, human physiological parameters, and EEG of adults. There is a need for such research regarding this current emerging technology. Such studies are significant in determining whether 5G technology is indeed safe for humans.
There have been some EMF studies showing increased glucose consumption in areas of the brain exposed to it. If I remember correctly, this was related to some cell phone research. There haven't been any studies that I have come across that look deeper into what it might mean long term.
At least several of the early cell phone exposure studies that showed negative effects on rats used irradiation levels that equalled putting your head in a microwave oven.
So just keep that in mind before drawing conclusions.
I think your claim is exaggereated and without evidence. I can assure you, putting a rat in a microwave will damage/kill it, in momonets.
But let say they were overpowered, but not at the extent you are claiming. Were these studies "over powered" on purpose? There is evidence that they were to dismiss any health effects in studies completed by companies that make thee devices and this is discussed by researchers.
> I think your claim is exaggereated and without evidence
I calculated it myself. It was in response to one of those anti-EMF folks posting these papers as proof that cell phones were very dangerous. It's been several years since I did this, I don't have the references or calculations handy.
They exposed rats to increasing levels of radiation power for relatively short durations, and only the highest had the adverse effects.
Of course, could be I calculated it wrong. But it was a fairly simple scaling thing ala watts per gram of tissue, and I did do it for at least a few papers.
And yes, I think these were overpowered on purpose. If there was no effect at these extreme levels, it wouldn't make much sense spending resources studying lower-level exposure.
Who cares about rats. There are plenty of human studies we can look at. The point is, we know EMF can affect things, but we don't know if those affects are harmful. Going back in the comment history, this was about telling someone that maybe they're crazy, but maybe they aren't crazy about EMF affecting their mental state. There are things they can look up, such as brain glucose metabolism, EEG changes, etc. We know these changes happen, but we don't know what they mean or how they might interact with a condition like their's as it's hard enough to find good EMF studies let alone ones where the subjects aren't "healthy individuals".
this and other alternative schizophrenia treatments a very good thing when they work, which is relatively rare.
as we can see from the comments here already, many people choose to believe these alternative treatments always work and there is never any need for antipsychotics.
it completely makes sense that some people who suffer from the horrible side effects of antipsychotics would have some wishful thinking of this kind.
what i don’t get is why random people with no skin in the game, are often so emotionally invested in the idea that antipsychotics don’t work or are unnecessary. but it’s very common.
>> what i don’t get is why random people with no skin in the game, are often so emotionally invested in....
Insert any subject there. This is a really interesting topic. I can understand having an idea on a subject, but why cling so tightly to the flimsy ones or refuse to accept them as wrong when given evidence?
"Cannabidiol and Amisulpride Improve Cognition in Acute Schizophrenia in an Explorative, Double-Blind, Active-Controlled, Randomized Clinical Trial" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8117353/ :
> This study shows that both CBD and AMI improve neurocognitive functioning with comparable efficacy in young and acutely ill schizophrenia patients via an anandamide-independent mechanism.
"Cannabidiol and Amisulpride Improve Cognition in Acute Schizophrenia in an Explorative, Double-Blind, Active-Controlled, Randomized Clinical Trial" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8117353/ :
> This study shows that both CBD and AMI improve neurocognitive functioning with comparable efficacy in young and acutely ill schizophrenia patients via an anandamide-independent mechanism.
This is really interesting. A proof that "not everything was thought of yet" and revolutionary ideas still wait for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of the box.
Who would have thought that "confronting your demons" could work in such a literal way.
Many people probably do this already, somewhat intuitively. If you look around, descriptions of such problems and similar advice is found in many contemplative traditions. I've heard an sermon recently that was named something like "pay no mind to the evil thoughts". Now in the tradition of that priest (mainstream/Orthodox Christianity) they overly attribute some things to demons, but you'll find similar advice elsewhere without that baggage.
It is nice to see it in secular medicine as well, though.
Ye olde question: is the crucial aspect of innovation if someone did that first, or if someone was able to break into the mainstream?
If the technique wasn't used for 50 years after Nash, wasn't it like the tree that fell in the forest and nobody heard it falling?
Imagine finding out that someone observed antibiotic effects of Penicilinum in the 1880s, but patients still dying of banal infections until Fleming; in that case, I would give the "revolutionary" credit to Fleming.
No, it’s not revolutionary if someone manages to find a counter-example 22 minutes after someone proclaims that it is revolutionary. It clearly hasn’t been relegated to obscurity.
Revolution means pretty literally "turn something around".
Which a first actual large-scale deployment of something fulfills, but isolated experiments don't.
Was Falcon 9 revolutionary? For me, absolutely, because it was the first widely deployed rocket that made partial reuse economical, and thus enabled projects such as Starlink.
We can call the previous small-scale experiments bold or maybe groundbreaking, but there was no revolution achieved.
I think calling them "demons" is part of the problem. I take my delusion as clues, psychic hints, a sort of over sensitivity and Cassandra like quality, that should be used by people without schizo. But I cannot tell you how many time sI was called stupid and crazy about my ideas on here yet I talk with research scientists on the regular.
To me Schizo is nothing more than an intensely creative mind. Why see nothing when you can see somthing?
Note that hunter gatherer genetics are linked to schizo and the idea of aa demon is a particularly Christian view of insights that do not fit the norm. More so if the ideas were coming from "pagan" people.
I sometimes wonder if the voices are suppressed in the “healthy” population, but to some extent still influential - but dangerous in that they operate out of sight. For reference: non-professional opinion.
That seems like a Freudian theory of repressed trauma or the more
general idea of "coping mechanisms" that go wrong. The "healthy" mind
isn't afraid/ashamed to hear and process discomforting thoughts. For
the more fragile mind, pushing them back makes them more and more
intrusive. Ronnie Laing, Thomas Szasz, Erich Fromm, and many others
have said, variously; "Mental illness is a sane reaction to an insane
world", "In a mad world, only the mad are sane", or "Coping is making
yourself part of the problem".
That's not the same as being dismissive about the state of world, or
legitimising/glorifying real and distressing medical insanity - it's
just saying; be careful how you "cope". That said, just look around
you. Aren't intrusive voices just reason tired of us telling it to
shut up.
TBH these voices might have been the original reason why "demons" got defined by the ancients as evil spirits.
They often speak evil things, are unseen to the general population, but torment the sufferer ... a basic candidate for the category of "demon", especially in pre-modern times.
Also, I don't think that demons are a particularly Christian phenomenon. They certainly predate Christianity and various "heathen" religions were full of them: Indo-European, Amerindian, African...
But the idea of schizophrenia as a very intense mind going on empty is interesting. Only I would say that it needs some specific pathway to go down the schizophrenic route. Plenty of people with intense fantasies are normally adjusted and don't fulfill the criteria for a mental disease.
But it does look like there are some people who are tormented by mental issues and preoccupied with bizarre thoughts, occult imagery, and aggressive behaviors. And honestly, even though I've seen myself how meds work on my family member, it's so surreal to believe after seeing such manifestations, and demons would be the right term for the behaviors I've seen first hand, it also sounded like a living nightmare to the person experiencing it. The acceptance of these nonsensical ideas and going with the flow reminded me of how dreams work, but at least I'm not awake to live out the dream.
I do not hear voices (frequently), but have delusions. This is what I do, I do not trust anything I see. I found that I think people are looking at me when they are not so now I just accept it and do not read anything into it. The medication to treat us are ancient and horrible and this is the only healthy way out for us. I had to learn this on my own though since medicare does not care enough about anyone's health.
Yes, thank you. I already do a high omega 3 keto diet and it has enabled me to come off of medications, only needing klonopin for triggers I cannot control. 7 years now.
Mental illness is a metabolic disease, mine is caused by a problem with purine metabolism. (carbohydrates will turn into purines) Each person will be different. I have Schizoaffective disorder like she does. I would say we are remarkably similar in many ways.
I've also come to believe a mix of metabolic therapy and targeted supplementation (particularly B vitamins, chiefly B3), yields much better results than medications. And it seems the medical profession is slowly waking up to it too.
Delusions are the worst, once they are too far gone there's no sense in trying to convince the person it's not real. We've been through it with a family member many times, the worst part is that it starts slowly, but they hide it so well or they self isolate and alienate everybody. Once the signs are there, they are already too far gone, broadcasting, paranoia, persecution, grandeur, telepathy, false memories, you name it. If it were only voices, I think that could be managed more easily than delusions. Not sure if it's true that relapses cause further damage (neurotoxicity) but so far only the neuroleptic shots have proven to be reliable and prevent the next manic episode. Regrettably, these cause a host of other issues, like depression, lack of motivation or pleasure and so on.
If you don't mind me asking, do you have any cues or techniques that you use to help differentiate between a delusion and something real? Or are the kind of delusions you have consistent to the point where you've already categorized and figured out how to deal with them?
The way I read his post is that categorizing and differentiating is fundamentally not possible, because sensory input cannot be trusted, period. This makes sense to me because part of what can drive you mad is the constant questioning, so one way to short-circuit this is to simply not play the game.
It's zero trust networking for your brain, and you're asking "but how do you decide which ip addresses are safe?". That's the neat part, you don't.
Yes, that is it. But sometimes I can get clues to differentiate. Another example. The water coming out of my bathtub looked really really blue. So blue that I called the water company. The woman came out and had that look on her face and just said, your water looks fine. I have learned that the look is a clue for me to not trust myself and let go and trust other people. It is sort of like being blind having to trust people to tell you the right way to go.
> If you don't mind me asking, do you have any cues or techniques that you use to help differentiate between a delusion and something real?
Nothing is real. Not for me or for you. That is my greatest insight of my illness.
You all have very narrow band schizophrenia, mine is just more, uhm, loose.
So if I feel like some shadow agency is tracking me I just say; "So what.", If I think what I picked up from the supermarket I just say; "So what if I die." I really had to stop caring about dying or suffering.
The only time I know when I am alone in my perceptions is when I ask someone. For example, I was sitting in a restaurant and I these four Mexican workers were turned around staring at me. I asked my friend if they were and she said no. Now I do not know if I am able to pick up on something, maybe I could somehow tell they were talking about me adn my brain made me aware by making it look like they were looking at me. But again, so what is my answer.
The day before that I felt my dead great uncle was telling me to go to Dillon, MT to make amends for him getting arrested there in 1954. So it was a tough week for me.
I've noticed from my family member that their brain seems to connect more dots, things are more abstract for them. So basically very good for creative work, they are good with words and novel ideas, but also sucks when you attribute behaviors and intentions when they are not there.
Mental illness can be treated with a therapeutic ketogenic diet. It works.
Check out the popular YouTube channel "living well with schizophrenia", the host has recently switched to a ketogenic diet and it's successfully treating her condition. https://www.youtube.com/@LivingWellAfterSchizophrenia/
If this treatment is “surprising”, it might point to a unskilful way of conceptualizing the disease in the first place.
I wonder how many people make things worse for themselves by worrying that they’re going crazy, which ends up feeding the cycle.
As opposed to “What can I do with this/How can I work around it?”
Giving people agency and making them know that they don’t need to own every random voice that comes into their head is nice. Even for non-psychotic folks.
In my deeper psychosis, asking myself “What can I do with this/How can I work around it?” is literally impossible. I am too busy running down the street secretly taking pictures of people who I think are agents from some unknown organization.
So there is a limit to this therapy.
What happens when it passes? I've never had that kind of thing, but I did find "internal family systems" therapy useful and have wondered if those extreme conditions might be extreme manifestations of the same concepts. If so, there may be a way to tame that stuff.
> What happens when it passes?
I say "Sorry" to a lot of people and they I try to find the trigger.
I do not think internal family systems is designed for biological triggered mood disorders, but I see where you are going here. I do not see the person that comes out in my everyday pschye.
Think of what happens to me akin to giving someone methamphetamines and trying to get them out of the high by talking about internal family systems. It just will not work.
Sometimes you just have to weather the storm. I don’t think it makes sense to speak of therapies in such times.
i think if the main thing is “hearing voices” this kind of thing is probably a good strategy, but there are lots of other probably worse symptoms of psychosis.
An article in The Guardian described an alternative treatment called Avatar Therapy [1] that has the therapist create a digital simulation of the voices, interact with the patient using the simulated voice and work through a script that gradually gives the patient more power over the voice.
It can get surprisingly radical for a therapy session, at one point even inciting the patient to commit suicide! [2]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/oct/29/acute-psychosis...
[2] > “You should end it,” the avatar [therapist] said, casually. “What have you done that’s of any use to anyone?”
Hey my voice says that to myself all the time and I'm a pretty content person; it'd be pretty surprising if a second voice weren't capable of that.
Mirror:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/one-surprising-psycho...
Isn't this a main idea in the film A Beautiful Mind?
If rates of psychosis are going up, why? It seems very worrying when rates of depression, suicide, psychosis, and other mental illnesses are increasing with what seems like no understanding of why or what to do to prevent the increase.
I was just researching John Nash. In the film, he takes antipsychotic medication because the film producers didn't want to encourage people to not take their meds. In real life, he never was on antipsychotics and learned to live with his disease.
> The rate of schizophrenia-related emergency-room visits for men ages 18 to 44 years old is 16% higher so far in 2024 compared with 2018, according to health-analytics company Truveta; men ages 30 to 44 showed a 24% increase.
A better working treatment is good but understanding these numbers seems important. That's a large increase in a very short time.
My money is on: increased cannabis use + social isolation (COVID+short form social media) + more awareness/less stigma of seeking treatment
The inundation of everything that is “on the rise” is enough to make anyone paranoid.
Is paranoia on the rise? It sure seems anxiety is ...
Paranoia is not on the rise, it's just that they want you to think it is...
not to be a trope, but Covid maybe?
I have schizophrenia and both times I caught COVID my first symptoms was a horrible psychosis. First time almost went to the psych hospital but that is worse than just dealing with the psychosis. Luckily I had a friend who talked me through it and got me some meds. I told my doctors this and they just shrugged. No one cares if you are mentally ill.
To add another trope, do not be shocked if EMFs are also found to be contributing. I know, this is coming from a schizophrenic, so whatever.
Having schizophrenia does not in any way invalidate your conjecture on a possible link between EMF exposure and schizophrenia. However, there has been a very large amount of research on EMF exposure and various health concerns, including schizophrenia specifically, without much effect shown. So, unlike you, I would be quite surprised if it was found to be contributing.
Interestingly though, there have been some studies that show a possible link between schizophrenia and ionizing radiation. (for instance: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11087010/ )
> there has been a very large amount of research on EMF exposure
What type of EMF exposure? You see, there really has not been studies of real world newer EMF frequencies and none on mmWave exposure that are not only based on the thermal effects.
Please see this from 2023:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9665755
However, the available studies have not investigated the health effects resulting from exposure from the 5G mobile phone and base station antennas from 700 MHz to 30 GHz on the cognitive performance, well-being subjective symptoms, human physiological parameters, and EEG of adults. There is a need for such research regarding this current emerging technology. Such studies are significant in determining whether 5G technology is indeed safe for humans.
There have been some EMF studies showing increased glucose consumption in areas of the brain exposed to it. If I remember correctly, this was related to some cell phone research. There haven't been any studies that I have come across that look deeper into what it might mean long term.
At least several of the early cell phone exposure studies that showed negative effects on rats used irradiation levels that equalled putting your head in a microwave oven.
So just keep that in mind before drawing conclusions.
My comment has nothing to do with that.
My point is that EMF has shown affects on people, but we know almost nothing about the implications ("unknown clinical significance").
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/645813
I think your claim is exaggereated and without evidence. I can assure you, putting a rat in a microwave will damage/kill it, in momonets.
But let say they were overpowered, but not at the extent you are claiming. Were these studies "over powered" on purpose? There is evidence that they were to dismiss any health effects in studies completed by companies that make thee devices and this is discussed by researchers.
> I think your claim is exaggereated and without evidence
I calculated it myself. It was in response to one of those anti-EMF folks posting these papers as proof that cell phones were very dangerous. It's been several years since I did this, I don't have the references or calculations handy.
They exposed rats to increasing levels of radiation power for relatively short durations, and only the highest had the adverse effects.
Of course, could be I calculated it wrong. But it was a fairly simple scaling thing ala watts per gram of tissue, and I did do it for at least a few papers.
And yes, I think these were overpowered on purpose. If there was no effect at these extreme levels, it wouldn't make much sense spending resources studying lower-level exposure.
Who cares about rats. There are plenty of human studies we can look at. The point is, we know EMF can affect things, but we don't know if those affects are harmful. Going back in the comment history, this was about telling someone that maybe they're crazy, but maybe they aren't crazy about EMF affecting their mental state. There are things they can look up, such as brain glucose metabolism, EEG changes, etc. We know these changes happen, but we don't know what they mean or how they might interact with a condition like their's as it's hard enough to find good EMF studies let alone ones where the subjects aren't "healthy individuals".
Sure. My point was simply that people read how they performed the study and not just the punchline from the conclusion section.
Part of long Covid is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) which has been found to be comorbid with a number of mental health issues https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10672129/
this and other alternative schizophrenia treatments a very good thing when they work, which is relatively rare.
as we can see from the comments here already, many people choose to believe these alternative treatments always work and there is never any need for antipsychotics.
it completely makes sense that some people who suffer from the horrible side effects of antipsychotics would have some wishful thinking of this kind.
what i don’t get is why random people with no skin in the game, are often so emotionally invested in the idea that antipsychotics don’t work or are unnecessary. but it’s very common.
>> what i don’t get is why random people with no skin in the game, are often so emotionally invested in....
Insert any subject there. This is a really interesting topic. I can understand having an idea on a subject, but why cling so tightly to the flimsy ones or refuse to accept them as wrong when given evidence?
"Cannabidiol and Amisulpride Improve Cognition in Acute Schizophrenia in an Explorative, Double-Blind, Active-Controlled, Randomized Clinical Trial" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8117353/ :
> This study shows that both CBD and AMI improve neurocognitive functioning with comparable efficacy in young and acutely ill schizophrenia patients via an anandamide-independent mechanism.
cannabis amisulpride: https://www.google.com/search?q=cannabidiol+amisulpride
Does verbally engaging by speaking and/or listening to e.g. music with vocals or podcasts helpfully occupy the brain when there is psychosis?
Do headphones playing audio with words just loose around the neck, not even on, help stave off verbal psychosis?
language learning apps,
music from another room: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Music%20from%20...
"Cannabidiol and Amisulpride Improve Cognition in Acute Schizophrenia in an Explorative, Double-Blind, Active-Controlled, Randomized Clinical Trial" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8117353/ :
> This study shows that both CBD and AMI improve neurocognitive functioning with comparable efficacy in young and acutely ill schizophrenia patients via an anandamide-independent mechanism.
cannabidiol amisulpride: https://www.google.com/search?q=cannabidiol+amisulpride
This is really interesting. A proof that "not everything was thought of yet" and revolutionary ideas still wait for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of the box.
Who would have thought that "confronting your demons" could work in such a literal way.
Many people probably do this already, somewhat intuitively. If you look around, descriptions of such problems and similar advice is found in many contemplative traditions. I've heard an sermon recently that was named something like "pay no mind to the evil thoughts". Now in the tradition of that priest (mainstream/Orthodox Christianity) they overly attribute some things to demons, but you'll find similar advice elsewhere without that baggage.
It is nice to see it in secular medicine as well, though.
It's only revolutionary if you ignore history.
As popularized in film, John Nash did this in the 1960s.
Ye olde question: is the crucial aspect of innovation if someone did that first, or if someone was able to break into the mainstream?
If the technique wasn't used for 50 years after Nash, wasn't it like the tree that fell in the forest and nobody heard it falling?
Imagine finding out that someone observed antibiotic effects of Penicilinum in the 1880s, but patients still dying of banal infections until Fleming; in that case, I would give the "revolutionary" credit to Fleming.
No, it’s not revolutionary if someone manages to find a counter-example 22 minutes after someone proclaims that it is revolutionary. It clearly hasn’t been relegated to obscurity.
Revolution means pretty literally "turn something around".
Which a first actual large-scale deployment of something fulfills, but isolated experiments don't.
Was Falcon 9 revolutionary? For me, absolutely, because it was the first widely deployed rocket that made partial reuse economical, and thus enabled projects such as Starlink.
We can call the previous small-scale experiments bold or maybe groundbreaking, but there was no revolution achieved.
EDIT: Ahead might be simply nitpicking & splitting hairs.
You’re moving the goalpost. First it was a revolutionary idea. Now a revolution is after an idea has been put into practice.[1] Which is it?
[1] Even “not everything was thought of yet” but it’s there “for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of the box”. Come on.
I think calling them "demons" is part of the problem. I take my delusion as clues, psychic hints, a sort of over sensitivity and Cassandra like quality, that should be used by people without schizo. But I cannot tell you how many time sI was called stupid and crazy about my ideas on here yet I talk with research scientists on the regular.
To me Schizo is nothing more than an intensely creative mind. Why see nothing when you can see somthing?
Note that hunter gatherer genetics are linked to schizo and the idea of aa demon is a particularly Christian view of insights that do not fit the norm. More so if the ideas were coming from "pagan" people.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/evolutionary-psychi...
I sometimes wonder if the voices are suppressed in the “healthy” population, but to some extent still influential - but dangerous in that they operate out of sight. For reference: non-professional opinion.
That seems like a Freudian theory of repressed trauma or the more general idea of "coping mechanisms" that go wrong. The "healthy" mind isn't afraid/ashamed to hear and process discomforting thoughts. For the more fragile mind, pushing them back makes them more and more intrusive. Ronnie Laing, Thomas Szasz, Erich Fromm, and many others have said, variously; "Mental illness is a sane reaction to an insane world", "In a mad world, only the mad are sane", or "Coping is making yourself part of the problem".
That's not the same as being dismissive about the state of world, or legitimising/glorifying real and distressing medical insanity - it's just saying; be careful how you "cope". That said, just look around you. Aren't intrusive voices just reason tired of us telling it to shut up.
TBH these voices might have been the original reason why "demons" got defined by the ancients as evil spirits.
They often speak evil things, are unseen to the general population, but torment the sufferer ... a basic candidate for the category of "demon", especially in pre-modern times.
Also, I don't think that demons are a particularly Christian phenomenon. They certainly predate Christianity and various "heathen" religions were full of them: Indo-European, Amerindian, African...
But the idea of schizophrenia as a very intense mind going on empty is interesting. Only I would say that it needs some specific pathway to go down the schizophrenic route. Plenty of people with intense fantasies are normally adjusted and don't fulfill the criteria for a mental disease.
But it does look like there are some people who are tormented by mental issues and preoccupied with bizarre thoughts, occult imagery, and aggressive behaviors. And honestly, even though I've seen myself how meds work on my family member, it's so surreal to believe after seeing such manifestations, and demons would be the right term for the behaviors I've seen first hand, it also sounded like a living nightmare to the person experiencing it. The acceptance of these nonsensical ideas and going with the flow reminded me of how dreams work, but at least I'm not awake to live out the dream.
Schizophrenic here.
I do not hear voices (frequently), but have delusions. This is what I do, I do not trust anything I see. I found that I think people are looking at me when they are not so now I just accept it and do not read anything into it. The medication to treat us are ancient and horrible and this is the only healthy way out for us. I had to learn this on my own though since medicare does not care enough about anyone's health.
Do you know about this? https://www.youtube.com/@LivingWellAfterSchizophrenia/
Yes, thank you. I already do a high omega 3 keto diet and it has enabled me to come off of medications, only needing klonopin for triggers I cannot control. 7 years now.
Mental illness is a metabolic disease, mine is caused by a problem with purine metabolism. (carbohydrates will turn into purines) Each person will be different. I have Schizoaffective disorder like she does. I would say we are remarkably similar in many ways.
That's amazing, congrats!
I've also come to believe a mix of metabolic therapy and targeted supplementation (particularly B vitamins, chiefly B3), yields much better results than medications. And it seems the medical profession is slowly waking up to it too.
Delusions are the worst, once they are too far gone there's no sense in trying to convince the person it's not real. We've been through it with a family member many times, the worst part is that it starts slowly, but they hide it so well or they self isolate and alienate everybody. Once the signs are there, they are already too far gone, broadcasting, paranoia, persecution, grandeur, telepathy, false memories, you name it. If it were only voices, I think that could be managed more easily than delusions. Not sure if it's true that relapses cause further damage (neurotoxicity) but so far only the neuroleptic shots have proven to be reliable and prevent the next manic episode. Regrettably, these cause a host of other issues, like depression, lack of motivation or pleasure and so on.
If you don't mind me asking, do you have any cues or techniques that you use to help differentiate between a delusion and something real? Or are the kind of delusions you have consistent to the point where you've already categorized and figured out how to deal with them?
The way I read his post is that categorizing and differentiating is fundamentally not possible, because sensory input cannot be trusted, period. This makes sense to me because part of what can drive you mad is the constant questioning, so one way to short-circuit this is to simply not play the game.
It's zero trust networking for your brain, and you're asking "but how do you decide which ip addresses are safe?". That's the neat part, you don't.
Yes, that is it. But sometimes I can get clues to differentiate. Another example. The water coming out of my bathtub looked really really blue. So blue that I called the water company. The woman came out and had that look on her face and just said, your water looks fine. I have learned that the look is a clue for me to not trust myself and let go and trust other people. It is sort of like being blind having to trust people to tell you the right way to go.
> If you don't mind me asking, do you have any cues or techniques that you use to help differentiate between a delusion and something real?
Nothing is real. Not for me or for you. That is my greatest insight of my illness.
You all have very narrow band schizophrenia, mine is just more, uhm, loose.
So if I feel like some shadow agency is tracking me I just say; "So what.", If I think what I picked up from the supermarket I just say; "So what if I die." I really had to stop caring about dying or suffering.
The only time I know when I am alone in my perceptions is when I ask someone. For example, I was sitting in a restaurant and I these four Mexican workers were turned around staring at me. I asked my friend if they were and she said no. Now I do not know if I am able to pick up on something, maybe I could somehow tell they were talking about me adn my brain made me aware by making it look like they were looking at me. But again, so what is my answer.
The day before that I felt my dead great uncle was telling me to go to Dillon, MT to make amends for him getting arrested there in 1954. So it was a tough week for me.
I've noticed from my family member that their brain seems to connect more dots, things are more abstract for them. So basically very good for creative work, they are good with words and novel ideas, but also sucks when you attribute behaviors and intentions when they are not there.
Paywall
I have a voice in my head that says dont read the wsj
Mental illness can be treated with a therapeutic ketogenic diet. It works.
Check out the popular YouTube channel "living well with schizophrenia", the host has recently switched to a ketogenic diet and it's successfully treating her condition. https://www.youtube.com/@LivingWellAfterSchizophrenia/