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Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

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Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#61

Post by bossrat »

ziles88 wrote: post #46
bossrat wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe can have many explanations, and is nowhere near an extreme diagnosis such as Schizophrenia. Anybody's brain can react the way yours did to stress; many brains are less able to handle stress; stress comes in many forms, including PTSD, drugs, alcohol, anxiety, and even lack of sleep. You shouldn't be taking Adderol without medical supervision and whoever is supervising you taking needs to be qualifie…

Bossrat, you're speaking in platitudes, and being vague. No there are not many explanations for multi day long psychosis. In fact, psychosis from Adderal and all those other things you mentioned is a more rare side-effect than the percentage of people who will get Schizophrenia to begin with. So please, fully understand a topic before you interject. Please realize Schizophrenia affects 1.1% of the American population…

you are simply wrong to run around diagnosing people as having schizophrenia based on your anecdotal experience. As I explained in another reply to you, the symptoms described do not match the criteria for schizophrenia. Call that a vague platitude if you want.

On margin, more people experience brief episodes of psychosis than who experience chronic psychotic illness, so again, you are just plain wrong.

the diagnosis of schizophrenia is a diagnosis of an extreme form of mental illness, regardless of its prevalence; cancer kills a lot of people, but it does so in an extreme form: the prevalence has nothing to do with the extremity.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#62

Post by narrator »

Go watch the movie "A Scanner Darkly". It contains a couple of characters suffering from amphetamine psychosis. Phillip K. Dick knew these kinds of people well. If you find your behavior to be similar to the characters in the movie, you should really lay off the Adderall.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#63

Post by allworknoplay »

codeonfire wrote: post #57
allworknoplay wrote: post #48

Go talk to a doctor. Strangers on the internet with anecdotes are not qualified for this. Never be embarrassed if you think you might be having a temporary psychotic break or experiencing heretofore unknown symptoms of schizoaffective disorder or bipolar disorder. It will do no good sitting around and wondering. Getting help is the only thing that will help you regain confidence in yourself. And maybe it's nothing an…

Doctors are not always helpful for stuff like this. I wouldn't go to a doctor unless I am bleeding or immobile from pain or for scheduled checkups. They see far worse that a little paranoia every day, and will probably just prescribe some random pills. Doctors don't care about un-treatable problems and "i'm afraid of my phone" isn't a treatable problem. Yes, they can refer a mental health specialist. That specialist…

This is absurd. Qualified psychiatrists are the only way to diagnose and deal with an actual mental illness, and the only way to be sure you're not having a break or don't have a problem if you don't. Always helpful? Sure, nothing's always helpful. Doing nothing when OP thinks he's "going crazy" is a terrible strategy.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#64

Post by slr555 »

Insane is probably not a useful word in this context. Is it possible that you are suffering from an illness? Of course it is. The internet is not the place to seek a diagnosis. Make an appointment with your primary care provider or a qualified mental health professional. There are a number of illnesses that can manifest themselves in ways archaically referred to as mental. Just keep in mind that everything that happens in your brain is chemical and electrical. If you are having a psychotic break, and believe me I do not mean that as a pejorative but simply as a medical term then you need qualified medical care. When asked, a schizophrenic patient will say when they began to hear voices they were as real to them as their friend talking from the next room. I wish you the best of luck. Get help. If you need treatment, get healthy. These are tough issues. Hang in there.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#65

Post by qwertyFish »

teraflop wrote: post #26
rojost wrote: post #16

Your story reminds me of a similar one that appeared on reddit a little while ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/34novp/user_thinks_... https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_posti... Do you have a carbon monoxide detector? Dizziness can be one of the symptoms. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Carbon-monoxide-poisoning/Pages...

There is a much more similar case from a few weeks back: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3iycro/fl_i_am... The poster thought they were being spied on by law enforcement, and that a drone was entering their house and moving around the iPad they had set up to monitor the premises (!). They posted some of the clips to YouTube but none of the commenters saw anything suspicious. It turned out to be a parano…

hahaha I don't think I am insane, I think it was just a temporary episode and am resolving to try and be less stressed, sleep more, and take less adderall and caffeine. That being said, as someone who is/was insane, I was able to checkle a bit when I clicked on the video and it said "this video does not exist".

The CO one scared me, especially because a few fir alarms went off in my house a few days ago, but my father and I looked around and confirmed there was no fire despite them going off for ~1 hour. Myabe lighting the stove for the first time? Anyway, I think I just need to get more sleep and my parents have been cool about it. I think they are a bit worried, but seem to be resolved to just monitor me, which is good.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#66

Post by qwertyFish »

rojost wrote: post #16

Your story reminds me of a similar one that appeared on reddit a little while ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/34novp/user_thinks_... https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_posti... Do you have a carbon monoxide detector? Dizziness can be one of the symptoms. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Carbon-monoxide-poisoning/Pages...

Ok. This makes the most sense. Actually pretty relieved. I don't think I have gone that far yet, but that seems pretty in line with what happened. I guess it is good that he showed up and said he was fine and returned to normal. I don't "feel" like I am a total nutter but after ~5 hours of sleep in 48 hours, I slept for ~11 hours and felt a bit better. Going to have to def scale my dosage down and sleep more. This post was the most helpful. Sure, what I said sounds crazy, but to be fair I did receive some troll emails and my shit was all fucked up. I think the schizo. diagnosis was a bit strong, but this one makes way more sense. Thanks, nice to see this person recovered well and that overdoing it can lead to some really fucked up shit.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#67

Post by qwertyFish »

caffeinewriter wrote: post #30

Actually, Adderall could very, very easily be causing this. In the same vein of the guy who had CO poisoning, there was a man who was paranoid about drones doing surveillance on him. https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3iycro/fl_i_am_... It seems like it could be in parallel to your situation. I highly recommend having someone evaluating your dosage, as well as whether it's an adverse effect of the Adderall…

yep, just read that thread. Resolving to cut my consumption way down.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#68

Post by qwertyFish »

JamesBaxter wrote: post #17

Based on your username it seems possible to me you're a fan of the TV show MR Robot as the main character has a fish called QWERTY. The main character Elliot suffers from anxiety, depression, insomnia and mania. I would consider that unless like Elliot you're trying to reset society's debt to zero it's unlikely you're being targeted. What makes you worth targeting over anyone else? I think you should speak to a medic…

I responded to this already, but the hacker must have intercepted it. Just kidding, I think I hit post limit because this account is new.

Regardless, that was the reference and I am definitely not that spun out, for sure. I will say this though, when he goes to meet wh1teR0se he says maybe they're the best because "they are more paranoid than the rest of us".

So, did I take too much adderall, flip out and whipe my whole system? Yep. Have I been leading a financial revolution under the exper tutelage of my dead father with a curious affinity for back to the future II? Not yet.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#69

Post by qwertyFish »

bossrat wrote: post #61
ziles88 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bossrat, you're speaking in platitudes, and being vague. No there are not many explanations for multi day long psychosis. In fact, psychosis from Adderal and all those other things you mentioned is a more rare side-effect than the percentage of people who will get Schizophrenia to begin with. So please, fully understand a topic before you interject. Please realize Schizophrenia affects 1.1% of the American population…

you are simply wrong to run around diagnosing people as having schizophrenia based on your anecdotal experience. As I explained in another reply to you, the symptoms described do not match the criteria for schizophrenia. Call that a vague platitude if you want. On margin, more people experience brief episodes of psychosis than who experience chronic psychotic illness, so again, you are just plain wrong. the diagnosis…

Thank you for saying this. This account was the first one to respond and continued saying this. Seems a bit strong, I think it is more adderall/sleep/stress related as it was essentially a one-off occurence.

Re: Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?

#70

Post by qwertyFish »

Iamnotcrazyokay wrote: post #40

Is no one going to address the objective evidence? If there are emails flaunting exploits... You're not crazy. If the emails don't exist, there's probably a bigger issue. If the emails did exist and then got deleted... That's tough.

I posted the emails. They exist. While I went a bit over the top, the emails definitely exist.
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