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Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

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Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#101

Post by Pokepokalypse »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #45
sitharus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing snow when your eyes are closed or in darkness is fairly typical from what I understand. Visual snow as a diagnosis is visible at least in reading-level light and against light backgrounds. I see snow against all colours in a typical office environment. It’s less noticeable in daylight but still there.

I've always had visual glows when I close my eyes. Not eye floaters, I only see those when my eyes are open. When I close my eye, I usually see an outline of bright/dark somewhat matching what I last saw, but desaturated and splotchy. If I keep my eyes close, the patches kinda drift around. It's kinda fun to watch sometimes but I get bored eventually open my eyes. I've always assumed its my eyes just adjusting to the…

I thought that was normal, what everyone saw. Aren't they called something like "phosgenes"?

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#102

Post by lstodd »

pvarangot wrote: post #29
heavyset_go wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One feature of psychosis and mental illness, in general, is a lack of insight into one's own condition, or the lack of a complete picture into how symptoms impact one's thoughts and behaviors. In psychosis, this very pronounced because many of those who experience psychosis don't know they're experiencing delusions or hallucinations. It's all very real to them. The fact that you have an awareness of your distortions…

Psychosis is not always like that. You can have an episode and then retrospectively, like days or weeks after the delusion, realize it was not "real" (tm). An example is people on the bipolar spectrum but this can also happen if you are on the autism spectrum and had an overstimulation episode or some other kind of break.

bipolar and autism are orthogonal.

it's perfecly possible to be on both

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#103

Post by colechristensen »

t-writescode wrote: post #93
babyshake wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic one that many experience is thinking you see someone or something notable or scary in the dark, that turns out to be whatever ordinary thing is actually there.

Is that really a hallucination? Or is it your brain’s pattern recognizer making an incorrect guess and then quickly course-correcting when more data is present?

The surface boundary of what does or doesn't count as a hallucination isn't necessarily clear or well agreed upon.

> is it your brain’s pattern recognizer making an incorrect guess

This part is more or less an accurate explanation of a lot of hallucinations. Input misinterpreted and incorrectly "output" into consciousness.

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#104

Post by denton-scratch »

tcj_phx wrote: post #51

All this study says is that stressed teenagers who don't know how to cope become stressed adults who don't know how to cope. People display more psychotic attributes when they don't have the resiliency associated with being a teenager. Emotional stress is the primary cause behind "psychotic breaks" and "schizophrenia" (a worthless diagnosis). Stressed brains need more fuel, derived from glucose, b-vitamins, etc. > Th…

My GF is diagnosed bipolar, and had a breakdown before Christmas and got sectioned. I didn't see her at that time, but the behaviour that she describes sounds mildly psychotic.

She was home by the end of February, on a mood-stabiliser, an anti-psychotic, and a minor tranq.

She's off the minor tranq now; she'll be taking the mood-stabiliser until she dies, and it's not much of a problem.

But the anti-psychotic is troublesome. It makes her sleepy, so she needs a nap every two or three hours. It makes her shuffle around, a bit like a drunk; she used to run several miles daily, but she can't do that now. And she's gaining weight. I hope the shrink weans her off the anti-psychotic soon; I don't think she needs it.

> But the doctors kept her on tranquilizers anyways.

That sounds wrong to me. Tranqs are horribly addictive (meaning the withdrawal is horrible and dangerous) - even minor tranqs. You need to get off them within a few weeks.

IANAP.

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#105

Post by sdwr »

perl4ever wrote: post #85
colordrops wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that might be it. What I mean is that I don't feel like I'm actually here - everything feels flat and dream like, rather than in the moment planted in a physical space. I thought this was normal though, aren't most people constantly in that state due to worry about the future or obsessing over the past? And that's the point of meditation, I think... To bring yourself into the here and now. I do some regular medi…

>aren't most people constantly in that state due to worry about the future or obsessing over the past I would think that the alternative that is "in the moment" is social interaction or working on a project.

Or doing nothing!

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#106

Post by denton-scratch »

iammisc wrote: post #58
tcj_phx wrote: post #51

All this study says is that stressed teenagers who don't know how to cope become stressed adults who don't know how to cope. People display more psychotic attributes when they don't have the resiliency associated with being a teenager. Emotional stress is the primary cause behind "psychotic breaks" and "schizophrenia" (a worthless diagnosis). Stressed brains need more fuel, derived from glucose, b-vitamins, etc. > Th…

My insight is that psychiatrists, and most doctors, are themselves mentally ill. The vast majority think too highly of themselves. Many think so highly of themselves they do not listen to patients because they view them as less capable. The moment something escapes their understanding, it is labeled as a disease. It's almost the way the ancients would make up gods to explain phenomena they could not explain. IMO, sch…

> or whether he's just reacting in the normal human way to the pressures of life and his own experiences.

R.D. Laing claimed that psychiatric disorders were a normal human reaction to a crazy world.

In my youth, I was on-board with that analysis; but R.D. Laing was discredited, and I cam around to the view that bipolar and schizo were real illnesses, very debilitating, and that make the sufferer very unhappy; and that they benefit from chemical treatment.

It seems R.D. Laing and his ideas are now back in favour.

I don't know what the treatment for schizo is nowadays; they used to treat it with major tranqs - haloperidol, chlorpromazine etc. Major tranqs == major side-effects.

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#107

Post by 01100011 »

meowface wrote: post #75
anyfoo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate a bit? I don't remember hallucinating when growing up[1], so I'm interested what this would look like. I don't doubt that it may still be common without everyone experiencing it. [1] Or ever, really, unless fever dreams when being really sick count. Though, without any reference point to compare to, they really seemed more like intense dreams.

The parent poster mentioned having taken LSD and later experiencing HPPD (hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder). Visual disturbances and distortions are often associated with both. In rare cases it can last for months or years, if the HPPD is severe.

Yeah, although I may have been too aware of my body's normal distortions, it was fairly typical HPPD from what I hear. Walls breathing, tile floors becoming 3d, constant visual snow layered on my vision. I'd say my thinking became somewhat more disorganized after the experience as well. I used to be a fairly fast reader and afterwards I had to slow down and also start re-reading more. I also had a fair amount of panic attacks, even ending up in the ER once when I was 18.

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#108

Post by tcj_phx »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #99
tcj_phx wrote: post #51

All this study says is that stressed teenagers who don't know how to cope become stressed adults who don't know how to cope. People display more psychotic attributes when they don't have the resiliency associated with being a teenager. Emotional stress is the primary cause behind "psychotic breaks" and "schizophrenia" (a worthless diagnosis). Stressed brains need more fuel, derived from glucose, b-vitamins, etc. > Th…

Glad to hear your anecdotes and the success story, sounds like hell. I've found the work of Carl C Pfeiffer interesting, seems to apply to me, histedelia, although pun intended I do take it with a healthy dose of salt. I've seen a lot of professional dismissiveness towards the idea. More recent blog reading material seems to term it as a 'methylation' issue. What I found most 'appealing' about the theory was that he…

Thanks for your comment. I don't have a success story yet, but I'm optimistic. I've learned a lot, and hope to leverage my 'trial by fire' to help others.

> Carl C Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer "considered himself a founder of what [Linus Pauling] named orthomolecular psychiatry" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Pfeiffer_(pharmacologist)

> he blames the substance abuse on the histadelics

hmm? Searching for histadelics: "If you’re lying in bed at night hoping for sleep, but your brain won't stop, this can be the chatter of histamine expressing itself. Histamine is metabolized through methylation. When histamine levels increase, the pool of available methyl donors can be depleted..." [0]

Oh, how helpful. Thanks, I hadn't really looked into this a whole lot. The old anti-histamine drug cyproheptadine is also an anti-serotonin drug, many people have problems with "serotonin syndrome" that are really helped with this safe prescription. Serotonin and histamine must have some important interaction, I'll have to look into this more.

Another interesting quote from [0] (my comments are sometimes my notes that I go back to...):

"An interesting and illustrative anecdote on folate and histamine was observed by the late Carl Pfeiffer, M.D. who was a leader in this field. He reported that he and his colleagues were puzzled that so many histadelic patients relapsed in the summer months. Eventually, the reason was found to lie in the increase of dietary folate that was found in green, leafy salad vegetables that people ate throughout the summer months."

[0] https://www.natures-source.com/blog/post/histadelia-a-primer...

> I'll try this levomefolic acid.

This site seemed useful when I ran across it a few months ago: https://mthfr.net/

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#109

Post by lstodd »

iammisc wrote: post #91
drew1492 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true, or partially true at best. As far as I'm aware, current consensus is that psychedelics are not a causative agent in psychosis or schizophrenia in the absence of predisposing risk factors. 0.5-1% of the population will develop schizophrenia, and for these susceptible individuals, a psychedelic trip can be the event that triggers the full-blown disorder. But so can any other significant psychological…

> But even if psychedelics were a causative risk in some mental disorders, shouldn't we as a society entrust adults to determine their own risk tolerance No, because such allowances are made with the assumption that people act reasonably. GK Chesterton said we should tolerate all thoughts except for the thought that stops thought. We can tolerate all kinds of insane thoughts. The only thought we cannot tolerate is th…

What an absolute bullshit.

Seriously, you propose to deny adults freedom of thought because there are "wrong" thoughts, defined by "reasonability ", which isn't and can't be defined?

In this line of thought your thoughts about banning thinking should be banned.

See where this leads?

Re: Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life

#110

Post by tcj_phx »

denton-scratch wrote: post #104
tcj_phx wrote: post #51

All this study says is that stressed teenagers who don't know how to cope become stressed adults who don't know how to cope. People display more psychotic attributes when they don't have the resiliency associated with being a teenager. Emotional stress is the primary cause behind "psychotic breaks" and "schizophrenia" (a worthless diagnosis). Stressed brains need more fuel, derived from glucose, b-vitamins, etc. > Th…

My GF is diagnosed bipolar, and had a breakdown before Christmas and got sectioned. I didn't see her at that time, but the behaviour that she describes sounds mildly psychotic. She was home by the end of February, on a mood-stabiliser, an anti-psychotic, and a minor tranq. She's off the minor tranq now; she'll be taking the mood-stabiliser until she dies, and it's not much of a problem. But the anti-psychotic is trou…

Thanks for your response. Sorry to hear about your GF's experience. "Sectioned"... .. . Mental Health Act -> you're in the U.K.?

> she'll be taking the mood-stabiliser until she dies

"Mood stabiliser" is a marketing term. My friend was on a "mood stabiliser" until the 2nd to last time she escaped. She didn't have those pills with her when she hopped the fence, so she couldn't take them when she was in hiding at my place. She was perfectly "stable" without the drug, so they dropped it from her treatment program at the next visit & she felt better.

> But the anti-psychotic is troublesome. [...]

Whitaker points out that psychotic patients who do the best are those who are never put on anti-psychotics. Those who do second-best are those who are taken off the anti-psychotic promptly. Those who do the worst are those who are "maintained" on anti-psychotics indefinitely.

Random link to Whitaker's organization: https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/psychiatry-defends-its-...

>> But the doctors kept her on tranquilizers anyways.

> That sounds wrong to me.

I refer to anti-psychotics as tranquilizers, because Robert Whitaker points out that the drugs that got re-labeled as the first generation anti-psychotics were originally used as tranquilizers. Maybe this doesn't accurately reflect how today's patients are told about the medicines they're given, but it's better for being dismissive of their inappropriate use.

> I hope the shrink weans her off the anti-psychotic soon; I don't think she needs it.

You're almost certain to have help with this: look for a psychiatrist for a second opinion, someone with experience with tapering patients off psychiatric medications. Let the guy know that you're advocating for your GF, and are prepared to complain to licensing boards/etc...

I may have been overly-aggressive in my personal efforts. No one cared, but I don't know that a softer, gentler approach might've been more effective.

Since this is all sort of new for you, I'm happy to read your questions and see if I have any insights for you. I've been at this for almost 6 years... You may also find my comment history useful. hth. :)

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