Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

psychiatrymargins.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 422 posts

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#71

Post by robocat »

Throwaway42754 wrote: post #21

I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much. For me psychosis feels like pattern matching going on extreme overdrive, while at the same time memory goes to shit. It's truly an awful illness, and what's worse is that the current medical treatments are bad. I've been fortunate enough where I can get by on a low dose olanza…

> I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease

From article:

  Increasingly, researchers consider schizophrenia to be a “meta-syndrome,” encompassing multiple symptom dimensions/clusters and arising from intersections of diverse underlying mechanisms
So while autoimmune might be the cause for some people, other people have other causes?

As humans we look for a simple A therefore B story. Even then most people in my experience are either (a) poor at spotting cause and effect or (b) go into denial e.g. many political arguments

> kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services

Have to? Do you mean you would want to? Or is there some compulsory force where you are?

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#72

Post by 11217mackem »

thephyber wrote: post #33
11217mackem wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is born with schizophrenia.

Parent most likely meant you are born with the predisposition for it to present when it usually does.

I also happened to have a schizophrenic father. So I looked into this one a little bit :D

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#73

Post by absurdo »

As expected a lot of the comments here are anecdotes. I’m assuming there exists a class of highly technical articles that get posted regularly that incite ancillary discussion, but no real contribution involving the article.

For me, I don’t like that this is about a mathematical model. I don’t want a mathematical model. I like the theory, and I think it’s interesting. I don’t need further digressions into a model. I want to see the real thing. Prove it, replicate it, codify it.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#74

Post by jamal-kumar »

crtified wrote: post #47
winrid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia it's starting to seem like drugs that seem harmless like marijuana (specifically THC?) can definitely bring it out. At least, that's what seemed to happen to my mother and another friend.

I wonder if alcohol is one of the seemingly harmless drugs whose abuse catalyzes such conditions in susceptible people. Because, if so, then alcohol's ubiquity in society would imply that it is probably responsible (in the sense that substances are responsible) for most such conversions.

It's kind of worse with alcohol because the psychosis associated with that as an exacerbating factor is more related to alcoholic encephalopathy, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome etc... much of which can be brought on with self medicating with alcohol. Definitely a component but more like psychosis and mania drive you to drink because these experiences are awful more than a causative factor that's been proven

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459134/

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#75

Post by bettercallsalad »

As someone who is currently dating someone with history of psychosis, I have vested interest.

90% of the time she is truly the most amazing, compassionate, full of life and thoughtful person one can ever meet. Then there are times when it’s truly awful. She can barely sleep at all, leaves house without telling anyone seemingly thinking the presence of third person around. And she strongly feels others around are judging her hard, giving non verbal communication. It’s truly awful.

I didn’t know to the full extent her symptoms when we started dating. But one thing that was clear was she could barely sleep at night. Or sleep too long. There was no “normal sleep cycle”.

Over the time, some triggers are noticeable. Places with crowds, bright lighting, or sometimes stress at work. Aripaprazole so far seems to be holding up, no one knows for how long. I hear meds become resistant at some point. I don’t know what future holds. Kids are probably not an option. Although she very much wants it.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#76

Post by superb_dev »

comrade1234 wrote: post #57
suzzer99 wrote: post #9

I've lost one of my best friends to what I think is schizophrenia. We don't know because she's cut off all contact with friends and family and refuses to see a doctor. It's definitely psychosis. She thinks she's in some kind of Truman show that she calls "the game". Since none of her friends or family are willing to admit to it, then we must be in on it. We don't know her full family medical history because her dad w…

You don't develop schizophrenia in your 50s. It sounds like you track her behavior and habits quite closely?

> It sounds like you track her behavior and habits quite closely?

No it doesn’t. It sounds like they’re really concerned about a loved one who went off the deep end.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#77

Post by SoftTalker »

jjallen wrote: post #45
wycy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to do embryo pre-screening for something that’s not genetic? Or do you think it still is genetic despite also thinking you know the specific trigger in your case? Edit: are you thinking it’s genetic, but exacerbated by weed?

Everything is at least partially genetic. We have a friend whose sister has it and she went to genetics counselors before having kids. They told her that because her sister has it that her kids had a 20% likelihood of developing it. Obviously 20% is way higher than normal.

Be sure you understand what this means. 20% higher chance (of a 1% baseline) is vastly different from a 20% chance.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#78

Post by sakoht »

damion6 wrote: post #23

Schizophrenia is genetic. So you're born with it. This makes zero sense. Maybe you mean shizo-effective which usually has to do with traumas.

The odd thing is that among identical twins when one has it the other has it roughly 50% of the time. Which suggests that having the generic basis still requires something external, and it is common but not too common.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#79

Post by jazzyjackson »

mandmandam wrote: post #66
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have family with that. The most striking thing, is the absolute certainty of the thinking. They feel as if their thinking is crystal-clear, and that they are the only one that "sees the patterns." Currently, they're doing well. I know of others, that are not so fortunate. It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. I've no…

> It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. This isn't entirely true, and it's a dangerous misconception. High THC, low CBD cannabis wouldn't be recommended, but that's exactly what making cannabis illegal selects for. High CBD, low/zero THC cannabis, on the other hand, will probably be one of the paths to treatment if we ever get over our Reefer Madness and pharm…

Legal competition had lead to much higher concentrations of THC than was normal in the bad old days of smoking Mexican brick weed, not to mention the pure accessibility of buying 96% THC vapes wherever you go in unlimited amounts as opposed to being happy you could get your hands on an ounce.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#80

Post by Natsu »

bettercallsalad wrote: post #75

As someone who is currently dating someone with history of psychosis, I have vested interest. 90% of the time she is truly the most amazing, compassionate, full of life and thoughtful person one can ever meet. Then there are times when it’s truly awful. She can barely sleep at all, leaves house without telling anyone seemingly thinking the presence of third person around. And she strongly feels others around are judg…

Did you ever check for sleep apnea? The tests for it can be done at home now if anxiety would otherwise be a concern.
Post reply on HN