If you have caution and paranoia about potentially being schizophrenic, does that mean it's less likely to manifest due to extreme self-awareness? I have been diagnosed with BPD, psychosis (sometimes) and depression, but I think I'm too aware when it comes to shizhophrenia.
Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
321–330 of 422 posts
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#322Earlier 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.
Alcohol is pretty bad for your brain so I would not be surprised. And while it's not really a hallucinogen itself (comparatively) I've heard some pretty hellish stories of severe alcohol withdrawals. Just going without sleep (completely) for several days can cause hallucinations and stress - and this is a common symptom of more serious withdrawal.
I would imagine other drugs which produce severe (and stressful) withdrawal could also trigger this. The stress alone cannot be good.
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The aldehydes that are produced from drinking alcohol heighten the risk for schizophrenia if you carry certain genetics. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26941382/
Interesting - we've known these are very bad for you for years but I had not heard of a direct link
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, and I just wanted to acknowledge and thank you for staying with your partner. I’ve never been able to get someone to stay through my illness with me through my life. But that’s probably because I am man. I was on so many meds. I can’t even count them. Now I’m not on any, and I consider myself essentially cured after living with it for 35 years. If she has triggers, that m…
> If she has triggers, that means she does not have a disease , it means she’s a different person that sensitive to different things This is not the medical consensus. Schizophrenia, along with many other mental disorders, are well known to have a complex interplay with not only background genetic/chemical factors, but also the psychological conditions of the patient -- stressors like homelessness, drug use, and lack…
> homelessness, drug use, and lack of sleep very much can trigger psychotic episodes.
Yes, I don’t understand your disagreement, that’s the point I was making. That for some of us these things will cause schizophrenia for others. Maybe some other illness like lupus. The problem isn’t the gene. The problem is the environment. If you’re not homeless, don’t use drugs and get good sleep And you don’t get schizophrenia, an we say schizophrenia is a disease? Or is it a symptom of environment that is not fitting for the individual?
And in fact, schizophrenia is not a disease, it’s classified as a disorder.
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that in different parts of the world the voices can be helpful instead of intrusive makes me feel like the drugs are not the problem but how external forces view the drugs or if we really wanna talk like crazy people how the drugs influence the people around you even if they do not directly know you are using the drugs.
You’re right and wrong. The voices are quite real, we’re not alone in our own minds, and the it is the greatest taboo of society to discuss. It’s really sad, all of these sharp modernists determined upon the cult of science explanations for everything. Those who refuse to believe our thoughts are not all our own. That much mysticism is rooted in something that merely cannot be explained by the logical empirical mind.…
Questions of self-identity aren't scientific questions. Science, or experience more generally, can't tell you who you are, or indeed, even tell you if there's one of "you" in your head or many. If you assert that you are not the same person you were five seconds ago, that's a scientifically unassailable claim - as well as impossible to prove to others.
So no answer to the question "who am I" is strictly speaking true or false, in an objective sense. But that doesn't mean all self-interpretations are equally good. Some self-interpretations can be very destructive. It doesn't take much imagination, or reading history books, to see how defining yourself to be multiple persons/personalities can be very destructive.
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#326Random layperson musing: I wonder if schizophrenia (or perhaps psychosis) could be in some way analogous to the LLM temperature function becoming disregulated? I mean, what is the extreme opposite of psychosis? If it is matter of degree, which it seems to be, then there is probably a tuning mechanism. Perhaps too little and you fail to account for factors that might not be apparent but might be guessed or inferred, t…
There was a theory that autism and schizophrenia were opposite ends of a spectrum, but it's fallen into disfavor. The theory went that autism produces mechanical, rigid thought patterns while schizophrenia takes free association too far. I think it is possible to be diagnosed with both schizophrenia and autism which is why the theory is not considered anymore.
They are. Autism is normal, and neurotypicality is simply the socially acceptable/expected level of insanity.
I know I have unconventional beliefs, but the reason is the opposite of what people describe here. There are no patterns and commonly accepted beliefs seem unjustified, and crazy. So I need to find my own answers, but it's difficult. I think that people used to be more like this until recently, and people messed it up because iron is toxic, and heavy metals belong in the brain. I become more and more like this as I keep taking them, and it's better. I admit my IQ has probably dropped, but it's better this way.
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s really sad, all of these sharp modernists determined upon the cult of science explanations for everything. That which you try to attack and downplay as "cult of science explanations" is actually something extremely simple: you need to show something, anything at all, that actually supports your beliefs. How can you tell something exists or works as you think it does if you are unable to show it? Do you expect…
Simply put the observer affect shows that somethings cannot be measured without causing change to the system hence may not be verifable. Maybe the only way to make enough random looney until they outnumber the "sane" individuals. The only issues being how do you organize the new pyramid structure which will evidently be formed by this new "religious" organization?
> Simply put the observer affect shows that somethings cannot be measured without causing change to the system hence may not be verifable.
That's fantastic, but fails to provide any meaningful input. I mean, the whole point is to have a process that allows you to understand and predict how the universe works. If you formulate s hypothesis that is impossible to verify, how can you tell if it matches reality or if it's pure nonsense? And more importantly, what's the value of a system of beliefs that explains nothing and does not match any observable aspect of reality? Is the only value you see in that the uncertain smugness of being "right", whatever that means, in spite of always being wrong?
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
She will break down, then she'll get strong meds and she'll change unrecognizably. Think twice before making a long relationship with this person. You'll get a lot of stress and eventually she'll change drastically. Schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, so think twice about making a children as well.
Please don't downvote or flag this person unless you have a family member (or better, family member s ) with schizophrenia.
I have family with diagnosis. I upvoted the comment.
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for the above person, but what the OP of this comment thread said also tracks with my own experience of schizoaffective disorder: when I'm psychotic, the pattern matching part of my brain goes into overdrive and not only does my brain erroneously fill in the blanks in sensory input (causing hallucinations), it does the same thing on an abstract or logical level with ideas and people. It's easy to fall i…
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My brother has schizophrenia. He has never met or interacted with any jewish people, and lives in a part of the world where they have no influence. He still fell entirely for online antisemitism and will text me insane messages about the typical theories.
Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the genetics wouldn't have significantly changed over such a short period, but the environment has.
Genetics isn't all that matters. Things like malnutrition (and a lot more things) very much also do.
I think the point is that the evolution of human intelligence reached a point that enabled us, over evolutionarily short timescales, to develop an environment (social structures etc.) that broke evolution as it was – the meaning of "fittest" is now rather arbitrary in human context.