Schizophrenia

[Guest Deep Fried Everything]

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

[impakt]

I've got Aspergers if that counts

 

Yes, Aspergers is the same disease as Schizophrenia.

I've got a runny nose, so ask me anything!

Whether you really have Asperger's or not, impakt, it is very different from schizophrenia. I would like to know how you came up with that comparison, anyway.

 

I even wrote that I was trolling two posts up :\

[Guest abusivegeorge]

I've got Aspergers if that counts

 

Yes, Aspergers is the same disease as Schizophrenia.

I've got a runny nose, so ask me anything!

Whether you really have Asperger's or not, impakt, it is very different from schizophrenia. I would like to know how you came up with that comparison, anyway.

 

I even wrote that I was trolling two posts up :\

 

Yeah dude guy was completely joking, ALTOUGH this ia great example of aspergers in practice, thanks Enter.

[Guest Z_B_Z]

i just read this really interesting article the other day called "the americanization of mental illness". it talks about how the u.s. is americanizing the worlds concept of mental illness and about how thats changing the manifestation of mental illness in other countries. some schizophrenia related bits-

 

NOWHERE ARE THE limitations of Western ideas and treatments more evident than in the case of schizophrenia. Researchers have long sought to understand what may be the most perplexing finding in the cross-cultural study of mental illness: people with schizophrenia in developing countries appear to fare better over time than those living in industrialized nations.

 

This was the startling result of three large international studies carried out by the World Health Organization over the course of 30 years, starting in the early 1970s. The research showed that patients outside the United States and Europe had significantly lower relapse rates — as much as two-thirds lower in one follow-up study. These findings have been widely discussed and debated in part because of their obvious incongruity: the regions of the world with the most resources to devote to the illness — the best technology, the cutting-edge medicines and the best-financed academic and private-research institutions — had the most troubled and socially marginalized patients.

 

Trying to unravel this mystery, the anthropologist Juli McGruder from the University of Puget Sound spent years in Zanzibar studying families of schizophrenics. Though the population is predominantly Muslim, Swahili spirit-possession beliefs are still prevalent in the archipelago and commonly evoked to explain the actions of anyone violating social norms — from a sister lashing out at her brother to someone beset by psychotic delusions.

 

McGruder found that far from being stigmatizing, these beliefs served certain useful functions. The beliefs prescribed a variety of socially accepted interventions and ministrations that kept the ill person bound to the family and kinship group. “Muslim and Swahili spirits are not exorcised in the Christian sense of casting out demons,” McGruder determined. “Rather they are coaxed with food and goods, feted with song and dance. They are placated, settled, reduced in malfeasance.” McGruder saw this approach in many small acts of kindness. She watched family members use saffron paste to write phrases from the Koran on the rims of drinking bowls so the ill person could literally imbibe the holy words. The spirit-possession beliefs had other unexpected benefits. Critically, the story allowed the person with schizophrenia a cleaner bill of health when the illness went into remission. An ill individual enjoying a time of relative mental health could, at least temporarily, retake his or her responsibilities in the kinship group. Since the illness was seen as the work of outside forces, it was understood as an affliction for the sufferer but not as an identity.

 

For McGruder, the point was not that these practices or beliefs were effective in curing schizophrenia. Rather, she said she believed that they indirectly helped control the course of the illness. Besides keeping the sick individual in the social group, the religious beliefs in Zanzibar also allowed for a type of calmness and acquiescence in the face of the illness that she had rarely witnessed in the West.

 

The course of a metastasizing cancer is unlikely to be changed by how we talk about it. With schizophrenia, however, symptoms are inevitably entangled in a person’s complex interactions with those around him or her. In fact, researchers have long documented how certain emotional reactions from family members correlate with higher relapse rates for people who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Collectively referred to as “high expressed emotion,” these reactions include criticism, hostility and emotional overinvolvement (like overprotectiveness or constant intrusiveness in the patient’s life). In one study, 67 percent of white American families with a schizophrenic family member were rated as “high EE.” (Among British families, 48 percent were high EE; among Mexican families the figure was 41 percent and for Indian families 23 percent.)

 

the whole article-

link

Read everything by this man

Dr. Thomas Szasz (said "Zahz)

He's still alive and kicking it--just look at his book titles: "The Myth of Psychotherapy", "The Medicalization of Everyday Life", "The Manufacture of Madness."

Now, he's not some Scientologist hack--he's a fairly renowned psychiatrist himself. Also, much of his books are nearly philosophical in nature i.e. he would never suggest a schizophrenic stop taking their medicine just because he wrote books on the "myth" of mental illness.

 

thanks, ill check him out. what do you think of someone like rd laing?

[impakt]

I've got Aspergers if that counts

 

Yes, Aspergers is the same disease as Schizophrenia.

I've got a runny nose, so ask me anything!

Whether you really have Asperger's or not, impakt, it is very different from schizophrenia. I would like to know how you came up with that comparison, anyway.

 

I even wrote that I was trolling two posts up :\

 

Yeah dude guy was completely joking, ALTOUGH this ia great example of aspergers in practice, thanks Enter.

 

Yes

[Guest tbio2007]

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

 

Both of us seen that coming.

 

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

 

Both of us seen that coming.

[Guest fox]

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

 

Both of us seen that coming.

 

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

 

Both of us seen that coming.

 

wait, aren't you the one writing the essay on schizophrenia? and therefore shouldn't you already be aware that schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder are two completely different disorders? i work with a bunch of people who have schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and other psychotic illnesses. so pm me if you need some general info (no i cannot give you any specifics about individuals i work with), but i could def send some stuff your way.

[impakt]

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

 

Both of us seen that coming.

 

don't worry tbio, neither of you have schizophrenia.

 

Both of us seen that coming.

[Guest mafted]

Alirght. So...

 

Person 1 -

 

I consider a good dear friend. He has struggled all his life and now he seems to have found some form of (safe) balance with meds and spirituality. He believes that he has a direct connection with his guru (who is long dead decades before my friends lifetime). He talks to him constantly. In fact he wont say ANYTHING without asking his guru's approval first. He also does whatever his guru tells him. Yes, he would in fact kill if his guru told him to which is what landed him in a psych. hospital the1st time*. Casual conversation with him for less than 2 minutes, or out in a market somewhere, you likely wouldn't suspect much other than he's an odd guy. 2+ minutes clearly there is a lot going on in his head and it's quite noticeable. He is very impulsive, but controls it well (imo, judging from impulses he has resisted). He does not appear to be talking to himself all the time, and he is very aware that his "guru" is in fact the main thing in his schizo. diagnosis. But knowing makes no difference really.

 

He is a very very, sweet, and sensitive person. But he does not follow the rules of "personal space" and often gets in way to close with people he does and doesn't know well. It can be a little awkward and usually someone has to tell him he's weirding the other person out (male or female). However, he is QUITE AWARE of these common social barriers, and he thinks that they are worthless and shouldn't exist and it makes humans less human (which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I still practice common decency).

 

There is a lot to him, but the thing that stands out the most is that he is really smart. Not rain main smart. But quite intelligent, understanding things he knows little about very quickly and always willing to listen and learn and converse w/o letting his very strong beliefs hinder the conversation.

 

If you ever ask him about his guru, prepare to stand there for a couple hours while he rambles at 200 miles an hour. He also says the meds that he is on slow him down and he is usually faster.

 

*note from above. His guru told him to kill his pet dog he had for years (and loved). He took it out to a random slab of concrete in the middle of a field, picked the dog up, and slammed it on the concrete as hard as he could. He told his parents, they called the cops. He spit on the cops when they came to get him and later tried to kill himself while in the hospital. There was maybe a 2x2 or tiny window in his room and he rammed himself repeatedly against the wall until he broke his glasses and bruised his entire body. He was trying to jump out the window.

 

Most stories he's told me I believe. Why? He doesn't, and can't lie. I have tested this in various ways. He absolutely can NOT lie. His guru will not let him.

 

 

 

....more to come gotta take a break

 

I also know a Hare Krishna who is schiz (and will talk you in to a hole about his guru). Zero intuition, yet intelligent.. how is that possible? it's like the Harvard lawyer who can't work a copy machine, but extreme..

[Blir]

ZAZ. Keeps referring to himself as the dark one or something. You should write a paper on him.

[GORDO]

I believe i have a mild case,

 

i get the feeling people can hear my thoughts, or that i am actually thinking out loud all the time, it sucks but i can manage.