Most active commenters
  • motorest(4)
  • have-a-break(3)
  • overu589(3)

←back to thread

262 points Anon84 | 21 comments | | HN request time: 1.656s | source | bottom
Show context
suzzer99 ◴[] No.44408657[source]
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 was adopted. I do know that she was "microdosing" and macro-dosing hallucinogens for years. Mostly acid and shrooms as far as I know. She followed the band Phish around with a group of friends. I can't imagine most of those shows were sober.

We've also seen a few incidents of paranoia when she was under the influence of drugs/alcohol going back decades. So it feels like this was always there in some form, but maybe the estrogen was holding it back before menopause hit. I read an article about women who get schizophrenia after menopause that suggested this could be the case.

Anyway, whenever I see wellness healers and the like extolling the virtues of psilocybin, I want to point out that there could be a downside. We don't know that all of her hallucinogen use over the years contributed to this. But it's certainly a possibility.

replies(16): >>44408738 #>>44409140 #>>44410914 #>>44410949 #>>44411914 #>>44412372 #>>44412432 #>>44412769 #>>44414552 #>>44414645 #>>44414752 #>>44415014 #>>44415642 #>>44416610 #>>44417767 #>>44424314 #
winrid ◴[] No.44408738[source]
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.
replies(7): >>44408770 #>>44408778 #>>44409003 #>>44412493 #>>44413494 #>>44413840 #>>44417784 #
tony69 ◴[] No.44408778[source]
In Europe this (some rec drugs bring out latent schizophrenia) is taught in med school as a “known fact” (source: psychiatrist friend) so it’s well beyond “starting to seem”
replies(4): >>44409006 #>>44410648 #>>44410707 #>>44412235 #
1. have-a-break ◴[] No.44410707[source]
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.
replies(2): >>44411364 #>>44411804 #
2. overu589 ◴[] No.44411364[source]
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.

Readers will be so upset when a perspective challenges their rehashed psychological diatribes as mountains of lies. They got “help” damn you. Their friends (“real people”) are hurt by the craze and they’re more hurt when someone says “modern science and society is wrong.”

The true Truth is whatever existential reality reflects, not what we are prepared to understand. We are not alone in our own minds, we have collectively known this since before our generations and the “straights” of society are so adamant of their self possessed lies they will condemn those insights as crackpot crazy.

replies(3): >>44411921 #>>44414330 #>>44415988 #
3. Xmd5a ◴[] No.44411804[source]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41980986

What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads?

replies(1): >>44415123 #
4. motorest ◴[] No.44411921[source]
> 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 everyone should just believe anything anyone says? What is there to tell lunatics and snake oil salesmen apart from those who are actually onto something?

> Those who refuse to believe our thoughts are not all our own.

Ok, you formed an hypothesis. Now tell me, how do you go about showing others that things do work the way you think they do? How can they check them for themselves? What do you expect from others?

> That much mysticism is rooted in something that merely cannot be explained by the logical empirical mind.

If you cannot explain your beliefs, how do you expect others to just take your unverified and unsubstantiated claims as something worth considering over any random claim from any random loony?

replies(4): >>44412422 #>>44413019 #>>44413437 #>>44415369 #
5. ◴[] No.44412422{3}[source]
6. xyproto ◴[] No.44413019{3}[source]
> If you cannot explain your beliefs, how do you expect others to just take your unverified and unsubstantiated claims as something worth considering over any random claim from any random loony?

Even without an explanation, you can use statistics to find the fruits of the beliefs, though. Does 100 people believe in not working and rather join a cult that worships the watermelon god? Fine! How did that work out for them in the span of 3 generations?

I think that some beliefs can have value and merit, just based on measures of quality of life and society.

replies(2): >>44413442 #>>44413670 #
7. Der_Einzige ◴[] No.44413437{3}[source]
The only "ish" evidence for this kind of raving is this stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality

replies(2): >>44413580 #>>44414952 #
8. motorest ◴[] No.44413442{4}[source]
> Even without an explanation, you can use statistics to find the fruits of the beliefs, though.

I hope you are not serious.

> Does 100 people believe in not working and rather join a cult that worships the watermelon god?

Hundreds of loonies making nonsense statements that no one can verify is collective lunacy that adds no value. It only takes a single person to show something exists and works to add substance to a claim. If all those loonies push a belief that none of them can support, they are fools.

This sort of absurdness would mean absolute morons, such as those in Heaven's Gate cult, should be taken seriously in their claims about aliens and comets. Let that sink in.

replies(1): >>44413801 #
9. motorest ◴[] No.44413580{4}[source]
> The only "ish" evidence for this kind of raving is this stuff:

That is far from even coming close to qualify as evidence. At best they are unverified hypothesis.

10. card_zero ◴[] No.44413670{4}[source]
So like Matthew 6:28, "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin", and something about how they're as glorious as King Solomon despite not having clothes or jobs. The religion in question did OK, despite this bad advice.
replies(1): >>44414814 #
11. overu589 ◴[] No.44413801{5}[source]
> It only takes a single person to show something exists and world to add substance to a claim

You cannot be serious. Proofs take thousands of man hours and decades of railing against well entrenched beliefs such as yours (that you would see it and accept it readily if true.)

This is one of those things that cannot be proven to more than one person at a time through anything other than a personal revelation. Everyone everywhere will respond exactly as you now do regardless of “poof” or the severity and consequence of prolonged incredulity. This is one of those situations where you must undeceive yourself. Observe humanity and your own life. All except those who actively deceive themselves will admit science is as close to understanding our minds as horoscopes.

I do not criticize your doubts, I criticize that you think truth and reality are so easily accepted by the mind who “refuses to believe.”

12. safety1st ◴[] No.44414330[source]
I don't hear any voices in my head aside from my own. Are you saying that they're present and I'm pretending they're not?

I get impulses. Science knows about and studies these. But I don't hear any voices.

replies(1): >>44414768 #
13. overu589 ◴[] No.44414768{3}[source]
Every network is different (though common themes exist).

Firstly yes, they’re probably there and not revealing themselves (which is most typical.) They will either reveal themselves for some purpose or not at all (I had caused a stir, and a “hooligan army” went ahead and “recruited” me.)

Well after full immersion I looked back through my life and saw I was not really alone. Little things, some hypnogogia here and there, odd games they play, and other nonsense suppressed or blown off. Most are never aware or comprehend any of it. Those that do, what would they say to you? Look at these responses. And I know what is going on. Most others are desperate.

The noisy networks are usually those of prisons. You will hear very similar accounts among many who have done small stints. Enough for a network to take an interest, not long enough to be coerced into eternal silence. I have never been to prison though you can guess what city I’m from if I say “the most controversial prison system in America up to a decade ago.”

Prisons full of slave (coerced) networks is no doubt how the humanity level horrors began. The streets (and all humanity) are saturated with these various networks. Plenty of accounts by others throughout time, you have ignored them. The prisons and the black ops military power cults are the worst. Don’t worry, those are busy in Ukraine and Gaza. What do you think these would do for fun?

Power extorts ordinary power infrastructures of humanity. No one is going to talk about it.

There is a “you don’t talk about it” element. I don’t care. You cannot make me care. I so don’t care I take pains to be a contrarian. I make people f-off. I do not capitulate. It doesn’t make me “special”, I’m of the few who talk about it, even if it does no good. Let it then be for an account. To remain silent in the face of a tyranny of evil is to be complicit. Complicity be damned. These want to play God among you, and they extort each other for this ends.

And I suppose I should risk a flaggable wall of text to say there are “families” who have protected and guided us throughout our generations. Like all of modernity these are falling apart and cannot compete with the devastating industrialized efficiency of prison networks.

14. gweinberg ◴[] No.44414814{5}[source]
Sure, because most Christians don't take Jesus' teachings too seriously. You shouldn't slap a Christian (or anyone) on the cheek for no reason, but if you were to, the odds of him responding by inviting you to slap the other cheek are pretty slim.
replies(2): >>44415173 #>>44415533 #
15. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44414952{4}[source]
There's a long human history of beliefs like that in spiritualism, animism, etc. People believed they could hear the voices of their dead ancestors, spirits, etc for example.

I wouldn't describe this as "raving", this is someone who has had very real personal experiences. To them, they happened just as much as the sun rises and sets. I don't know what I'm getting at other than have some patience and compassion for people who experience distressing things that they themselves cannot explain.

16. ◴[] No.44415123[source]
17. card_zero ◴[] No.44415173{6}[source]
Heh. Probably just as well.
18. have-a-break ◴[] No.44415369{3}[source]
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?

replies(1): >>44416124 #
19. have-a-break ◴[] No.44415533{6}[source]
What about arresting and sending to the mental hospital multiple times to deal with psychopathic caregivers whose purpose is ultimately to make you homeless?

A good Christian or any good person would viewing that scene would actively fight to make the person sufferings life better instead of feeding into the false "caregivers" or more aptly put abusers who are more interested in robbing people than improving their lives.

20. vintermann ◴[] No.44415988[source]
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.

21. motorest ◴[] No.44416124{4}[source]
> 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?