What is it like to have schizophrenia?

[Emryl]

What do they sound like? Is it mainly a boy, a girl or not specified?? What is it telling you?
How often do you hear it? Is it shouting your thoughts? Do you speak to it and it replies to you? Do you SEE where the voices are coming from? Does it speak it your language?

I just always wanted to know what its like to have schizophrenia. :confused:

[MoveAlong]

I would guess that it would be very spontaneous (I don't have it)
I think any of those things could happen, and I haven't read anything that says which gender it occurs most in.

People with Schizophrenia believe the stuff they see and hear. It like a major hallucination. I dunno much about it but I should read more.

[Sapphire]

I don't have it, but I know people who do.
The gender tends to differ from person to person.
Some see people who are not there (for instance God)
Some voices are friendly, hostile, religious.
There really doesn't seem to be a limit to these sorts of things though the most common hallucinations (audio and visual) are religious or the individual perceives themselves to be very important (secret spy type theme) They tend to occur at times of stress.

[Φρανκομβριτ]

read the sticky 'Read this, it explains what scitzo is'

-Locking-

[Maverick]

There's nothing wrong with this thread. The sticky is mainly for informational purposes only while this thread is asking for personal perceptions and experiences with schizophrenia.

-Unlocked-

[DomSoulWraith]

[QUOTE=~Tortured Beauty~;162200]
Some see people who are not there (for instance God)
Some voices are friendly, hostile, religious.
QUOTE]

Very true. Almost al of the patients in my phych unit are talking to God. It's definite in their mind. "I'm talking to God and this person is just jealous" is sometimes what they say to me. Most of the time in bad cases they can't even hearr me. I would have to almost scream to overpower the voices in their minds. I have patients I have to communicate to by writing on a notepad. In some places they have no mental health systme. Vermont, for example, has almost no mental health phsychiatric ward in the state. Maybe one small one with around 30 beds, but almost none. It's very complicated and almost impossible to comprehend without having it.

[healthy]

as far as i know about this disease it's one of the most complex of all mental health disorders and involves a severe, chronic, and disabling disturbance of the brain. it's also the most chronic and disabling of the severe mental disorders. Typically develops in the late teens or early twenties. The overt symptoms are hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing visions), delusions (false beliefs about commonly held views of reality) and bizarre thought patterns.

[angryhalfdemon]

I could tell you a bit about schizophrenia. I have great insight into it.. :P seeing as I developed it last year after a very traumatic chain of stressful events.

(^_^ I'm better now, but still crazy)

Well, when I was extremely crazy, I had the delusion that a demon (with no name. he never told me it) was living inside my head, sort of connected to my spirit. He tormented me with visions, nightmares, halucinations of my friends. He spoke to me with their voices when I was alone, and I answered back all the time. He sometimes spoke with his own voice (which was pretty creepy *o*) and told me to do bad things, usually violent things. I ignored most of them, but he tricked me once by telling me physical pain would cover up my emotional pain, and I started hurting myself.

I also had many periods where I lost control of my emotions and became destructively spontaneous, and other periods where I became a dead shell void of any emotion. I wrote dark things in a diary with my blood.

I remember having the desire constantly to not do anything, just sit and think. I retreated into my mind a lot, where I enjoyed many wild flights of fantasy where I was a demon that used it's blood to kill everyone around me...

I was very sick. I went to a psychiatrist though, now I can control my disorder (^_^ and i did it without meds too!!!)

But yeah, Schizophrenia is very twisted. And I agree, there is a religious aspect to it too.

[BlueStar]

What do they sound like? Is it mainly a boy, a girl or not specified?? What is it telling you?
It can be either sex. It's usually female. Lately, it's 'the narrator', telling me what I'm doing. Sometimes its someone degrading me, telling me that I suck, that I should die, that I have no friends. A lot of the time its just someone random telling me random things that pop into my head. Also, most of the time its a male voice telling me "they've found out all about you. you're in a lot of trouble now. escape. get away". I'm paranoid schizophrenic, by the way.

How often do you hear it?
Unmedicated all the time. Medicated, very rarely.

Is it shouting your thoughts?
Yes.

Do you speak to it and it replies to you?
Yes.

Do you SEE where the voices are coming from?
No, I only hear things.

Does it speak it your language?
Yes, they speak english.