Schizophrenia videos

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I understand your feelings for your brother but try to put yourself in your neighbor's shoes. Just innocent people who happen to be the target of a delusion that isn't true. This is exactly what I am talking about, this sort of delusion. I have had to put up with this sort of thing before and it's just so difficult. Being the target is the difficult part.

I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia IS NOT LINKED TO VIOLENCE!! !! !! There are a few exceptions, such as the ones that act on delusions or hallucinations but they are more likely to be VICTIMS of violence than the ones who commit the crimes. The media does a horrible thing to people with mental illness. They portray them as violent criminals, therefore making everyone hate and fear people with mental illness. I am part of a group where I live and have a lot of friends that are schizophrenic. They are not criminals, but nice innocent people. I have been extremely paranoid for the last few years and again when I was younger (around 12 or 13 am 25 now). Schizophrenics are a danger to them selves though, 10-15% of them commit suicide. I have attempted suicide once (a minor attempt if there is such a thing) and I was cutting myself because I think there are things inside me that are dangerous to my body. Even with the meds, I feel them inside of me but now I deal with them in a better way. I don't really hear voices commanding me to do violent acts or anything like that. The news stations tend to pick on the mentally ill to make them look like they are all terrible people. I would never hurt anyone even though I have been diagnosed with it. I am an expert on this condition and several others because at one time or another I have experienced it, at least according to the doctors. Movies get it wrong too. They think it is multiple personality disorder also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder which they are NOT connected in anyway. The confusion comes from what the word schizophrenia means, it means "a split mind" or something like that. In reality it is a split from reality, not a split personality. There are times where I think that I know more than the doctors because some of them even admitted it! I am a complex case, I don't fit into anything perfectly, it seems to be a little bit of everything but not the whole thing. If you met me now you would think there is nothing wrong with me, not even my autism. I have come so far, especially in the last 3 months. Three months ago I was suicidal, cutting myself, having thought insertion from the government and aliens, I would "lose" my ability to speak properly either it would come out all jumbled up or not real words at all (the disorganized part of it), I would occsionally go catatonic and a few other things. Then people knew something was wrong but not now. My art is taking off, and I am becoming a success, something that doesn't happen often with someone diagnosed with both autism and schizoaffective disorder. 70% of those people live in poverty and never make anything of themselves. Maybe they might have simple jobs like a fast food restaurant, or a grocery store. But I am in 2 possibly 3 galleries and the third one is a high class one, I am selling my products in several stores, I do art shows and pet shows (because I draw pets and other animals) and have one of the world's largest selection of animals on stuff. So there is hope for people with mental illness if the news didn't make us look so bad.

I don't think a schizophrenic is a jerk, it's the disorder that causes the paranoia and the paranoia that causes them to be a**holes. lol.

Nooo... the paranoia causes them to try to defend themselves from an imagined threat, or try to fight someone they think is an enemy, or do something they are convinced won't hurt anyone even though it does...

How would you like it if your neighbor was planning to kill you? You can't very well sit and do nothing in that sort of a situation. Most would call the police or barricade the house; but it could be quite understandable to get pro-active, especially if the neighbor started yelling at you for letting your dog dig up his garden or something.

Think about this. If you have a delusion, you KNOW it's real. It feels real to you, emotionally, and it makes sense to you. Your reaction would be the same as if it really were real.

Paranoid people make me paranoid:((
Is it true that just because your paranoid don't mean they're not after you or are you paranoid even if they are after you?

The question I have about paranoia has to do more with real danger. If you are in real danger, is being "afraid" paranoia, and does being afraid do any good? Wouldn't it be easier to act without the fear making you nervous and worried, anxious, etc. ? That's why I think you can have paranoia with or without real danger and it doesn't help either situation. It just makes the situation that is causing the fear more difficult to resolve. I could be mistaken.

I think a short episode of anxiety/fear is needed to alert one to danger then it should stop so it's easier to avoid the danger or get out of the situation that's causing it in the first place.

I am sure I was generalizing and now I feel kinda bad because some of you have schizoaffective and schizophrenia. My posts are not directed at you, or if they appeared to be, I didn't mean for them to be.
My posts are directed at the ones I have known IRL. It was a mistake to lump everyone together, granted.
I want to share the one thing that happened over and over that left me so cynical. It involved these neighbors who had family history of schizophrenia, several members with it.
When they lived next door, during the night, people, I don't know who, were always outside and I have no problem with that. It's a free country that in itself doesn't bother me.
What bothered me is that, during the night, these neighbor's stuff would get vandalized, car windows smashed, various property destroyed. Who was doing all this I have no clue. They filed reports with the police. They accused me of doing it. I was definitely not the one bothering them yet they told all the other people who live around here it was me. They were defaming me, IMO.
This had been going on for years so I started looking out the window more, at night, whenever the neighborhood dogs were making a fuss. When I did look out to try to get a glimpse at this mysterious prowler they all claimed, at times, was me, other times, other neighbors (their accusations had a way of switching from person to person, whomever they thought was out to get them at the time, or just anybody they percieved to have issues, and since I was oppositional/defiant as a child that gave them ample excuse to automatically think this was me, tell the police it was me although there was not any evidence and it wasn't)
To get on with it, every single time I looked out the window, I saw them outside. The only ones I saw at night were them. No one else. They were always "prowling" (as they called it). So, I began to wonder...how can someone have a chance to vandalize their property when they are outside all night? I also began to wonder something else...were they vandalizing their own property and then saying someone else did it. If you knew them you could see them doing this, trust me.
And then I was the one getting paranoid
Weirdest thing of all. They moved out and as soon as they did..all the dog barks, the prowling, the vandalism, it all mysteriously stopped. It happens on occasion now but rarely. Before, the dogs barked every single night, most the night through. It was every single night and that isn't hyperbole.
I don't know if they were the ones causing all this but why did it all end once they moved out?
Now, there's new neighbors and all these issues do not happen with them. None of it happens.

Possibilities--
Insurance fraud, or some other kind of con game. Wouldn't be related to their schizophrenia.
Somebody wanted them to move out of the neighborhood and was trying to intimidate them.
Somebody was harassing them for some other reason--a bad divorce, a falling-out among friends, that kind of thing.
They wanted attention and this was their way of getting it. Strikes me as more of a personality-disorder thing.
Somebody in the house had multiple personalities, rather than schizphrenia. (You never know... it could happen.)
It could have been some way of deliberately annoying you--maybe THEY wanted YOU to move out. Some people just get annoyed for no real reason.
Somebody in their house could be doing it, and then either forgetting or not telling anybody else. The others would then think somebody else had done it, and naturally blame the neighbors.

I don't know that a lot of that has much to do with schizophrenia, other than the possibility of somebody trying to get rid of the "crazies", or maybe command hallucinations or paranoid delusions. (Property damage does happen once in a while due to those things.) It doesn't sound like a good situation, but it could have nothing to do with their mental illness problems, or else be something they couldn't have helped.

Or they could just be jerks who happened to have schizophrenia...

I've had people do things to themselves and claim I did it before. I don't know what on earth drives that, I always thought it was just plain old bullying, just like the girl in school who used to hit me and then run to the teachers and claim I was hitting her. (I've always double-checked such claims against witnesses when they happen just in case, and everyone I've checked with has seen exactly what I did.) So far nobody who's done that to me had an official diagnosis of schizophrenia, but geez it's awful regardless.