Benign hallucinations?

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Delirium is a weird, weird thing. (Had it this past year during an intestinal and urinary blockage with liver problems, they don't know which part caused the delirium. But I was seeing people appear and disappear, and these weird pastel things dancing around the ceiling, and hearing this weird sickly-sweet sort of music that went along with it, and then black things were flying out of the fan. As I was coming out of it I thought the pastel things were originating from pastel things on the ceiling tiles and just exaggerating them. A few days later I saw there was nothing pastel on the ceiling tiles )

This is the problem with the entire category of schizophrenia: It doesn't actually mean anything, but people act like it does. Then they act as if there is "real schizophrenia," and then all those other people who meet the diagnostic criteria but aren't "real schizophrenics" because they don't fit whatever their (narrow, inconsistent with the criteria) view of "real schizophrenia" is. Nothing in the criteria for schizophrenia says that it has to last forever, and in fact some of the notations that can go along with it can involve "full remission" (i.e. not even "residual" symptoms).

The woman I'm talking about who had dialysis, had classic, severe signs of what's modernly described as schizophrenia, many of them what are known as "first-rank" symptoms, as in the symptoms that are supposed to differentiate schizophrenia from other conditions. (Not that I believe in it, but if you're going to believe in a thing called schizophrenia, these things are absolutely classic.)

She had several voices keeping up a constant commentary upon her actions and talking to each other about her. She believed she could force people to do what she wanted to just by thinking about it. She had behavior that would be easily described as bizarre and disorganized. She had speech patterns that were considered indicative of a "thought disorder", "knights-move thinking", and all that. Basically, she had almost every trait possible, and there was no reason to consider her any different from anyone else with it.

When she came back to her psychiatrist and told him there were no more voices, no distortions, no hallucinations, no difficulty thinking clearly, the psychiatrist thought she was trying to play a joke on him.

There's actually an entire movement of people who have fully or partially recovered from problems that psychiatrists told them were absolutely and definitively going to require lifelong medication. Many of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia, many of them based on symptoms as classic as the woman above.

So you're basically insisting, that not only is there this thing called "real schizophrenia", but that many people who meet the criteria for schizophrenia absolutely and in all ways, aren't "really schizophrenic", because their symptoms stopped at some point (even though there are diagnostic provisions for people whose symptoms stop).

BTW, it's not even necessarily the official position on it:

http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2004/08_01_Jeste.htm

Emphasis mine.



And these were patients, like the woman I mentioend, with diagnoses of chronic schizophrenia. 8% is a pretty high number even though it's stil a minority. (I was actually told when I was diagnosed that a third of people get better without meds, and some of that third recover.)

The National Empowerment Center (who are a legit organization I've had several contacts with) have a page here:

http://www.power2u.org/articles/recover ... ories.html

Of recovery stories from assorted things that they were told would be permanent.

Basically... these things aren't always permanent. And schizophrenia itself... even psychiatry is realizing it's not one condition by now. I don't mean the same way autism isn't, either -- autism at least has more consistency than inconsistency cognitively. Schizophrenia is a nebulous category whose traits are decided mostly according to three things:

1) Whatever Bleuler thought were all caused by the same cognitive problem a century ago. (Despite him not showing good evidence they were all caused by one thing.)

2) Whatever has been subtracted out of that category (autism, many medical causes of catatonia, etc), is no longer in that category, and things are written in such a way that even if said people would meet the criteria, they're no longer in that category. (So essentially political reaosns.)

3) Whatever observations and changes people have made, since Bleuler, but without ever realizing that starting with a foundation like Bleuler's assumptions is standing on very shaky ground indeed.

The problem is really with #2 -- where anything that doesn't fit someone's idea of it, gets pulled out of the definition, but the core concept itself is never changed. You'd think that if all these other things can look exactly like it, then the idea of it must be somehow flawed at the core, but it's always, whenever they find out a cause for one thing, "Oh then that must not be the real thing," and then more and more things get pulled out without ever questioning the central definition. And you seem pretty happy to go along with that process.

I know people who have recovered from various traits that get them labeled schizophrenic though. One of them (not the one described above) says that she is so normal now that when she tells people she had every single symptom of what is now called schizophrenia, for years, they don't believe a word of what she says. They think she made it up to mess with their heads or something.

So what would you call all these people, these supposedly in that one study 8% of people with schizophrenia labels even, that have all the traits of schizophrenia, are treated like chronic schizophrenics, are called that by everyone who sees them, etc., and who end up not having them for their entire lives?

Also, why is it, you think, that the DSM has these differentiations:

Classification of longitudinal course (can be applied only after at least 1 year has elapsed since the initial onset of active-phase symptoms):



Why do you think they differentiate "partial" and "full" remission?

That's the same thing I thought when I read that. She should definitely get checked out for epilepsy.

I told my mom about the temporal lobe epilepsy thing. She's quite concerned.

almost all of this is exactly whats happened to me in the past. the falling sensation only ever happens if ive fallen asleep in class though, im sure its very comical to see me stomp my feet and kind of shudder as i sit up really fast XD but no ones ever said anything, so i thought i just hallucinated having stomped my feet or shuddering o_o; the rotten eggs, i dont think ive smelled before. the invisable bugs freak me out, because i know i have spiders in my room (i keep them cause they eat the other bugs i dont like) im always hearing my mom calling me and then going and asking her if she did or didnt, were used to it. a long time ago, back when i lived in okinawa japan, i was 4 years old and my mom and stepdad took me to the beach for the first time, and my stepdad walked me out into the shallow water and then tripped me. i then had the hallucination that my eyes were open underwater and there were tropical fish staring at me, amazed, and they danced in circles (not human-like dancing, more like swimming and twirling in circles) and there was silly cutesy music, and then they swam away in a panick when my stepdad pulled me out of the water.

currently, ive had this taste of alfredo sauce in my mouth all day, even after brushing my teeth (the toothpaste tasted like it) even after motuhwash (the mouthwash tasted lik it) even after eating beef stroganoff (it tasted like it too, but with a slight meat taste) even my breath seems to smell like the taste of alfredo sauce to me :/ its very strange, as i havent eaten alfredo sauce in 4 years

Speaking of hallucinations, did I imagine this one?

I have no idea what just happened. My heart is still pounding.

I have been having mini-stroke-like symptoms all my life. Ephasia, vision problems, numbness, a kind of brain-haze that makes it hard to concentrate. It would take about twelve pages to describe how this issue has evolved through the decades.

For the past few years, I have also been having employment problems that now I believe are related to Aspergers. Add to that the fact that I’m married to a lunatic (somewhat improved lately by a prescription). Add to that depression that I think is understandable under the circumstances. I feel like I’m falling apart. I’m wondering about Fragile-X and FXTAS.

The mini-stroke symptoms have gotten worse lately, in a way that is frightening, and today I felt like I was on the verge of a real stroke. Like I’m not long for this world. I told my husband about it.

Mr. Sensitivity wanted to know whether I would still be able to run a certain, important errand on next Tuesday. I said that I had no idea. Then he started yelling at me about how inconvenient it would be if he had to take the day off, and ranting that he needed to know as soon as possible.

You’re mad at me because I can’t predict exactly when I’m going to die? Is this inconvenient for you?

Yes, I flipped out for a while. I’m normally a hopeless wimp, but this time he got to me. Yes, I did some serious yelling and told him that I wanted him to leave. (This is not typical for me.) Then I went off by myself to calm down.

Mr. Concerned-for-my-welfare got on the phone with the regular doctor and they agreed that I should go to the emergency room. What they expected to gain I don’t know. The doctors and the emergency room have never known what to do with my mini-stroke stuff in the past.

From the moment I got there, they wanted to take my clothes away. Why would I want to do that as an out-patient? So I can sit around naked for six hours and wait for nothing? They wanted to take my blood pressure. I’m wearing short sleeves. They wanted to do other tests involving my head and chest. Ok, I can trade the shirt for a gown, even though the shirt was not in the way at all. But why do you want my jeans and pocket book?

My answers to their stroke-related questions were hazy and incomplete. That’s kind of how aphasia works. And even on my best day, I don’t know how to summarize fifty years of this stuff in a way that you can comprehend in fifteen seconds.

The fact that Hubby was standing right there didn’t help. How can I calm down and focus and answer their questions when all I want to do is strangle him? It took a lot, but I finally persuaded him that he could go home, that I would call him when I was done.

The nurse came in, said that I was going to another part of the hospital for a psychological evaluation. (What does that have to do with a stroke?) And that I had to leave my clothes and pocket book behind. I refused to do so without an explanation.

Finally, she said that it was hospital policy so that the patients can’t “escape,” and that “we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way.”

No. I am soooo out of here.

I called Mr. Sensitivity. Never mind his first reaction.
While waiting for him to come and get me, I over heard the nurses asking each other whether I was “voluntary.” I told them that I was.
Hubby arrived and tried to talk me out of leaving. Which part of “I don’t like being threatened” don’t you get? It turned out that they were expecting me to stay for a few days. Nobody mentioned it to me before this.

We finally got to the car, and sat there for about a half-hour while Mr. Rational tried to talk me into going back. Which part of “I don’t like being threatened” don’t you get? And why can’t I do whatever it is as an outpatient? He accidentally dropped hints that there’s more going on here than I know. Somehow, the word “suicide” ended up in the mix. Where did that come from? It never entered my mind.

I’ve been asking for a psychological evaluation for a long time, for other reasons, but no one would help me. I’m worried about FXTAS or some kind of degenerative something. At the very least, I want a base line for future comparison.

Paranoia was never my thing before. I’m oblivious, and often kick myself after something happens for being so gullible. But what am I supposed to think about this episode tonight?

And what do I do now?

IANAD, but have you been checked out at any point for (besides strokes):

...Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIAs)?

...migraines? (Yes, even if you don't have headaches. Migraine is now known to be a category, like "seizure". And just as seizures aren't all tonic-clonic, migraines don't all have headaches. And left untreated, migraines can do physical damage to the brain. They can unfortunately be at times hard to tell apart from TIAs.)

...seizures?

...all of which can have stroke-like symptoms.

There's also a chance that some of what you're experiencing, such as temporary aphasia, is the result of shutdowns of an autistic sort, but I wouldn't come to that conclusion first. (I've only started teasing out what's a migraine, what's a seizure, and what's a shutdown, very recently, after being on decent seizure meds for a long time and having more of a clue what migraines are and can be than I used to. Migraines run in my family, everything from ocular migraines with zero headache but tons of cognitive and other neuro symptoms, to the really classic pounding headache/puking/seeing weird lights thing. And migraines can be so much like a mini-stroke it'd be hard to tell the difference. For instance the right side of my face often gets saggy during them.)

Oh yeah, I have mild hallucinations quite a bit:

The most notable hallucination I've had was when I was downstairs in the middle of the night (around 2:30AM), and all of a sudden, I felt Alucard from Hellsing approach me from behind and lay a hand on my shoulder. I felt very frightened, because it was way too close to being realistic and shortly afterwards I went upstairs to brush my teeth and go to bed. He had followed me up the stairs and was waiting for me outside of the bathroom. I could feel him watching me.

I experience mild visual hallucinations in that I often 'see' my imaginary friends out of the corner of my eye, either when I'm outside running or when it's late at night. Strangely, I never see their faces; it's always brief glimpses of their clothes. Once again, Alucard is often the culprit, but one night I had an oddly vivid vision of Enrico Maxwell and Alexander Anderson talking to each other in my kitchen.

I often experience mild auditory hallucinations in that my imaginary friends talk to me. They often comment on my life, and occasionally give advice (which I highly suspect is subconsciously recycled advice that my mom may have given me in the past). Sometimes I hear them clearly in my mind, as if their voice actors were actually reciting the lines, but sometimes it's just thoughts that pop into my head that I know aren't mine.

What’s “IANAD?” I am not a dork?
My regular doctor was the first to mention TIA.
No one has mentioned seizures, but I’ve seen puzzling little hints on the internet and have almost wondered.
I’ve never heard of an “autistic shutdown.” I’m going to look for it in a minute.

“Migraine” is what my family always called it, and it goes back generations. The home remedy was epsom salts, disolved in warm water and ingested. The doctors rejected the whole idea years ago. Now I suppose I should seriously look into it.

But what do I do now? In a day, I’ve lost trust for my husband, the doctor I thought was the world’s best, and the local hospital. What’s left?

Why did they do that last night, how can they possibly think that it’s ok, and why would anyone tolerate it?

And how can I find a sane person to talk to, ASAP? This is like a nightmare.

Thank you, anbuend. I looked up “Austic Shutdown.” While it doesn’t describe me exactly, it explains a lot. Then again, maybe it does describe my distant past. If I was like that as a baby, no one would have noticed or remembered.

Article: "Shutdown States and Stress Instability in Autism"
http://www.cuewave.com/tau/SI-SDinAutism.pdf
I'm sure this article is fascinating from a scientist's point of view, but how could any sane person justify torturing a child like that, over and over?

The article concludes with "Managing and minimizing triggers to the stress reaction both at home and at school has resulted in significant improvement..." No s**t, Sherlock. Did you figure that one out all by yourself?

I wonder if I should thank my brother, who is 21 months older than me. Had anyone with a brain been paying attention at the time, I'm sure he would have been considered "hyperactive." I've always suspected severe maternal deprivation. (They spent so much time beating him up that they forgot to bother me.) I'm thinking now that his presence created a distraction that spared me some horrific abuse at an earlier age, and that without him I would have been a full-blown autistic.