Posted by Quintal on August 19, 2007, at 23:49:55
In reply to Re: is this a psychotic symptom?, posted by linkadge on August 17, 2007, at 21:23:11
I sometimes hear voices, usually someone calling out my name. It just comes straight out of the blue but often happens after a few days with little sleep, or at times of high stress. I don't think it's psychosis and apparently this is a common phenomenon. I have also hallucinated on very rare occasions. I have a very vivid visual imagination and most of my inner thoughts are expressed this way. At times they become so vivid and intrusive that I can't avoid them, and they merge and overlap slightly with the outside world. But again, I think this is an intense anxiety state rather than psychosis.
Intrusive thoughts are very common in anxious people, especially that critical 'inner voice' that keeps up a constant narrative of failures and weaknesses etc. I sometimes shout out to try and quieten it, not so much talking to it, more like random nonsense words. Lately the phrase has been "Mammy don't hurt me, don't please don't hurt me!", but a few months ago it was simply "Hello!" chanted over and over again until the feeling subsided. Obviously I'm aware the former may be linked to some sort of early trauma. I don't do this in public, but often I will screw my face up, chew my lips and shake my head violently. Passers-by have been alarmed by this.
I've also been known to burst into laughter for no (outward) apparent reason, but it's usually because my train of thought has turned to something funny. At times 'it' will do this at the most inopportune of moments, almost as if to torment me. Doctor's waiting rooms are a favourite place for this. I think it has something to do with the oppressive silence and seriousness of these places, so my thoughts will turn to inappropriate things.
A friend I went to school with did similar things to this. Often we would become swept up in each other's moods, like if I had one of my unprovoked laughter outbursts she would start to laugh too and soon we would be in hysterics, to the point of crying and tears running down our faces. It could be quite contagious and a whole room can quickly be engulfed this way, everyone laughing for no apparent reason, and the irony of laughing for no apparent reason somehow fuels further laughter, so it spreads out of control and maintains itself like a raging inferno. I've read of other documented occurrences of this phenomenon, some continuing for days and resulting in fatalities. People have actually died laughing for no apparent reason.
I think it's similar to St. Vitus dance, although I've read that phenomenon may have been due at least in part to the LSD-like ergot alkaloids in poisoned rye bread, which was common in medieval times. I guess there's also some similarity to glossolalia and religious ecstasy too, and I have entered such states on rare occasions. I also had childhood epilepsy, so I find the temporal lobe link interesting. Most of my seizures were of the absence variety as far as I know, I don't have any information on that. Anyway, the point I was getting to was that the friend in question later developed Schizophrenia. I've talked about some of her experiences here before. So, yeah, at times I've wondered if I'm on a similar wavelength to schizophrenics, but I'm quite certain I don't have a psychotic disorder, though if you were to watch me on some kind of Big Brother 24hr surveillance system you might have doubts about that.
Of interest to me is the original diagnostic label, Pseudo-neurotic Schizophrenia, for what is now called Borderline Personality Disorder. It's like a web really isn't it? All things interlinked. Or a jigsaw? We 'just' need to fit all the pieces together. I think the main stumbling block here is that what we are discussing is mostly esoteric knowledge, beknownst only to experts, and experts tend to be specialists, focussed on one particular approach to a specific subject. They may be entirely ignorant of pertinent work done by other experts in fields very different to their own e.g. the neurologist may be unaware of research done by a social scientist looking at a different angle of the same phenomenon. I feel it's up to us, the lay people, to join the dots. Lets raise a glass to the internet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanganyika_Laughter_Epidemic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlossolaliaQ
poster:Quintal
thread:775782
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070815/msgs/777248.html