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.
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.
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”
This was discovered pretty much early on when LSD was first discovered. One of the early (cough) "uses" for LSD was for medical professionals to simulate what some patients experience.
(At least that's what I remember from "LSD, My Problem Child" by Albert Hoffman. Granted, it's been ~30 years since I read it.
Unfortunately it's hammered on so hard, and without nuance, that kids will discard it with the other half-truths that are told. And also the tendency for families to cover up and hide any "shameful" facts like uncle Jim having spent some time in a facility, that kids might not know at all that there's a family history.
DARE is one of the reasons I started smoking cigarettes. The only time the teacher was ever actually honest was when he described the effects of nicotine. Everything else was half-truths and scary lies.
Unfortunately, this is just statistics. There are cases that lie outside of that age range. I know of two cases, personally.
Things like stress, drugs, childbirth, significant life changes, etc can trigger psychosis and latent schizophrenia at any age, it's just statistically more likely to happen during adolescence and the period right after.
Another way to look at this is that adolescence is when someone experiences new stresses, significant life changes, drug experimentation, etc, which can be triggers for schizophrenia especially during age-correlated prodromal phases.
Yeah, in this case it seems to be menopause + losing her job and having all the free time and nothing to focus on plus who knows what other stressors. I think something bad happened with her Phish friends.
The really tough part for me is she was out of work, so I paid her to be a beta reader for my book. She's a brilliant person and very detail-oriented. She went way over and beyond what I asked for. She spent months and took three passes on the book making different kinds of notes. Then her problems seemed to come on right at the end of that. I worry that all the increased mental activity, and then suddenly not having anything to focus on again, might have been the trigger.
I can identify with the guilt. In my case with my friend, their behavior lead to me distancing myself from them, not knowing what was going on, and I was his main source of socializing. Same thing happened with several of his other friends. The isolation definitely was something that amplified the progression of his illness to detachment with reality. Didn't help that the people he sought friendship from in lieu of us were scammers who fed into his delusions to take what little he had even when he became homeless.
If I could go back in time, I would do things differently, but at the same time I can't blame myself for not understanding what was happening and doing what was, at the time, the healthiest thing for myself.
I kinda heard lots of whispers when I was very young (like 6-7) and now I'm 40 and haven't had any such problems.
I blamed it on the drugs I got prescripted for sleeping (I had bad allergy and was scratching myself to the point of bleeding during sleep so I got some "pacifying" drugs).
Well, not just drugs-children are more likely to experience hallucinations even without drugs.
I still have vivid memories of experiencing what (in hindsight) I realise were hypnopompic hallucinations, around the age of 6 or 7. I wasn’t taking any regular medications, that I can remember. But, I grew out of it, as kids usually do.
A fun aside here: experiments in which people who’ve taken hallucinogens are placed in brain scanners reveal activation patterns which look an awful lot like what we see when we put small children in brain scanners, and this somewhat accords with the neurogenesis vs pathway pruning see-saw model of brain development.
I’ll say personally my experiences with psychedelics brought back memories of childhood - how I engaged with the world, how my mind would go off down different paths, the intensity of focus - so, you’re probably not far off here.
I always said psychedelics reduce you to a child, with reduce having no negative connotation, just a word that describes the experience. It's like sending your perception back in time in some ways, while retaining some matured aspects.
Lower doses can induce hallucinations before it becomes full on delirium that you see in higher doses. You'll regularly hear about people seeing "spiders" after taking 25-50mg of Benedryl, the recommended dose.
I think that may be more common in the elderly. I had full-on delirium from 5 x 50 mg, however. I would not recommend. It took me months for my body to recover. The auditory hallucinations lasted the longest (2-3 days), but my body and my mind was a wreck for months. Thanks to our beautiful hospital that did not administer the antidote for anticholinergic toxicity.
I started hearing the voices well after 30. First it began with gang stalking, and by coincidence I am from the “home town” of Americas thought control elite. I was “recruited” (press ganged) and it is only a determination not to accept a word these say that keeps me unconcerned with the collapse of the lie that is modernity in my life.
I just want to point out that psychosis and schizophrenia tend to get worse over time, so while you might have a handle on it now, without treatment you might not in the future. They also have much better prognoses with treatment, even complete remission.
I've watched several people go from having a grip on reality, thinking they don't need treatment, to absolutely losing their minds. It's tragic and I hate to see it happen.
Point is moments of lucidity should be seized upon, I say this as someone who briefly experienced psychosis after extreme sleep deprivation. It was fucking terrifying and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I keep hoping my friend gets to the point where you are someday. Another thing not working in our favor is she's the most stubborn person I know. She thinks she can beat this thing with her mind and no help from anyone.
Don’t be. After nearly two decades of development I experience the precipice of humanity. The state of the art of human consciousness. I have peered beyond the veil and what I see is terrifying yet truth.
As someone who had psychedelic experiences, I thought they'd be like that.
In the few hours I experienced hallucinations after not sleeping for ~7 days, I also heard a radio playing faintly in the background. "Faintly" doesn't do it justice because it was very much undeniably audibly there, even if I knew it wasn't.
I also heard footsteps, felt their vibrations, heard and felt stuff on shelves shake in response to the stepping. It was stunning how in concert and real it was. It was like it was more real than reality itself.
I was aware it wasn't real which made it fucking terrifying, but it was both beautiful and absolutely fascinating at the same time. I was both in awe and horrified that it could be permanent.
Brains are crazy stuff and I can see just how easily someone can become delusional based on what is very much factual in their own experience of reality. There literally is no boundary between reality and true hallucinations, which is a terrifying prospect and
I wonder if there are any schizophrenics with dissociative identity disorder. We're not schizophrenic but we have voices (we don't hear them as from outside though)
I have met a few people online who told me they were diagnosed with both.
Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) and DID can apparently co-occur.
From [0] (2016):
> One study showed that in a sample of patients diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) 74.3% also met diagnostic criteria of a SSD, 49.5% met diagnostic criteria for schizoaffective disorder, and 18.7% met diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia.
The study cited in [0] is dated from 1996, however(!), so it was done not long after the change from changing the name MPD to DID. Not sure how much weight to put on a study that old.
From [1] (2022):
> Numerous studies have shown that up to 50% of patients with schizophrenia meet the diagnostic criteria for dissociative personality disorder.
The two linked studies cited in [1] are dated in 1998 and 2004. So also, still old, but not quite as much.
It seems well-known that the two conditions co-occur. I don't have access to the linked studies, however, and am not willing to pay the subscription or single-paper fees.
I do have DID but SSDs have been thoroughly ruled out for me (I was checked for both, as well as other potential conditions). My assessment seemed quite thorough.
I'd be willing to try institutional academic accounts if you ever have some paywalls article you want to read. Just shoot me an email at partner_privacy@proton.me
Also, my partner likely has DID and is struggling with it somewhat. If you have advice or are willing to answer some questions, I'd appreciate talking about it. But I know it's a big ask, respectfully, so I understand if not.
> ...if you ever have some paywalls article you want to read. Just shoot me an email...
Thanks. I appreciate it. Will do if I come across something.
> Also, my partner likely has DID and is struggling with it somewhat. If you have advice or are willing to answer some questions, I'd appreciate talking about it.
Sure. Not sure if you're wanting advice/help for yourself, your partner, or both, but email me at shippage_hn@proton.me if you'd like to talk. I know more about my own particular kind of DID than others, but am willing to talk about what I know of the generalities, too, as well as a bit about my experiences (including getting a diagnosis) if that helps you or your partner.
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.
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.
> 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?
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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?
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.
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.
I wonder if alcohol is one of the seemingly harmless drugs whose abuse catalyzes such conditions in susceptible people.
Because, if so, then alcohol's ubiquity in society would imply that it is probably responsible (in the sense that substances are responsible) for most such conversions.
It's kind of worse with alcohol because the psychosis associated with that as an exacerbating factor is more related to alcoholic encephalopathy, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome etc... much of which can be brought on with self medicating with alcohol. Definitely a component but more like psychosis and mania drive you to drink because these experiences are awful more than a causative factor that's been proven
Nobody serious believe that alcohol is harmless. There are many anti-alcohol campaign and laws always running around. It's just that alcohol has been part of our culture for thousands of year, that we monstly manage it. It's not the case of cannabis, psilocybin and even less LSD (even if you can find historic usage for the not man made ones)
Schizos may take alcohol or cigarettes to calm down, a form of self medication. On the long term these may worsen, in the immediate they help. Why do you think they smoke a lot?!? To treat. If you smoke or drink, what do you do after a tough day - smoke or drink, to relax, feels great. Schizos may have a tough day , but not from external stimuli, but from internal stimuli
Alcohol is pretty bad for your brain so I would not be surprised. And while it's not really a hallucinogen itself (comparatively) I've heard some pretty hellish stories of severe alcohol withdrawals. Just going without sleep (completely) for several days can cause hallucinations and stress - and this is a common symptom of more serious withdrawal.
I would imagine other drugs which produce severe (and stressful) withdrawal could also trigger this. The stress alone cannot be good.
Or perhaps people predisposed to schizophrenia are more likely to seek out drugs. Something like 9 in 10 schizophrenics smoke cigarettes too, is schizophrenia caused by nicotine or do schizophrenics smoke because they’re predisposed to do so? I find it hard to believe that so many schizophrenics smoke cigarettes and are not also predisposed towards using other drugs.
I think blindly accepting the statement ‘drugs can cause schizophrenia’ is harmful because we don’t actually know if the drugs trigger it or if the disorder makes them seek out drugs.
Some drugs have been known to activate schizophrenia; particularly psychedelics like LSD. However, in order for this to happen, one likely already needs to have a genetic predisposition. I use LSD about once every week or two and I haven't noticed any schizophrenia yet, so it is very much a YMMV.
It's important to know that the correlation can have some other cause. Like that people with predisposition to schizophrenia may seek out drugs.
Keep in mind also the typical onset for schizophrenia is teenage years or early 20s in men, and is often later, up to early 30s in women. These are years you might experiment with drugs.
The huge number of them who smoke cigarettes prior to their first episode - a different form of self medication. 90% of people with it smoke and there is research indicating a greater likelhood prior to first episode. I’ll have to look up those numbers though. (Edit, seems about 60% at a time when the average US population was at 20%)
> And no, please spare us all your justifications for how caffeine is fine or micro-dosing has been amazing, because they are simply varying levels of rationalization, I do it too, I’m just not in it as deeply. And no, just because you were able to become rich with and on the back of drugs does not mean you did it without harm, you likely just scandalized a lot of harm to, e.g., get rich selling some service to some coke head investor who will only fuel the abuse of data mining and social media addiction.
I think you make some interesting points, and it's a very well thought-out post, but this is the definition of "poisoning the well". You're attempting to preemptively discredit the most obvious flaw in your argument.
There is a massive amount of evidence for the impact on both society, economy and neurology for each of the drugs listed in your last paragraph – and it's these impacts that often change personal and societal perception of risk and reward. Caffeine, at average doses, induces an effect that is comparable to a small cortisol spike – it is mildly addictive, but nowhere near that of an opioid, for example.
Drugs like meth and heroine (and one wonders why you left off fentanyl) are highly addictive and destructive, cause enormous loss of life an an inconceivable scale, and can permanently damage neurological pathways. From what I've read, the impact of hallucinogenics is less well understood... but probably not great.
If your argument is "we like to say caffeine and alcohol are fine, when they're really no different than opioids and meth", well there _is_ a staggeringly enormous difference in the potency and impact of caffeine vs the other drugs you've listed. I do agree with you that alcohol is far more harmful than society cares to admit, however, and that's both well-studied and often ignored.
I hate to write out these words, but you're strawmanning.
The point is caffeine etc. corrupt the mind and cause a person's mental faculties to run in a way they were not initially designed to.
The point is not that these drugs are all extremely harmful, only that they are all harmful. Caffeine and other things get a pass because the "hard drugs" are so uniquely and visibly harmful that they overshadow all other forms of harm.
One could even say that this has tricked us into thinking that lesser drugs like caffeine or canabinoids are "effectively harmless" because they're not causing us to OD or steal things to get another hit or causing visibly psychotic states. But that is not true. We've simply accepted that the harm they due is not worth thinking about (this is subjective, not objective).
The use of the term "corrupt" rather than "alter" or "affect" is assuming the conclusion here. The human mind is not something that always works in the same Platonic perfection in a state of nature. Biological and cultural differences are major factors in what is considered normal at any given place and time.
Some people have conditions that make the way their brains work different than what is considered normal. Western technological culture imposes differences in social interaction and pressures on thinking and required performance that are far different than existed in societies even mere hundreds of years before.
Drugs can be a way to compensate for these pressures and find a way to exist in the world with as much equanimity as possible. And I say all this as a person who avoids all caffeine and illegal drugs, and uses alcohol very infrequently. I'm lucky I can do this and thrive in today's Western culture. Not everyone is as fortunate.
A small percentage of people, like myself, have clearly autosomal genetic conditions that means being 'normal' is just not on the cards. I have to take psychopharmacological drugs just to get close to normal.
Not everyone is the same, there is a lot of variety, what you say could indeed be true for most people but can also not be true for a small minority of people.
hEDS, there is a very long list of comorbidities and I tick off most of them. Not guessing, runs in the family, did a WGS and found the TNXB SNPs responsible.
I tried the no-drugs and being super healthy approach for the vast majority of my life, I look like a pro-athlete, the only reason I started the meds was due to figuring out the statistical possibility of having X things wrong with me was next to impossible without a common cause, and the ME/CFS with brain fog was destroying my life.
I also tried to quit caffeine but that only resulted in very negative effects that persisted for more than 4 months after going cold turkey, that's 4 months being largely housebound and not able to work for that one experiment. I've been at this so long that if you can think of something I've probably tried it - including the healthiest of healthy lifestyles.
Just comparing within my own family most are anti-drugs and anti-medications and their health is an absolute mess. I wish living a healthy lifestyle would be sufficient, I wouldn't have to walk a tightrope of balancing meds, but I don't get that option.
What are your thoughts on people who self-medicate with caffeine due to their baseline ability to focus being reduced (which in modern society is cause for trouble)? That’s the reason for starting caffeine use for many.
My use is also light and fully legal, but personally I’m not sure that this is something that’s so binary. It seems more likely to sit on a spectrum, as most things do, and is largely dependent on the individual due to wide differences in brain and body function. It’s the same reason why the prescription drug that works wonders for one person and do nothing or worse, be detrimental for somebody else. We’re not all identical units of a particular model rolling off an assembly line somewhere, after all.
So I guess I would say that yes, we should be more conscientious of how substances (even those that are common) interact with our minds, but I have a hard time labeling them all as harmful. It’s just too broad of a brush.
I think the main problem is conflation and averaging out experiences to the general population. There are distinct subsets of people who react to things very differently to the others and the focus should be on first finding out if someone is in a particular group.
I do a lot of DIY psychopharmacology, mostly modafinil and amitriptyline, in a successful effort to reduce ME/CFS/hEDS related brain fog. I’ve given modafinil to normal people and they tend not to notice any effects where for me it’s a super strong drug that’ll keep me wired unless I take other drugs to calm down.
I think quite a large subset of human behavior is seeking self medication for genetic anxiety disorders and I think in knowing the mechanisms people can avoid stumbling around in the dark and go directly towards things that work.
Could there be a similar cliff function for alcohol and psychoactive drugs iff used in moderation which may confer to a society an advantage to the detriment of individual health. If used above a limit things fall of a cliff. Abstinence however may also be sub-optimal even if best for any individual.
One of my ex' father triggered a lifelong episode of schyzophrenia by excessive drinking during mandatory military service around age 18-19. So i'd say there are number of triggers
Alternate theory; schizophrenia tends to manifest in men between 18 and 22. The drinking was him self medicating because of symptoms he was experiencing?
Final thesis: schizophrenia was starting to manifest and the drinking was him self medicating, not knowing it was making the schizophrenia worse and causing further harm.
You a joking. Nobody talks about it to not to harm 'suffering minorities' business. However there are researches that show harm from marijuana is significant and likely permanent. It's no better than tobacco. But you'll never see it on CNN for political reasons...
> You a joking. Nobody talks about it to not to harm 'suffering minorities' business. However there are researches that show harm from marijuana is significant and likely permanent. It's no better than tobacco. But you'll never see it on CNN for political reasons...
Two downvotes so far. Any explanation? Can't please everybody, especially Kamala voters.
But my advice: if you value your cognitive abilities, blood vessels health, and I'm sure it's snowballing, stay away from any form of marijuana.
I believe since the 80's it's been well-established that people with a predisposition to schizophrenia have a greater risk to break out into psychosis when taking hallucinogenics. Even with today's clinical trials, they will exclude those with a family history of psychosis/schizophrenia.
I have more friends mucked up by LSD like drugs than any other type - at any rate three of them and I don't have much in the way of junkie of alcoholic friends. I say LSD like as they all took other stuff. From my n=3 data I'd say if you do it more than once a week for more than two years you have a good chance of ending up like your friend.
It's called "getting fried". Know many people that fried themselves doing that stuff recreationally every weekend. Good rule of thumb is if they can't hold their alcohol they won't be able to hold their psychs.
My friend had a very similar episode with a psychosis, but turned out to be bipolar, not schizophrenic. Sounds very similar though!
He was smoking a lot of weed leading up to and during the psychosis.
Ended up in psychiatric ward for a month, which was followed by a couple of years of depression/introspection/therapy, but is now doing great with lithium.
It’s why I profoundly dislike the line of thinking that easier access to drugs means social progress.
It’s rather a shedding off of an inconvenience for those that have no (direct) problems of functioning (eg risk of developing addiction, psychosis, etc) at the heavy costs payed by those that are more vulnerable.
> It’s why I profoundly dislike the line of thinking that easier access to drugs means social progress.
While that framing might change the aperture for people to support decriminalization efforts, "helping people who have addiction means social progress" is the greater good here.
Unfortunately, at least from a USian perspective, we only got so far as the decriminalizing part, and we did it while actually cutting a lot of the social services, health care access, and safety net that actually help people with addiction function in society.
I had a parent with schizophrenia. I can tell you what a privilege it is to have my cannabis use be the primary risk factor I have to worry about, and not the financial stress and eventual homelessness, untreated health issues, and lack of mental health support my father faced.
I'm all for getting illicit drug users out of jail, that's social progress. There needs to be more education and attempt at shoring up mental health in the public sector and not just kicking everyone into a room and calling it a day, like the problem is solved.
There is pretty much zero barrier for accessing any drug. Even being busted by police or border guards for drugs don't make it a permanent problem. The real problem is advertisement. Cities have drug advertisements everywhere and it's legal. Banning all types drug ads, including ads of brands selling drug products, would be a genuinely great step towards limiting their impact.
> It’s rather a shedding off of an inconvenience for those that have no (direct) problems of functioning (eg risk of developing addiction, psychosis, etc) at the heavy costs payed by those that are more vulnerable.
And what about those who have a "direct problem of functioning" (like anxiety, depression, ptsd, whatever) and get no real help from the medical profession, but do get help from the drugs?
> whenever I see wellness healers and the like extolling the virtues of psilocybin, I want to point out that there could be a downside
Anecdotally, I had a friend once who was very into psilocybin for its mind-expanding properties. He certainly thought he was enlightened and loved to brag about the great understanding he'd gained from his trips, but he was one of the more selfish and un-curious people I've ever known. It seems to me that these drugs create a feeling of having accessed great knowledge, but the "knowledge" is just whatever nonsense your brain conjures up on the fly, like a dream world that makes sense while you're asleep but whose logic falls apart the moment you wake up.
As someone who has gotten a lot out of psychedelics therapeutically, you are correct. Psychedelics do not in of themselves grant any insight or wisdom beyond perhaps raw experiential evidence that our senses are fallible and our perception of the world is an artifact of cognition.
Past that, psychedelics are (kaleidoscopic, funhouse) mirrors. In the hands of a curious and humble person they can (in addition to being a lot of fun shared with like-minded others) be valuable therapeutic tools for approaching firmly rooted hangups, attitudes, etc. In the hands of someone like your friend, you get what you observed.
Both are commonly occurring patterns, and if you know a person's character even a little well you can usually predict how they'll engage with and come out of the experience.
To quote Shulgin,
> The most compelling insight of that day was that this awesome recall had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. Everything I had recognized came from the depths of my memory and my psyche.
Yeah the main great insight I got out of doing that stuff was to see reality from a different perspective for a while. Kind of like travelling and realizing that things you take for granted aren't the same in every culture.
But I never felt like I was getting at some deeper meaning, and it wasn't something I wanted to keep doing throughout my life.
> Cannabis is also a potent psychedelic, and its association with psychosis is well established.
It's really fascinating to read this, because Alex Berenson has been beating this drum for a while now and he claims the psychosis risk has been downplayed or even denied. It's easy to find evidence supporting his take because if you just search Google for [cannabis legalization psychosis] you get a big pile of papers like this one:
"Abstract: Psychosis is a hypothesized consequence of cannabis use. Legalization of cannabis could therefore be associated with an increase in rates of health care utilization for psychosis [...] states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses"
That's from 2023. So apparently it's not that well established? Or if it's well established, there's a lot of researchers denying it.
I've used cannabis a handful of times. The first was a bong hit, and I felt a little funny. The second was a bong hit and I was seeing a light show half an hour later. The third was a bong hit and I got paranoia and dry mouth. The fourth was one square of THC chocolate and I felt a little funny and relaxed. The last time was two squares of chocolate. I was out for the evening with visual and auditory hallucinations.
I realize modern preparations are stronger, but the amount is too low, the dosage difference between relaxed and out there is too small, and after doing some research, it sounds like this is a sign I'm either more prone to schizophrenia, it could trigger it, or increase my likelihood of getting it, so the slightly relaxing high isn't worth it.
Yeah, it's not worth the risk. When I tried the stuff, I first felt absolutely nothing. Then I took some more, and a couple of minutes later I had a full-blown panic attack, probably some hallucinations too. My brain felt a bit weird/slow a day or two after that.
Only later I found out that a deceased close relative of mine had schizophrenia. That killed any remaining interest I might have had towards the substance.
As someone who has a person with psychosis in my family, I don't think you can find any interesting insights from the details of their delusions. It's like dissecting dreams or AI slop, there is no hidden meaning behind it. Usually best not to discuss it.
You can definitely get fried on cannabis but you have to do it a lot, like multiple times a week for a while. In my mid twenties I smoked all day everyday for years and in my case it definitely left me paranoid and agoraphobic. That was more than a decade ago and I haven’t really smoked much pot since then (maybe once a year) and you end up making a full recovery after about 6 months to a year of no usage.
Of course there's a downside. It's a tale as old as time. Some new miracle cure comes on the scene and people promote it without relaying the risks. You see this with mushrooms, pot, etc going back to snake oil and silphium. I've never looked into it, but I would bet that there are no medications that exist that don't have some sort of side effect or increase in risk of some negative outcome. So if someone is pushing a cure/medicine its best to assume there is risk, even if we don't yet know the risk.
As opposed to what belief? That it is possible for there to be medical interventions or substances that are entirely risk-free regardless of your individual circumstances, potentially hidden allergies, or other known or unknown contraindications? Was anyone ever under such an impression?
If you've ever listened to some of people pushing or debating psychedelics, or natural remedies, or even "totally safe" vaccines, then it should be readily apparent.
Vaccines are a bit of a different can of worms in that first generally, they’re well-studied and the risks are reasonably well known, and second the impact isn’t solely personal — you’re trading off in most cases a small risk for the betterment of society — maintaining herd immunity, reducing capacity for spreading, etc depending on vaccine. The lives of many others can be negatively impacted, in some cases fatally, by one’s personal choice to not partake. There’s a certain amount of social responsibility involved.
Psychoactives and homeopathy have plenty of capacity to be harmful and aren’t necessarily anywhere near as well studied, but at least their effects are more bounded to the individual. (This does not however justify pushing them blindly.)
The effects of drugs aren't bound to the individual, that's the reason nearly all societies have banned them throughout history: they cause addicts to create large external costs.
Saying vaccines are well studied is like saying drugs are well studied, it's a category error. You can't study vaccines as a whole, and the quality of studies of specific cases vary wildly. As a consequence, common psychedelics are probably much better studied than some common vaccines. LSD in 2025 is the same substance as it was when it first became available, as far as I know, and there's lots of research into its effects. Compare that to the COVID vaccines which weren't even the same substance from trial to deployment, as the manufacturing process was changed completely. The trials were done on vaccine made using a very slow, non-scalable and expensive process that yielded a very pure result. The stuff people actually took was made using a totally different process designed for cheap mass manufacture. That second process had problems, leading to DNA contamination in some batches, which seems to explain why injury effect reports clustered by batch serial number.
All this was heavily suppressed for a long time (e.g. by rules forbidding study of vaccine vials), but has been coming out over the past year or so as the initial findings were confirmed. Research into psychedelics at least doesn't have that kind of problem, I think?
The context of this thread is that anything that is a medication has some sort of side effect and that some people overlook that. This is just as true for vaccines as for mushrooms. Cost benefit analysis is completely different.
As much as side effects get overlooked in some circumstances, they’re wildly overplayed in others and sometimes become the singular factor going into cost-benefit analysis, which is a problem.
The same way that not acknowledging that some accepted-as-benign substances can bring about mental health crises, overweighting of personal risks can cause weight-bearing pillars of modern society to crumble.
> 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.
Schizophrenia is not defined strictly enough that it's possible for you to be right or wrong when you say your friend has it.
Yes, I agree with that. I'm just guessing because she's super paranoid of doctors. One of the downsides of being in and around the wellness community for decades.
I don't know if she's seen The Game, but I do know that she's always had a deep insecurity about being the naive one in the room, being the one not in on the joke. It seems like this thing plays on your worst fears and brings them to life.
> We don't know because she's cut off all contact with friends and family and refuses to see a doctor.
It is not just schizophrenia, any mental health condition is isolating, others cannot understand it. I have OCD,ADHD etc so I know it, that's why we prefer who have been or going through same thing than normal people.
Derealization, I believe - not depersonalization? Believing everything around you to be made up - perhaps even by yourself in some cases. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, just trying to make sure I have the terminology correct
For example when you get very aroused your pupils dilate. Your brain fixes this for you so you don't feel like more light is hitting your retina even though it does.
When you are high on psychedelics you can experience this though as the world getting literally brighter and darker with your mood. Feels like you are shaping reality with your feelings? As soon as the drugs wear off the effect is gone but you still have the memory that it happened.
Weirdly enough, the same way dreams can feel more like an episodic story or more like an immediate experience, that unfiltered dreamlike experience feels more real than the rest of the trip. Maybe because it literally is closer to reality because it was less bring-filtered, or maybe because the contrast between this and the hallucinations of wallpaper shifting before your eyes put the search for "real reality" into your head in the first place, now the concept of more or less reality is in your brain as an experiential concept. Now you have the memory of having struggled for real perception and achieving it.
Like in inception: you fell into a dream, you are trapped for longer than you anticipated and don't like it and want to wake up. Weeks later when you have a deja vu it triggers the uncomfortable feeling that your mind is playing tricks on you. Are you dreaming now?
Though this is not schizophrenic. From what I was told from someone who had schizophrenic episodes it makes you completely unable to tell apart illusions from reality.
Plenty of intelligent people entertain this possibility, as well as many other possibilities, around how our world works.
If they then become obsessed with the idea being a fact and refuse to even consider updating their mental model when presented with evidence contradicting it then they have developed a fixed belief.
When that fixed belief is not common among their culture, it becomes a bizarre fixed belief.
When, as a result of their obsession with those bizarre fixed beliefs, they are unable to function (hygiene, nutrition, finances, care of their dependents, etc.) - then there’s a problem.
Or do you think a mind is a perfect thing that can never be ill?
> When that fixed belief is not common among their culture, it becomes a bizarre fixed belief.
> When, as a result of their obsession with those bizarre fixed beliefs, they are unable to function (hygiene, nutrition, finances, care of their dependents, etc.) - then there’s a problem.
But why does the issue of whether it is “common among their culture” matter? A person unable to function due to a non-bizarre fixed belief has just as big a problem as a person unable to function due to a bizarre fixed belief, if we assume the same degree of functional impairment in each case. The question of whether the belief is “bizarre” seems irrelevant, and possibly even encoding cultural prejudice
“Common among their culture” is a quick way of determining whether lots of other people are able to hold this belief and function fine. It also suggests an origin for the belief that isn’t unique to the person. You can’t go around saying “ah this person’s problem is they believe in angels” if the person’s belief in angels is simply part of their religion or culture. “But they believe in imaginary beings” is not a helpful observation in that context.
> “Common among their culture” is a quick way of determining whether lots of other people are able to hold this belief and function fine.
But some people’s functioning is impaired by beliefs common to their culture, whereas other people have very unusual beliefs but aren’t impaired by them to anywhere near the same degree
One person obsesses so much over “culture war” topics they lose their job… another person spends all their free time contemplating elaborate idiosyncratic theories of parallel universes, yet still manages to put a lid on it at work to a sufficient degree to keep their job. The first person has a non-bizarre obsession with serious functional impairment (they lose their job due to it), the second a bizarre obsession but the degree of functional impairment is significantly less. So the fact that we label one obsession “bizarre” and the other “non-bizarre” seems of little relevance
one of the cards in the first video looks like it says "the game" but then I went back to read it and it actually says "the care", so I though it might help.
People who reject in-group socio-economic norms and isolate themselves from their previous in-group may or may not be mentally ill. If they were in one of those cults that programs their members behaviors incessantly, then it's entirely plausible that they became sane and escaped from a community of insane people.
For example, I've met several people who reported the set of symptoms and behaviors you describe - but in their case, 'the game' involved the fact they came from a wealthy extended family whose entire existence revolved around hanging onto their pool of capital and ensuring some rogue family member didn't gain control of the capital, which funded all their connected lives (including this guy, who was able to travel the country and go to music shows solely because of his family-linked trust fund). The game they all played was keeping the family members that controlled the capital happy, rather than going out into the world and finding jobs, making their own money, and being self-sufficient.
There's just not enough information in your post to evaluate whether the example was escaping from a cult or being indoctrinated into another cult, who is sane and who is crazy, etc.
This isn't one of those cases. She had a career and tons of friends and now she's shunned everything. Her family lives in another state and had zero influence on her life.
But we can't do anything because she still knows how to take care of herself and isn't a danger to herself or others. So it's just sad.
> But when the protective hormone is withdrawn during menopause, some who avoided earlier psychosis get a later onset. Having a first experience after age 40 is uncommon, but it may include up to 15 percent of the women with schizophrenia—twice the percentage of men who have schizophrenia onset after age 40.
I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much.
For me psychosis feels like pattern matching going on extreme overdrive, while at the same time memory goes to shit. It's truly an awful illness, and what's worse is that the current medical treatments are bad. I've been fortunate enough where I can get by on a low dose olanzapine, but for many people they simply don't work at all.
Even though I'm doing well enough to function normally and hold down a good, well paying job, it's impossible to find a partner. If I were to have kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services. I am strongly in support of these screening services - the disease is truly horrible.
There has been little progress on treatments for schizophrenia, the mechanism of action of these drugs has remained the same for decades. The side effects are almost as bad as the disease, which is why so many schizophrenic stop taking them. The only novel medication recently released is Cobenfy, which I have not tried yet.
The most striking thing, is the absolute certainty of the thinking. They feel as if their thinking is crystal-clear, and that they are the only one that "sees the patterns."
Currently, they're doing well. I know of others, that are not so fortunate.
It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. I've not used it in about 45 years, and I've heard that today's pot is a heck of a lot stronger than what I remember.
> It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use.
This isn't entirely true, and it's a dangerous misconception. High THC, low CBD cannabis wouldn't be recommended, but that's exactly what making cannabis illegal selects for.
High CBD, low/zero THC cannabis, on the other hand, will probably be one of the paths to treatment if we ever get over our Reefer Madness and pharmaceutical obsession.
I wouldn't dismiss personal anecdotes any more than I'd dismiss someone claiming they saw something in a reputable journal but can't remember the citation.
In other words, yeah, don't just believe it at face value- but if you have good reason to trust the source, it's worth considering and checking into further.
In this case it's not just one individual but many people saying that THC and CBD are almost opposites if eachother, for example in how they affect anxiety.
Definitely worth proper research imho, could lead to medication that has more of the pros and less of the cons
No it's not. The poster should have referenced some sources. CBD has been touted as a miracle drug for over a decade now and it seems mostly like a fad at this point. But also it's not well regulated so it's easy for unscrupulous companies and individuals to profit from misleading marketing around it.
Who, me? ... Why? It's very well known and established that CBD has antipsychotic properties.
And if you don't know, that and don't bring any evidence against it, then why claim otherwise before like, doing a simple search to check your priors?
In any case, I've provided multiple citations elsewhere in this thread, and a whole bunch more come up on the linked search results. This isn't hidden knowledge or anything.
> CBD has been touted as a miracle drug for over a decade now
That's a separate issue.
> it seems mostly like a fad at this point
If you click the link you can see that isn't true.
> also it's not well regulated so it's easy for unscrupulous companies and individuals to profit from misleading marketing around it.
“Dangerous misconception”? Get out of here with that. Cannabis is dangerous for schizoaffective people. Why are people that smoke pot so tiresome about this? Just accept that it’s not good for everyone!
> “Dangerous misconception”? Get out of here with that.
I will not.
The demonization of cannabis has led directly to it becoming high THC and low CBD, as I said. It also has lead to it often being tainted with all manner of adulterants, from ketamine to glass beads to plaster dust to worse.
> Cannabis is dangerous for schizoaffective people.
CBD is a leading target of research for it's anti-psychotic properties; and if you don't know this it's a complete mystery to me why you feel entitled to weigh in.
And it's not even the only compound in cannabis that is being investigated; there are others with anti-psychotic and synergistic potential.
> Why are people that smoke pot so tiresome about this?
What if what I'm saying might be true, and you're dead wrong to accuse anyone who disagrees of being a 'tiresome stoner'?
... Because, in fact, it may well be [0].
> Just accept that it’s not good for everyone!
If it's not for you, that's fine; but the wilful ignorance around cannabis over decades has caused far, far more harm than cannabis ever has.
Can you accept that it will may well have a role in treating "psychosis, in general and schizophrenia, in particular" [0]?
Legal competition had lead to much higher concentrations of THC than was normal in the bad old days of smoking Mexican brick weed, not to mention the pure accessibility of buying 96% THC vapes wherever you go in unlimited amounts as opposed to being happy you could get your hands on an ounce.
Eh, maybe. I can certainly say that I have "skin in the game." Someone very dear to me suffers from it, and it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake.
That's one reason that I have compassion for parents of autistic children, that are vehemently anti-vax. I completely disagree with their stance, but I know what they are dealing with, and the very real fears and stresses that they are under.
> it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake.
It's not a theory that CBD has anti-psychotic properties. It certainly does, we just don't fully understand why.
My theory is that it will someday be part of treatment plans; and as someone with skin in the game I would hope that you care enough to learn a bit more about it. The comparison to anti-vaxxers with autism in the family is not appropriate here.
Actually, if the agenda of pushing CBD therapy applies, then it is. I know a number of folks that have autistic children, of various levels, from "nerd," to "wheelchair-bound." Their parents are usually absolute saints, regardless of their political views, or misinformation diets, and live in constant pain; making daily sacrifices that I don't think many folks here, can even comprehend.
We were discussing a serious mental illness, and, as someone that is a caregiver for someone like that, I think that my experience is relevant; just as someone who believes that their child's condition was caused by something that is really a red herring.
The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas), and look at people like us, with very real pain, as nothing but pawns, to be used to push their agenda (Think of the children!).
CBD, like Blockchain, probably has some valid application, but, because it was so unexplored, scientifically, it is currently about 75% snake-oil. We'll find out what it's good for, over time. The same can be said for other drugs, like MDMA, microdose LSD, or psilocybin.
CBD has an antipsychotic effect. There's not really any debate on that in the scientific community, and I've already provided a link. That's not part of some sinister agenda to legalize cannabis, it's just stating facts to clear up the misinformation which at this point you are willfully repeating.
> The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas), and look at people like us, with very real pain, as nothing but pawns, to be used to push their agenda
Your assumption that I don't also have personal experience, and a stake, and real pain with this issue is based on what exactly? Did I miss the part where you asked me about my own experience, or does your personal experience trump my own for some reason?
I do, in fact, have all three. That has no bearing whatsoever on the basic fact that CBD has confirmed anti-psychotic potential with particular regard to schizophrenia, as was already linked above.
Finally, there's no secret agenda here - cannabis should be legalized. It's just basic common sense and decency, for all the reasons I've already stated and more. Prohibition doesn't work and we have decades of data proving that beyond any doubt.
Have rates of psychosis shot up in states where cannabis was legalized? No, according to a massive analysis of 63,680,589 beneficiaries followed for 2,015,189,706 person-months [0]. So please, stop with the reefer madness. I'm sorry about your family member but if you want to help people you could really try looking at the data.
I don't believe you. If you had, you would have led with it, just like I did. I value people that have skin in the game. Jenny McCarthy is a big fat pain in the ass, but she really does have an autistic kid, is a good mother, and has formed her worldview around that.
> So please, stop with the reefer madness.
WTF? I've never believed that crap in my life. Interesting that it's important to you, that I support that twisted worldview. You've mentioned it a couple of times, so it seems to be something that you're fixated on.
I do, however, have considerable experience with the fallout from drug use. I have spent my entire adult life, helping folks out, who have had their lives shattered by it. There are a small percentage of the population that can't handle drugs, and need help to recover from it. I do my best to help them out, and don't insist that the vast majority of the population change their worldview to fit mine.
Personally, I think that pot should be legal everywhere, including at the federal level (which will basically kill all the "mom and pop" operations out there, so be careful what you pray for). I don't use it, and don't care, myself. That doesn't make me an enemy.
I'd gently suggest that a professional forum, read by many of the most influential people in tech, might not be the best place to be a crusader for drug use.
> I don't believe you. If you had, you would have led with it, just like I did.
You really can't imagine someone arguing from scientific research over their own personal experience?
> Jenny McCarthy is a big fat pain in the ass
Again with the autism/vaccines comparison, again missing the point, again doing yourself and your family member a disservice.
> WTF? I've never believed that crap in my life.
You keep repeating the claim that there's no therapeutic value to cannabis. That's madness, my friend, by the very literal definition of ignoring reality.
> don't insist that the vast majority of the population change their worldview to fit mine.
That's exactly what you're doing though? You're insisting that people ignore the research which I've linked multiple times now, and adopt your worldview which is based on vague assertions and claims; and you insist that anyone would argue the same way as you're doing when that's neither true or sensible.
> Personally, I think that pot should be legal everywhere, including at the federal level (which will basically kill all the "mom and pop" operations out there, so be careful what you pray for).
Huh? I can't tell if you're insinuating I'm a drug dealer or what your point is here. I'm certainly not the one who made this debate about whether cannabis should be legal or not; I just pointed out that prohibition made it much more dangerous to consume.
> I'd gently suggest that a professional forum, read by many of the most influential people in tech, might not be the best place to be a crusader for drug use.
As has been pointed out by people above, you're the one on the crusade here. My point, which I've repeated many times now, is that CBD has shown potential to help people vulnerable to psychosis and schizophrenia. I don't know why that triggers you so hard, or why you can't engage with the research which shows that very clearly, but I wish you the best all the same.
The one paper you keep shopping around here does indeed affirm that CBD may have some neuroprotective properties. That doesn’t change the fact that for the vast majority of people susceptible to schizophrenia or psychosis, that cannabis (always a mixture of THC and CBD in its natural state) is dangerous for them and can trigger mental issues. You can feel superior or more intelligent than others as much as you like, but that will not change this fact. You are getting a negative reaction from people who know this because we have been negatively affected by it, either ourselves or people we know. If you yourself “engage with the research” beyond your tunnel vision, you will see that the link between cannabis and mental issues is pretty well established by this point. In fact, refusal to acknowledge downsides of cannabis use is one of the hallmarks of cannabis use disorder. Pluck the beam out of your own eye.
> cannabis (always a mixture of THC and CBD in its natural state)
Come on man, I've been explicit from the start that I'm talking about high CBD low THC strains. If you refuse to acknowledge that then you're wasting both our time.
> You can feel superior or more intelligent than others as much as you like,
Weird thing to throw out there. Do you often feel like people giving you more information is an assault on your intelligence or value as a person? Is that helpful for you? ...
> You are getting a negative reaction from people who know this because we have been negatively affected by it
By high CBD, low THC cannabis? Be honest now.
> If you yourself “engage with the research” beyond your tunnel vision, you will see that the link between cannabis and mental issues is pretty well established by this point
I never denied there's a 'link'. There's clearly a link, but to claim that it's well understood is a gross exaggeration, and insisting that it applies to high CBD low THC cannabis is an obvious lie (no matter how many times you repeat it).
> refusal to acknowledge downsides of cannabis use is one of the hallmarks of cannabis use disorder. Pluck the beam out of your own eye.
Now you're implying I have a disorder and a drug problem? Even though at no point have I "refused to acknowledge downsides of cannabis".
So, recapping: I posit that high CBD low THC cannabis could help schizophrenics. I provide multiple links to researchers in this field saying the same thing. And by doing this, you feel entitled to make to accusations of me being a drug dealer, having a substance abuse problem, a superiority complex and a mental disorder?
... It's not ok to talk to people like that. And yet you end all that with "pluck the beam out of your own eye"; as if I were the one casting judgment??
> The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas)
The natural state of affairs is silence, as plants don't care about humans. The actual history of plant illegalization is inherently political, and inextricably racist in America due to Nixon.
I agree, except that isn’t how you cite sources. What’s the point of that? I know how to search, thanks. I will treat every instance of this kind of “let me Google that for you” whether it has Google or not as a native ad and will flag. Please cite a source, or don’t, but either way, stop shilling.
And this isn't an academic paper. If you want to learn about Anslinger, so you don't make false claims, my link is a perfectly cromulent starting point.
> Please cite a source, or don’t, but either way, stop shilling.
Not sure you know what shilling means - I trust you can google it if you don't? If you do, what is it you believe I'm shilling?
> Not sure you know what shilling means - I trust you can google it if you don't? If you do, what is it you believe I'm shilling?
The search engine you mentioned is who benefits.
We’re both right, actually. I don’t disagree with what you said, just the needless url you linked. I agree with what you said, but Nixon is also responsible for his racist words and recordings thereof. There were a lot of racists in history.
Can I ask how you are sure they haven’t had some novel insight that you just don’t currently understand? Like maybe they are bad at explaining but whatever pattern they noticed is valid?
I’m not defending them as I don’t know any details, I’m just curious how you came to be certain about your assessment.
I can't speak for the above person, but what the OP of this comment thread said also tracks with my own experience of schizoaffective disorder: when I'm psychotic, the pattern matching part of my brain goes into overdrive and not only does my brain erroneously fill in the blanks in sensory input (causing hallucinations), it does the same thing on an abstract or logical level with ideas and people. It's easy to fall into the trap of paranoid delusion when you feel like you're seeing connections between so many otherwise benign, disconnected things and events.
I think what really gets me is that despite my constant vigilance and skepticism toward my own thoughts, I simply cannot talk myself out of how truly real those delusions feel when they happen. I can even acknowledge how absurd they are, even in the moment, but I can never shake the feeling that they're still very, very real. It's so maddening. The best I can do is to just not act on those thoughts.
Maybe the above person's family is actually unearthing valid insights, but if they're prone to psychosis, in that state they'll be prone to finding connections, associations, patterns, and so on between things in a way that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It'll feel very real to them in the moment, but when they exit that state (if they do) they'll likely be on the same page as others in thinking those ideas were a stretch.
Stimulant induced psychosis is very common. One of the major side effects of those medications, just like their street cousin, is paranoia.
I don’t really believe in the dormant/latent argument because once you shift down to the underground (as in, entertain all possibilities, even the possibility that you share something in common with drug abusers) where people abuse drugs, there you can see just how common psychosis is.
The drugs fuck people up. Interestingly, after many years of laying off the substance, many do find their way out of the psychosis.
Many people are actually caught in this trap and don’t tell anyone because they are struggling between reality and their delusions and trying to present a calm face to the world. It’s often directly the result of the substance, but it’s allowed to fester in the person due to all kinds of reasons (”hey, I’m really going to confess this is the crazy shit that feels believable to me?”). By the time they are done wrestling with reality and unreality, often they are left extremely damaged from the ordeal psychologically.
I can't say I've experienced psychosis due to stimulant use personally, but I see what you mean. For me it's maybe brought on instances of hypomania a few times, but I get how it could trigger issues in others, especially in high doses.
My instances of psychosis outside of depression/mania tend to be triggered by stress. I don't use drugs or take any stimulant medications, but they still just happen sometimes. It sucks. I'm thankfully not in an active episode at the moment, but I do suffer on a daily basis from the "negative" symptoms of schizoaffective disorder (i.e., the symptoms that take away function, like anhedonia, avolition, alogia, etc).
My brother has schizophrenia. He has never met or interacted with any jewish people, and lives in a part of the world where they have no influence. He still fell entirely for online antisemitism and will text me insane messages about the typical theories.
You misunderstood. I meant that they thought that they were superintelligent people who should teach others and lead the world, but they had schizophrenia.
Schizophrenics do sometimes have novel insights. I've noticed that schizophrenics tend to be extremely talented at coming up with deeply cutting insults. Like, insults that will change how you see yourself forever. Something about high pattern recognition. Plus an ability to mentally "go there", to countenance dark things that other people willfully ignore.
I'm not certain, but, in the case of my family member, their "certainty" is that everyone is conspiring to kill them. As I am one of the "conspirators," I can assure you that they are dead wrong.
Also, in my days of yute, I was fairly profligate in the use of ... mind-enhancing chemicals, shall we say. They basically gave me the same exact certainty and "insight."
Once, I decided to write down the marvelous insight that I experienced, while tripping. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff in a notebook, and then read it, a couple of days later.
It was pure gibberish. Made no sense at all.
[EDITED TO ADD] I should say that I had the luxury of having two distinct states of mind, including a "control state," in which to review the ramblings in the "enhanced" state. This is not a luxury that someone suffering from schizoaffective disorder has. They have no idea that their thinking is off.
I wonder about this as well...like maybe there's some comfort in automatically "diagnosing" someone when they might see patterns or think in ways that challenge your priors..
EDIT: Imagine being powerful and wealthy and assured in your position in the Catholic Church and someone comes along and questions geocentricity and says you're wrong. It's a pretty easy leap to huffily say well, they are "mentally ill, crazy, delusional, paranoid"
all kinds of authoritarian regimes and movements certainly do this.
that said... you just have to have a conversation with someone experiencing psychosis. it's a totally altered state of consciousness, they are sensing and understanding the world in a radically different way. it's never just an otherwise normal person with a nonconformist belief.
> I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease
From article:
Increasingly, researchers consider schizophrenia to be a “meta-syndrome,” encompassing multiple symptom dimensions/clusters and arising from intersections of diverse underlying mechanisms
So while autoimmune might be the cause for some people, other people have other causes?
As humans we look for a simple A therefore B story. Even then most people in my experience are either (a) poor at spotting cause and effect or (b) go into denial e.g. many political arguments
> kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services
Have to? Do you mean you would want to? Or is there some compulsory force where you are?
This post convinced me to never try marijuana again.
I've tried 3 times, last time was a bad trip, I went into a very cold state (was shaking) and I was seeing random visual images every second. It felt like my brain was telling chat gpt to generate a random image on the fly none stop.
Anyways I was fine the next day, but I'm not trying it ever again if there is some risks associated with it. I took a low dose (half gummy).
While other stimulant substances when used might also lead to psychosis, it is cannabis which stands out with the highest risk of a psychosis becoming chronic and developing on into schizophrenia.
Sorry, it depends on the person. Elyn Saks is a law professor at USC who gives speeches to international audiences when she's not writing books - and she has schizophrenia. Her fame gives her a unique position: many people write letters to her. She's said that she's surprised by how many highly successful people confide in her that they have schizophrenia. There are schizophrenic CEO's, lawyers, doctors, founders. You just don't hear about them because they don't publicize their condition. Possibly because they fear judgment. Possibly because they want success on their own terms, to be simply a "successful person", not a "successful person with schizophrenia".
Interesting, I had some really bad experiences with weed and the pattern matching thing strikes out to me as on these trips I experienced a ton of visual geomteric shapes and came to believe our intelligence is based on pattern recognition and spent 5 years, not to much avail, thinking about them.
Why do you need to do embryo pre-screening for something that’s not genetic? Or do you think it still is genetic despite also thinking you know the specific trigger in your case?
Edit: are you thinking it’s genetic, but exacerbated by weed?
This is through the grapevine. I thought they said 20% likelihood, not 20% higher likelihood. But this isn’t me and I don’t know the numbers well.
I do know that this woman chose to not use her own eggs for their child. And you would think that going from 1-1.2% would not make you do that. Perhaps there is another variable involved that I am unaware of. Her sister developed it after their parents divorce in her 30s fwiw.
That is much, much higher than I am aware of - and my mother's sister has schizophrenia so I did look this up a while ago. And the outcome so far is 0 cases in 25 nieces and nephews, all of us in our mid twenties or older.
From my understanding of the science, weed can trigger schizophrenia in the genetically predisposed. Schizophrenia can be triggered by other environmental factors, so the embryo screening makes sense to lower the risk of the child getting it as well.
As someone who is currently dating someone with history of psychosis, I have vested interest.
90% of the time she is truly the most amazing, compassionate, full of life and thoughtful person one can ever meet. Then there are times when it’s truly awful. She can barely sleep at all, leaves house without telling anyone seemingly thinking the presence of third person around. And she strongly feels others around are judging her hard, giving non verbal communication. It’s truly awful.
I didn’t know to the full extent her symptoms when we started dating. But one thing that was clear was she could barely sleep at night. Or sleep too long. There was no “normal sleep cycle”.
Over the time, some triggers are noticeable. Places with crowds, bright lighting, or sometimes stress at work. Aripaprazole so far seems to be holding up, no one knows for how long. I hear meds become resistant at some point. I don’t know what future holds. Kids are probably not an option. Although she very much wants it.
She will break down, then she'll get strong meds and she'll change unrecognizably. Think twice before making a long relationship with this person. You'll get a lot of stress and eventually she'll change drastically.
Schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, so think twice about making a children as well.
Doctors prescribe meds for a reason. Schizophrenia is not a funny thing. Person with voices in the head, can hurt or kill, themselves or someone. It's a choice between two evils. My spouse has these issues, and it was much worse for me, when she resisted to take a treatment. And treatment eventually changed her, so it's very terrible thing that I wouldn't recommend someone to experience voluntarily.
> Schizophrenia is not a funny thing. Person with voices in the head, can hurt or kill, themselves or someone.
I know people with schizophrenia (both treated and untreated), but I really seem to be the kind of person who seems to have much less problems getting along with schizophrenic people than what is common in society.
If you ask me: a lot of "weird" stuff that I read on the internet over the decades is magnitudes more "weird" than what most schizophrenic people do - so by being an avid internet users for decades, what many people consider to be "repulsive" in schizophrenic people is just "normal variance" to me. Honestly, I often find "well-adjusted", conformist people to be much more repulsive and annoying than what I experienced with schizophrenic people.
Update: If someone told me they hear voices in their head, I'd rather be the kind of person who curiously asks for details, and will attempt to do some scientific investigations (e.g. about the personality traits or "true" intentions of the voices that the respective person hears). :-) :-)
The original article does point out the polygenic nature of the disease.
Currently dealing with a schizophrenic brother-in-law randomly calling for the death of his wife. They have a 2-year-old. I have high hopes for her though, but not for the ability for HN commenters to be able to make empathetic comments instead of random barking.
> Kids are probably not an option. Although she very much wants it.
Like many (but not all) people, my bias is love of children. But extend that love to your dearest future hopes. A marriage will be a serious test of commitment and stable teamwork every day — for decades. Otherwise it is likely to crumble and the children will be victims too.
Even as an optimist, I will say to a HN brother... there are short hikes, but for the longest you choose your ascent, your kit, and the weather conditions.
That sounds like my mother (except for the "90% of the time" comment). I can tell you from experience it would be a bad idea to have kids, even adopting.
I have schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, and I just wanted to acknowledge and thank you for staying with your partner. I’ve never been able to get someone to stay through my illness with me through my life. But that’s probably because I am man.
I was on so many meds. I can’t even count them. Now I’m not on any, and I consider myself essentially cured after living with it for 35 years.
If she has triggers, that means she does not have a disease
, it means she’s a different person that sensitive to different things. If someone who carries the celiac risk genetics, never eats wheat they never get celiac disease. If your partner was never exposed to triggers, you would never know she had a mood disorder. Do you see what I mean?
> If she has triggers, that means she does not have a disease , it means she’s a different person that sensitive to different things
This is not the medical consensus. Schizophrenia, along with many other mental disorders, are well known to have a complex interplay with not only background genetic/chemical factors, but also the psychological conditions of the patient -- stressors like homelessness, drug use, and lack of sleep very much can trigger psychotic episodes. Suggesting otherwise is to suggest that a sick person not get care that they very well may need.
> homelessness, drug use, and lack of sleep very much can trigger psychotic episodes.
Yes, I don’t understand your disagreement, that’s the point I was making. That for some of us these things will cause schizophrenia for others. Maybe some other illness like lupus. The problem isn’t the gene. The problem is the environment. If you’re not homeless, don’t use drugs and get good sleep And you don’t get schizophrenia, an we say schizophrenia is a disease? Or is it a symptom of environment that is not fitting for the individual?
And in fact, schizophrenia is not a disease, it’s classified as a disorder.
The disease or disorder is always present, the symptoms can come and go. Someone allergic to peanuts is allergic to peanuts whether or not they have eaten some this week.
But you see I only care about the symptoms. And the symptoms are used to classify disorders. No symptoms, no disorder.
You can carry all these jeans and not be exposed to any trigger and would never know you had the disorder so can you call it disorder if you have zero symptoms?
Thank you for sharing your journey! Most difficult part of this relationship has been to have her not worry about me leaving her because of her symptoms. Communication is the key. The only thing that can get tiring is when sleep schedules are so messy, and I have to go to work in the morning.
If you don’t mind sharing, what was your progression towards being cured? Did you do anything different lifestyle wise? I have consulted many psychiatrists but the general consensus seems to be that the management is the only option.
I am also somewhat concerned about the genetic component of it. The general feedback I received from pedestrians is most meds are not safe during pregnancy and postpartum episodes are very likely. And the risk of passing down is also about 10-20%. Her dad’s sister also seemingly had it.
First, I’m sorry if there’s any typos I am doing speech to text on my iPhone writing this and it’s early in the morning.
There are many psychiatrist that have different viewpoints, for example I’ve talked to many who see purines as a problem and then you have the whole keto/mitochondrial doctors. There are many psychiatrist that will never change their minds about mood disorders because why do they have to?
I should add as well that there are so many things out of my control that are triggers that I still carry Klonopin with me just in case. It’s the one thing that can stop my psychosis in a heartbeat. I think the glutamate GABA balance is extremely important and unlooked with a lot of mental illnesses. Glutamate are a big trigger for my psychosis.
To me, and I think this can be true for anyone, it’s all about connecting the dots between the triggers and not only mood symptoms, but physical symptoms as well. But obtaining my genetics and also learning about genetics over a 10 year period helped me tremendously. I knew it was in my family because my mother, my brother and my nephew, including myself all had extremely similar experiences and also suicide attempts.
The first thing is, I could not have done this if I did not stop my medication. I’m not recommending anyone stop their medication‘s but it’s going to be really hard to find things that affect glutamate, dopamine and serotonin if you’re taking these drugs at the same time. But being on the same drugs my mother was o 50 years ago did not seem logical to me. And then I started hearing stories about people recovering from mental illness, real stories. Then my nephew hung himself at 13 and that changed everything. I knew it was genetic so I knew that’s the direction I had to go to investigate what was going on with my family.
So I got to know my mother side of the family a bit better both genetically and from stories. It definitely came from my great great grandmother side and it turns out while we all thought that side of the family was Polish, they were actually from Finland.
For myself, my gut was a big indicator and clue. I’ve had IBS-D really bad since I was a child. I managed on my own to find foods that were triggers, but it was not until I discovered I was a FUT-2 non-secretor that thing is really changed. Only 20% of Europeans carry this gene so I knew it was important
Eating a diet heavy in Fucose (not fructose!) fixed my gut. Seaweed, mushrooms, etc.
This was not a cause of my schizoaffective disorder, but it definitely was a trigger. When my gut was bad, I was bad. But there were a lot of times when my gut was good and I was bad as well. So I kept looking for triggers.
Then there was the early heart attacks in my family and my hyperlipidemia. In my genetics, I saw that I had genes that were more like people who were the Inuit when it comes to poly unsaturated fatty acids. At this time, I was a vegetarian. With all the research about how omega-3 helps with heart disease I decided to eat more like an Inuit and what do you know, my cholesterol totally reversed. LDL down and HDL from 30 up to 54. Plus, I was feeling much more stable. Don’t underestimate how omega-3 can control receptor function.
Both my mother and I also had what is called multiple chemical sensitivity. I don’t really like that name but that’s what I’m left with. It’s essentially a sensitivity to a lot of aldehydes. The story here is kind of long and complicated so I’m not gonna go too much into the genetic details but I’m just showing you another of several triggers that helped me find out what was going on. A lot of foods have aldehydes, aldehydes impact flavor of foods and food manufacturers add aldehydes to foods as well as add glutamate and purines to increase our taste but sensitivity to flavors.
And then we could talk about air pollution. Another big trigger. My grandparents lived in Manhattan and every time we went back there I would feel worse. I even tried to work in Manhattan for a year and that did not end well.
Alcohol is complicated. At the front end, it brings me really really big relief. But I could never drink too much because it gave me a really bad fatigue in the end. It turns out that the calcium ion channel blocking effects of alcohol are great, but the aldehydes alcohol creates just make me feel worse in the end.
So I just started avoiding those foods and eating Whole Foods that are people in a cold climate would eat, and they went away a bunch of more of my triggers.
And then there was heat. Heat is the number one trigger for me. And for some stupid reason, I moved to North Carolina. Since I ended up homeless because of this and living in a van, I was able to move to different climates to different places and also found not only the cold weather, but high altitude were triggers.
see the problem with all this is my mother married an Italian man. So instead of eating a more Polish/Finnish diet we were eating in Italian diet having a carbohydrates and red meats and little fish. This was the worst diet for me.
I do take some supplements and two supplements. I’ve been tested deficient in, and that helped me are zinc and B6. When I say these supplements help me, I mean they dramatically make me feel different when I’m am low I them and when I supplement with them. And magnesium is another one.
So now I try to live like a Sami. I ate a lot of seafood, salmon, mackerel, oysters, mussels and wild game meets. I say low latitudes in cold climates. And I also avoid polluted cities.
Now that’s gonna sound depressing because I know that not everyone can do what I did, live in an van and move somewhere that fits them genetically. But that’s the truth of the matter. In my humble opinion, they have the idea of mental illness all wrong. It is a disease more like an allergy than a mental illness. There is an environmental trigger that causes a reaction. And make no mistake I think for the majority of us, including myself, it is an immune disorder and not a nervous system disorder in a fundamental way. For example, I’ve had very low white blood cell counts, but also showed signs of lupus that they were always testing me for. They also kept testing me for HIV because of my symptoms in white blood cell counts.
And then the doozy was when I had COVID-19. Both times I caught it I had the worst psychosis in my life. For some reason, no one finds this interesting not even my doctors.
Edited to add
I want to add this in a shorter post cause I can’t believe I didn’t bring it up.
The first thing I would do was get all of her nutrition levels, tested, and ruled out as causes. There are several tests you can get without a prescription.
The first important one is a hair mineral test. But getting a full iron panel, zinc, B6, homocysteine, B12, methyl malonic acid, serum amino acid test, and of course, a complete CBC with differential and metabolic panel. Keeping track of the last two were really important for me. I noticed my white blood cell count changed when I was in different locations. For example, my white blood cell count was consistently higher in North Carolina than it was when I was in Washington state.
As an example, I had a friend who was on Prozac since she was 18 and she was now 48. I looked at her blood test and it was clear she had anemia. They did an iron panel and her serum ferritin was only three. It turned out they were treating her lifelong anemia with SNRI’s and antipsychotics.
The thing about treating it all as some sort of an allergy makes sense for me since connecting some ideas from Gabor Mate about the immune system.
And the covid triggering a phychosis like state rings true for me as well (not that I need to corroborate what you are saying, once you know you know). One of the worst trips I've had was "just" having covid during the summer.
Yes, people underestimate how stress effects the immune system and why it is so hard for people to see this link even when they can become fatigued, depressed and irritable when they have a cold.
They have investigated me for some sort of primary immune deficiency and found low T cells but they said they were "not low enough to cause problems".
When I had COVID I was running around this small town hiding from people and taking pictures of the, texting them to my friend as evidence they were following me and spying on me, and picture of my van and how people were messing with it. They I thought she and her family were in on the conspiracy. She finally convinced me to take a klonopin and I came out of it enough to take some more and it was done. The next day I had a fever and COVID. So it was weird that both time sit preceded my physical illness.
Sending love to you and your partner and hoping she can stay curious about why she is ill.
This is a shot in the dark, but there is a lot of excitement right now about treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as a metabolic issue. Some people are seeing complete remission, without medication. This isn’t a quick easy recommendation to just go off meds and go keto, but for some people that apparently has worked. Chris Palmer M.D.[0] is one of the main people driving it.
Is there a reason to go off the meds when starting keto? If the meds are only mostly effective, and then a keto diet makes them very effective, then I might be inclined to go off the meds – but only if it stacks like that.
I’m assuming this is due to life complexity? If it’s generic fear, you could consider adopting (although that also has the potential to be difficult in it’s own way).
Also wanted to +1 to the other comment, you seem like a wonderful person, thankyou for making the world a better place. I hope I “grow up” to be like you :)
Even if you love someone and can manage your life with them, it's important to consider how that'll play out with even a little bit more pressure placed on a situation that thrives on stability. Kids are not a little bit of pressure, and if there's a possibility their mother (or adopted mother) will disappear for periods of time unpredictably, it would make an already extremely demanding obligation that much more tenuous.
Disappearing unpredictably is one of the less harmful ways it might show up. Imagine having a parent who you literally cannot trust to recognize how to care for you. My aunt is schizophrenic and was not diagnosed until late (as seems to be common, she moved away from family and friends to get away from interference). Her kids were 13 through 5 when she was diagnosed and had serious trauma.
Yep, I have an older friend who'd grown up with a schizophrenic mother who he's had lifelong trauma from. It's a bit horrifying. Incidentally it seems like the genx and beyond in my life never grew up with a framework for either identifying or addressing even something as common as clinical depression or ADHD, let alone the more potentially externally destructive ones like borderline, bipolar, schizophrenia. Seemed like they carried on to raise their kids with a sort of hope that if they ignore it, it'll eventually go away.
Very worth it to read the follow up research paper that moves away from this cliff-edge hypothesis, highlights other ambiguities, and attempts some self-correction.
If genes that increase schizophrenic risk increases cognitive abilities you should find people who have high polygenic scores for schizophrenia without having schizophrenia test well on these cognitive abilities. I'm not aware of any of data that shows this in a convincing matter. I think I've seen a few small studies but nothing that replicated this on a large scale. And most of the studies show they score worse on cognitive abilities.
The only conclusions I've come to are one of the following.
1. They improve cognitive abilities in some way we aren't good at measuring.
2. There is something about our modern environment that is more likely to trigger schizophrenia which has more recently increased the fitness penalty these genes confer.
seems like they should be good at finding solutions which require leveraging partial information, and generating a large quantity of ideas (which can contain quality)
But the optimal thing might be to have a number of more typical/boring people to filter their ideas through, and that might be hard to test experimentally
Right after the time I was diagnosed (~36), I started to become weirdly good at some stuff.
Music, for example. I've been playing for almost two decades and couldn't progress after a certain level. This changed almost overnight, and I started to learn new instruments very quickly (now I play guitar, bass, drums and piano). I'm not a genius at them, it's not what I'm trying to say. It's just that the pace at which I learn is very different from when I was younger, I can do things I never imagined being able to do.
Somehow, I also acquired some ambidextry. This might be due to learning the instruments. I now can write with both hands (not at the same time, dominant hand is still faster and more acurate). I also developed a second, completely different handwriting (now I have two "fonts" I can use naturally).
I got worse at dealing with people. Everyone seems to be in a haze from my point of view, and it discourages any kind of meaningful relationship. I can pretend though.
I am highly skeptical of the idea that any genetic component is involved in all of this (my father was ambidextrous though, but he acquired it in childhood), it seems purely psychological. I am also skeptical about the stereotypical triggers people often associate schizophrenia to.
Last year I was reading about Havana Syndrome. That was the thing that most resonated with the kinds of psychotic events I had. Weird sounds and voices that seem to come from nowhere, dizziness, balance problems, insomnia, headaches. By the time I got to a doctor, these effects were not there anymore (they last a very short time, at least for me). I was diagnosed by describing them to the psychiatrist. Since the first episode, it has happened again a handful of times. I have learned since that Havana syndrome is not a thing anymore, but there are no official explanations other than "it's likely to be psychogenic". I also wouldn't qualify for it (apparently, only diplomats and spies had it).
The kinds of genetic claims people usually make about schizophrenia are of the hereditary kind (including the post article), not random mutations.
I attribute this to how the illness is researched: finding a genetic factor would be a major breakthrough, so lots of people do studies on that, and eventually force their way into a discovery that represents a narrow subset of the illness but ultimately fails to explain it. It's all over the place.
This makes me extra skeptic regarding the validity of some of these studies.
Yeah, I was referring to a mix of genes not mutation.
Some things happen only with the right set of genes, which don’t come together through any obvious combination of parents or ancestors and may also be unlikely to pass on as a set to children too.
Even more complicated, there may be alternative genes, making identifying which genes are a factor and which are not very difficult.
But I am just pointing out that most things have a genetic pattern behind them, since all our features do.
But it appears making any progress there has been difficult.
> But I am just pointing out that most things have a genetic pattern behind them, since all our features do.
I guess I'm genetically predisposed to not give much credit to genetics then. Nothing you can do about it, I will always be skeptical regarding these sorts of claims.
Could be age related. I could never play a musical instrument until my mid thirties. Nobody in my family could. My wife found a Ukulele which was left on the side of the road and which was in good condition and took it home. I started playing just randomly tugging strings to understand the sounds and I kept doing that maybe 10 to 30 mins a day for about 2 months and the tunes became less and less random and now I can improvise full 1 to 2 minute melodies on the spot with multiple strings.
I don't need to plan the melody ahead of time I just pick a few notes that go well together then I pick some starting notes and I just intuitively know how to join them together into a full piece. It's like when I play some notes, my fingers themselves resist certain bad notes and whatever note I end up choosing (high pitch or low pitch) seems to work out every time.
I had a guitar since I was 16, and never gave up trying to learn. I reached a plateau very quickly (knew some chords, simple songs), and could never go past it. I then spent almost 20 years in that plateau.
Then, suddenly, it all started to click. I was reharmonizing, writing my own lines, improvising, soloing. It was uncanny. I moved to other instruments at similar speed, stuff I never played before. It became so easy.
I heard many times that once you age, you lose some ability to learn music. What made this experience so jarring was that I experienced the exact opposite.
Maybe this thing that you have to start young is all bullshit (probably what's going on here), and before I had some kind of block. I can't explain what that block was though.
Did the diagnosis perhaps relax some defensive structure in your mind which freed up an ability to tolerate the discomfort of actually identifying what you need to improve?
I don't know. It seems too vague of a description.
On the guitar, I did some identifying and learning.
On drums though, I just sat there and in a matter of months I was able to play to a lot of songs. I was doing polyrhythms, for example, before I knew what polyrhythms were.
Possibly, this is nothing extraordinary and fits the overall learning curve for the general population (I'm assuming lots of people do polyrhythms without knowing them). Which means that before the first episode, I was below that general curve of learning music (slower than everyone else would learn), then something changed right after such episode.
Since I'm on HN, let's use a computer analogy: I would describe it as upgrading a PC to new hardware, things felt smoother. The world of music (and arts in general) felt higher resolution, faster, more responsive to my actions.
If you scan Wikipedia's "Famous people with schizophrenia" article, as in people whose talent was so exceptional that they could succeed despite their disadvantages, most of the people on the list are musicians.
Content gets more engagement as it gets closer to the "policy line" of getting banned, and in a competitive information environment (an engagement maximizing algorithm) you end up with a lot of content close to the border of what's allowed.
This is fascinating, and makes me wonder if human intelligence itself is such a cliff edge trait. For most of human history our advanced intelligence has obviously been a benefit, but now we see, as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously. Perhaps we've overshot the intelligence cliff and evolution is now gradually pulling us back. (Evidence of this would be less intelligent people having more children on average than more intelligent ones.)
Humanity is changing so quickly nowadays, biological evolution most likely doesn't matter at all anymore, at least for the kind of questions and time scales you're discussing.
Humanity is still subject to evolutionary pressures. We are "natural" and what we do is "natural", and if something like our environment were to drastically change as an evolutionary pressure, selection would absolutely happen.
Consider a change in environment where, for example, oxygen levels drastically drop. That might make living at altitude deadly for those who don't have genetic adaptions to high altitude living.
As an extreme example, in ~500 million+ years when the sun starts expanding, you can bet natural selection will finish off non-extremophiles that aren't living deep within the Earth.
What I'm saying is that evolution matters across large timescales. By contrast, I believe the topics I was commenting on concern timescales where effects of biological evolution are negligible compared to the effects of memetic evolution.
Thus, biological evolution doesn't matter at all for predicting what will happen (or is happening right now) to humanity, unless predicting so far into the future as to be completely futile speculation (imagine someone 200 years ago wondering how biological evolution might affect humanity during the next couple thousand years).
Its impossible to properly seperate biological evolution from current day enviromental pressure. There have been many natural and man-made disasters that have killed or otherwise economically robbed millions of people from a good future in their lifetime. Its difficult to say what the fitness function actually selected for.
If you could look back far enough and understood most of the enviromental pressures we faced, then we are all lottery winners of our tumultous history.
Again, sure. However, this is still looking at things at the timescale of millenia at best.
In my original comment, I was claiming that biological evolution is not relevant for this:
> as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously. Perhaps we've overshot the intelligence cliff and evolution is now gradually pulling us back.
Biological evolution is also impossible to measure on small timescales. that does not mean it does not exist, clearly it exists. It has an exponential effect on the future. I think we fully agree on this definition.
>as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously.
There is also the unmistakeable influence of evolutionary psychology on people throughout human history, that seems to have accelerated. When people decide to have fewer kids, especially the more affluent ones, doesnt yet point to any biological influence. Other than the correlation between wealth, IQ and genetics. I dont think there are any risks of a reduction of intelligence through evolution. The world population reduction we're seeing might accelerate it instead.
Nearly everything around you save for a sliver of software was invented (and often built) by people over the last hundred years. There is no empirical evidence for qualitative difference in intelligence, certainly not to account for sudden onset of infertility.
If the effect from 1934 to 2008 had been 14 points (believable given advances in nutrition and education), what had it been from 2008 to 2025? And is it reasonable to believe that those hypothesized couple points from the old median did it?
I think the point is that the evolution of human intelligence reached a point that enabled us, over evolutionarily short timescales, to develop an environment (social structures etc.) that broke evolution as it was – the meaning of "fittest" is now rather arbitrary in human context.
I'm not sure it is arbitrary, just different from what it was a hundred or a thousand years ago. There's no real survival differentiation in modern society, and while classically beneficial traits like physical fitness and intelligence do help with finding partners, most people are able to do so regardless. The other big difference now though is that people can have sex without choosing to have children. So istm the most successful traits from an evolutionary perspective at this point are those that encourage a desire to have more children. (If there's a genetic predisposition toward religious adherence, that's a likely example.)
The cliff theory is an interesting one. I don't have any kind of schizo propensity, to my knowledge, but I did, for a brief period of my life, have what I call a "firemind" experience.
During that period I spent an unhealthy amount of time alone. I also spent tons of time reading. During that time the ability of my brain to free-associate seemed to absolutely explode. I felt like I could see a pattern or form a connection between almost anything whatsoever. I read symbolism in everything. The few times I did see friends during that time, I remember them being kind of shocked at the callbacks, linkages, etc. that I was able to fire off instantaneously at the board game table.
My brian no longer works like this. I underwent several lifestyle changes and it seemed to really rewire me. I'm much more logical in my thinking now, but it's taken practice, and the shift was gradual. Every now and then I kind of miss the "semiotic aptitude" I had in those days, but I wonder if I was really just teetering on the edge of a cliff. Maybe a few more months of isolation would have pushed me over the edge.
Schizophrenia can coexist with extreme levels of intelligence and lucidity.
A schizophrenic member of my family argued in divorce court that her husband, a leading physician at one of the most famous medical institutions in the world, was secretly involved in outrageous nefarious activities.
The stories were all fiction but she was so convincing that the judge awarded her a ruling in the divorce that ruined her husband financially and took an emotional toll.
I wouldn't exactly call it intelligent to lie to a court ;) Perhaps another descriptor would be more precise? For that matter, can one be "truly lucid" if one lies in such a manner?
Lucidity is a feeling let's say. And the stuff you feel it "about" does necessarily mean that the stuff is legit.
Or to quote Moby Dick ~ "Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form..."
People with schizophrenia are often not lying, they really believe the bizarre things they say. How do you know what your brain is telling you is true?
Is it possible that the pro-schizophrenia genes persist because they offer other (non-neurological) benefits, e.g., lower risk of cancer? Siblings of patients with schizophrenia are less likely to develop cancer, and in several studies these patients had lower risk of developing cancer despite higher prevalence of smoking.
There’s no such thing as a “pro schizophrenia genes”. There are only genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia, and this is probably due to environmental variables.
Exchanging a risk for cancer for a risk of schizophrenia is not a win-win situation. You’re just switching one set of risk genes for another.
It depends very much on the likelihood that the gene causes a disorder, and the deadliness of the disorder. Those two outcomes could be vastly different.
>Exchanging a risk for cancer for a risk of schizophrenia is not a win-win situation
But it can be though. Consider a population that works with carcinogens like coal. due to capitalist class structures, they cannot leave their occupation, so a gene that would increase their survivability would be a great help.
Yes, this is what I was going to comment, and adding that it was funny they used a coal miner as an example since my family side that has the mood disorders were all coal miners in central PA.
This makes good sense in my experience. I was struggling socially and academically in college so they proctored an IQ test to look for things like ADHD etc. I scored in the 98th percentile for verbal comprehension. Only 2 years later did I have my first psychosis and was diagnosed with Schizoaffective. Luckily after a few rough years I'm doing well on the lowest dose of an antipsychotic and can function in society again. But there are definitely cases of highly creative or people with strong language skills that the expression goes too far like this post suggests.
R.D. Laing was saying the same things 50 years ago.
" We must remember that we are living in an age in which the ground is shifting and the foundations are shaking. I cannot answer for other times and places. Perhaps it has always been so. We know it is true today.
In these circumstances, we have all reason to be insecure. When the ultimate basis of our world is in question, we run to different holes in the ground; we scurry into roles, statuses, identities, interpersonal relations. We attempt to live in castles that can only be in the air, because there is no firm ground in the social cosmos on which to build."
"Sanity today appears to rest very largely on a capacity to adapt to the external world — the interpersonal world, and the realm of human collectivities. As this external human world is almost completely and totally estranged from the inner, any personal direct awareness of the inner world already entails grave risks."
Julian Jaynes' theory is always interesting to think about. I self-diagnosed myself as schizophrenic in my late teens and I still stand by my diagnosis 20 years later. I do believe it is a spectrum though and the degree to which one is schizophrenic is not static, and I don't think it's even necessarily a bad thing.
Though it doesn’t mention it by name exactly, I think a related idea for systems that are optimized close to a point of phase change is “the edge of chaos”
For your consideration: the theory of "Positive Disintegration" developed by Kasimir Dabrowski does help to explain the capacity and reality of schizotypal disorders. The easiest way to explain it, is that human brain potential for "over-excitation" leads to personality development; this is natural and human. The stages of personality development are not guaranteed to succeed and proceed correctly. Most cases of schizophrenia may be a result of failed re-organization, or a failure to develop the final, executive, function. In cases of "arrested development," this process may be delayed till later in life. This is the so-called mid-life-crisis, which also can fail, and then you get adult onset schizophrenia. This is all emerging research thats usually locked up in foreign language journals. Almost no medicine to be sold here, AMA and APA are not interested...
Genetics is messy - as I understand it most genes don't code for a single thing, so assuming evolution is "selecting for schizophrenia" that only implies that there is an evolutionary benefit to some of the things controlled by the same gene(s) that control schizophrenia, that outweighs the disadvantage of schizophrenia.
Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it, yet basically fatal to reproduction, so what are the benefits that evolution is selecting for? Is it advantageous to groups, or maybe the same genes confer an individual benefit to non-homosexuals?
> Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it,
Are we sure this is the case? I think it's more like homosexuality isn't extremely selected against on a population level. Evolution doesn't really select for, more like evolution is a process in which least-viable-specimens are killed off for their environments. It could very well be that a small number of homosexual specimens are simply irrelevant to evolutionary fitness.
For evolution to “select” for homosexuality, wouldn’t it have to be hereditary in large part? As far as I can tell, to the extent that theres any evidence for that the effect of genes on sexuality is kinda limited
Male vs female differences, including differences in typical sex-specific sexual attraction, are obviously genetic, even if we've yet to figure out all the specifics (where are the male's "curve detector" genes, etc).
Do men and women both have the coding for male/female attraction, with one typically disabled ? This perhaps seems most likely, in same way both sexes have nipples, etc. Without knowing exactly how this all works we can only speculate how male/female genes can combine to create same-sex attraction. Obviously it's not so simple as inheriting a gay gene from one of your parents!
> Male vs female differences, including differences in typical sex-specific sexual attraction, are obviously genetic
Typical is putting in a lot of work in that sentence. I could rephrase it with the same truth content and make it much more ambiguous.
"Many phenotypical sexual differences in humans are obviously genetic. Some very common differences in sex-specific sexual attraction are likely genetic as well. For large swaths of sexual attraction, we have absolutely no evidence of a genetic link."
What's funny is that the one example you facetiously picked (a curve detector) is extremely culturally dependent. Trying to tie elements of human sexuality to evolutionary just so stories is usually pseudoscience. When we start isolating genes for the things that we think of as natural, if we ever do, I bet you $100 the mapping from our social experience of these traits to some kind genetic reality is muddled to the point of total detachment.
> What's funny is that the one example you facetiously picked (a curve detector) is extremely culturally dependent.
Actually, it wasn't intended as facetious! I'd bet money that male attraction to females is indeed based on curve and jiggle detectors! If not this, then what - it has to be based on some (simple, perceptual) physical characteristics. I realize that female ideals vary a lot between cultures, and time periods, but the differences are more about things like fat percentage and distribution than the underlying characteristics that visibly differentiate men from women.
> Some very common differences in sex-specific sexual attraction are likely genetic as well. For large swaths of sexual attraction, we have absolutely no evidence of a genetic link
Sure - it seems there may be a large degree of imprinting as well, but homosexuality does seem to be an important special case given that it typically means lack of descendants. Of course evolution is really about sub-populations and gene-pools, not individuals, and it seems there has to be some benefit at that level otherwise this trait would have been out-competed in the population.
> but homosexuality does seem to be an important special case given that it typically means lack of descendants
For much of human history, that has been false. In many societies, there has been strong pressure to (heterosexually) marry, arranged marriages - with the result that most individuals with a homosexual orientation end up participating in heterosexual reproduction-so homosexuality is much less of an evolutionary disadvantage than you’d assume.
Modern Western society puts great emphasis on marrying for love, marrying on the basis of actual attraction rather than social pressure or political calculation, being “true to yourself” - and in such a society, a homosexual orientation does significantly reduce the odds of participation in classical heterosexual reproduction. But modern Western society isn’t normal in world-historical terms, what we consider “normal” is actually rather novel
The article's first paragraph has some alternative factors in selection
> Traditional evolutionary hypotheses, such as those invoking kin selection, mutation-selection balance, and evolutionary mismatch don’t quite explain this.
There's lots of explanations here but one that is often mentioned is "kin selection". If you increase evolutionary fitness of nephews, nieces, etc. There's many others, some of which apply here and others which don't.
My best guess it that there is a societal/group benefit in reducing aggression (maybe not unrelated to they way our closest DNA match, Bonobos, function).
I don't think we're at the point yet, and certainly not in last few million years of evolution, where overpopulation is an issue, and since evolution is all about (collectively) creating the largest next-generation population, this isn't the way I would expect to see increased competition for resources to play out.
Do you think schizoid personality disorder has actually anything in common with schizophrenia, apart from aptitude and even preference for social isolation?
Not my area of expertise, so it should be taken with a boulder of salt, but there are other studies that seem to indicate a much higher correlation. Part of the problem may be that “creative” is a nebulous term. One Swedish study found that people with artistic backgrounds have a 1.9x likelihood of developing schizophrenia and 1.62x odds of developing bipolar disorder.
I suspect (with nothing to support it) that there is a range where people with mental illness are able to interpret the world differently than normies (and thus make connections that normies do not), but also a point where that perception gets so out of joint that they can no longer function in reality. So in the former case, it may help in creative pursuits, but the latter may hamper it.
many people hear voices and experience symptoms of schizophrenia while managing to keep their cool and thrive amongst the nerts. hearing-voices.org is a support network for such people
It's dangerous to existing systems for people to become aware they're capable of creating/conjuring/channeling useful new voices in the mind to help learn different things. People get burned at the stake for that.
I've never ever had any symptoms of schizophrenia but the idea of trying to consciously encourage myself hearing voices is terrifying, Im sure I could send myself truly insane with probably not much effort.
> the idea of trying to consciously encourage myself hearing voices is terrifying,
This is not unreasonable.
It could be less awful if the voices were positive and not harsh and negative. Schizophrenics outside the US were found to have a more benign relationship with their voices.
The striking difference was that while many of the African
and Indian subjects registered predominantly positive experiences
with their voices, not one American did. Rather, the U.S. subjects
were more likely to report experiences as violent and hateful – and
evidence of a sick condition.
I once accidentally came up with another conscious voice in my head & we decided to govern through the 12 traditions of Codependents Anonymous. She also had specific qualities I'd chosen 3 weeks prior as qualities I chose to believe I could come to embody, so that was an interesting pointer to what's possible.
And as others have pointed out, it really depends what kind of programming you're carrying around. Feeling terrified of something isn't the issue...it's how you've trained to respond to terror that matters. If you lash out or avoid, yeah....don't cultivate multiple voices. If, instead, you're choosing to purge the addiction to violence & domination fairly rooted in American imperial colonial indoctrination, it's really quite something. I'm now working on bringing in 16 others as a way to better connect with different parts of the population and spread this and other blackness-embracing ways.
Hearing/seeing things that aren't there has historically for the majority of humanity's time on Earth not been an issue. We can get back to living in such ways, especially since doing so can be extremely helpful.
as did Eugen Bleuler. I have a friend who is schizophrenic whose speech hardly makes sense and she is always calling people on the phone and carrying on nonsensical conversations. Somehow the general public is hung up on ‘hearing voices’ but I have never once heard a voice but under stress I (schizotypal) did once spend about six months under the influence of a ‘system of delusions’ yet stayed mostly functional, kept working, and managed to avoid getting in serious trouble.
I think it is quite ordinary also for people to have a dialogue with an ‘invisible friend’ or believe that they ‘talk to God’ when they pray, the auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia seem to be something like you have a thought that you don’t think is your thought but somebody else talking, notably schizophrenics often believe that somebody is putting thoughts into them or taking thoughts out of them, see
It's like gang-stalking--its not that there's something being introduced, but rather that the subject sees relations that are not objective relations (like, for instance, the relation between temperature, pressure, and state change). Typically, however (and I can't imagine a case where this didn't happen), the relations are social in character--and since social relations are subjective to the extent that all the social world is not expressly a fact, it can be difficult to differentiate between an illusion and a reality: people imagine their partners are cheating on them, whether or not its true. And there are many things we do not know about the social world around us; but, statistically speaking, nobody has ever actually been gang-stalked.
They're also less habit forming than the non-stimulant drugs; I'm taking a non-stimulant right now (Intuniv) that you can't safely quit without tapering off for weeks.
The combination is good enough that I lost my caffeine addiction. Of course that's a relatively mild one.
Gotta a friend who’s 52 and has all his teeth rot out 10 years ago. He goes to Wegmans every month and comes back with a pill bottle the size of a small trashcan. He says he could get nothing done without out but I don’t see him getting anything done. Wouldn’t be surprised if will fall and break his hip 20 years early.
I’ve seen plenty of those pills get diverted with outcomes like somebody stays up for 4 days and gets hospitalized so, yeah, I want to diss ADHD medication. It is clear it helps in the short term, not so clear if it helps in the long term.
Even that very limited study didn't link stim use to poor teeth - at all. As far as study went, this was it.
• Stimulant ADHD medication use in adults is associated with decreased bone
mineral in the skull and thoracic spine.
• No other areas of axial or appendicular skeleton showed significant
differences.
• There was no dose-response effect between stimulant medication use and
bone mineral density.
• The overall effect of stimulant medications on adult
bone health is unclear.
yeah but a sizeable part of the discussion here has been about women with menopause starting to show schizophrenic behaviors. So that might be a significant amount of the schizophrenic cases in the population.
OK, I just figured if there were specific large groups of schizophrenics that manifested outside of prime procreative years that it might be a reason for it to not be such an evolutionary mystery. Of course it was unlikely this was the case as surely some of the people claiming evolutionary mystery would have thought of it and ran the data.
I wonder if Autism would be even simpler to explain with a cliff-edged fitness function. Because there seems to be a high correlation between extremely intelligent people and people on the spectrum. Maybe the group of genes rewarded for high intelligence/creativity/quantitative ability also, by accidental design, inhibits social capacity.
> Maybe the group of genes rewarded for high intelligence/creativity/quantitative ability also, by accidental design, inhibits social capacity.
Maybe living in a world with neurotypical people who immediately dislike you [0] 'inhibits social capacity' after years of traumatic experiences piling up.
After reading this article, I’m really curious how you would model all kinds of other reproduction reducing behaviors that have become popular in recent years and how they many generations it will take them to be squeezed out of our culture. Like say taking care of a pet instead of having a kid in Korea.
One plausible explanation is that birth and childhood have become much less dangerous. Before 1900, children with poor genes died; since 1900, children with poor genes survive and have children of their own.
My understanding of high child mortality rates in the past is that it has little to do with genetics, and more to do with infectious diseases and poor hygiene.
> Let’s say schizophrenia is associated with a 50% loss of reproductive fitness in 1% of the population (and there is no offsetting benefit in the rest of the population), then it would take roughly 180 generations to cut the rate in half and about 560 generations to reduce it to one-tenth of its original value (Mitteroecker & Merola, 2024). We’ve had a comparable number of generations since the Neolithic era, but as far as we know, the prevalence of schizophrenia has not decreased in the manner anticipated.
What if the number we experience now IS 1/10 of what it used to be? Would explain a lot of religious talking to God in the past.
The article suggests a possible model where the schizophrenia is an extreme linear progression. But the inability to find a culprit genes suggests something more complex. It is possible that there are is a group of genes that all have variations that confers benefit, but when those variations are all together negative effects occur. That makes the positive variants overall beneficial, and keeps them in the gene pool. This is why it is dangerous to presume that when we correlate genetic variants with disease and then presume they should go away. In fact, nearly any inherited disease that has survived may be conferring value to other individual when in proper partnership with other genetic profiles.
I think people should study the RCCX gene cluster and link to giftedness more, I have TNXB SNPs which results in hEDS, but C4 SNPs have a similar effect and is likely to result in Schizophrenia. There are some cross over symptoms such as dopamine dysregulation and flat affect. I think dysautonomia and auto-immune plays a big part. Our lifestyles are very different than they used to be and this could be exacerbating auto-immune issues and as we get better at treating auto-immune conditions I expect we'll get better at treating Schizophrenia.
Of course there are. I'm guessing you're insinuating two things, it's highly improbable that individuals can have this many simultaneous issues, and it's impossible for medical researchers to miss such an anomaly. The Ehlers Danlos subset is shorter but still covers a huge amount of issues (https://ohtwist.com/about-eds/comorbidities).
Well there is a reason why doctors kept telling me I am a hypochondriac, but I do have a whole zoo of conditions simultaneously, and this is a pretty common state for people with hEDS and I'm on the extreme end of it. So while milder versions of it are ~2% of the population the extreme versions of it are < 1/20K.
And yeah, medical researchers are in fact in the aggregate really bad at their jobs. Look how long it took to convince surgeons to wash their hands. But a lot of the genetic stuff relies on Linear Regression for GWAS which assumes independents of SNPs, otherwise you get multicollinearity problems, this is not a safe assumption and they've confused their results as confirming their assumptions. Instead of listing everything they get wrong a much shorter list is what they get right, Dr Jessica Eccles (https://x.com/BendyBrain) does great research into Long Covid and Generalized Joint Hypermobility which should put to bed the theory that GJH is benign - still good luck trying to talk a doctor out of that train of thought.
If you find someone who has hEDS the odds are they have a very large number of those things and most of them don't even know the names of most of the conditions, just one or two that bother them the most. The RCCX / hEDS list is a distinct subset of all possible things, the list of all medical maladies is far longer. It becomes highly improbable that a set of people have the same set of maladies - doctors tend to chalk this up to social contagion but that doesn't bear out. Genetic and behavioral causes have distinct diffusion patterns.
It's confirmable with WGS which I've done and I've encouraged many others to do and it turns out that you can indeed predict with a great deal of reliability if someone has TNXB / CYP21A2 SNPs. Unfortunately it's harder to find people who have C4 since they're likely to have schizophrenia.
There are many TNXB SNPs and many are not rare, while I can theorize that the number and severity of the SNPs can explain a spectrum I don't have enough data to prove it. The data that I do have is highly improbable to be from random chance, but not impossible so I'm still collecting and am open to being wrong.
I know someone who had a clear psychotic break and still hasn't fully recovered. The scariest part wasn't when he lost control. It was that he truly believed everything made perfect sense.
The more you tried to care for him, the more he thought you were acting and trying to manipulate him.
If you have caution and paranoia about potentially being schizophrenic, does that mean it's less likely to manifest due to extreme self-awareness? I have been diagnosed with BPD, psychosis (sometimes) and depression, but I think I'm too aware when it comes to shizhophrenia.
> For instance, if schizophrenia risk genes were not under positive selection, we would expect them to be purged from the gene pool over thousands of years.... Let’s say schizophrenia is associated with a 50% loss of reproductive fitness in 1% of the population (and there is no offsetting benefit in the rest of the population), then it would take roughly 180 generations to cut the rate in half and about 560 generations to reduce it to one-tenth of its original value (Mitteroecker & Merola, 2024). We’ve had a comparable number of generations since the Neolithic era, but as far as we know, the prevalence of schizophrenia has not decreased in the manner anticipated.
... Okay, but you already acknowledged that
> The process will be slow, but it will happen (this is not the same as saying schizophrenia itself can be eliminated, since it is highly polygenic and the pool of risk genes is not static).
So how do we know that modern-day schizophrenia isn't caused by a different set of genes? Maybe the Neolithic ones have been dying out from the gene pool, but new ones have consistently managed to keep replacing them. New genes can start contributing to the incidence of schizophrenia right away; even if they're otherwise neutral, they but won't die out due to the marginal effect on schizophrenia incidence for a very long time (much longer than the calculation above - since each one is, as we already established, causing only part of the loss in reproductive fitness). They don't need to be under positive selection, unless I've misunderstood something.
The problem with this whole line of thought is that the human environment since the neolithic period has changed.
It also does not take into account the huge amount of human relocation that’s taken place over the last 200 years. For example, we have a large number of Africans that are now living in climate that are much colder than what they evolved to live in. The same as truth for northern Europeans, who lived in cold, cloudy climate now living in sunny, warm climates. Does anyone hear really think that that wouldn’t affect the populations mental health?
We know schizophrenia genes are almost always risk genes, meaning their polygenic, or they don’t cause schizophrenia, and everyone who carries the genetics. There are a very few number of cases of people who carry genes that directly caused schizophrenia.
So it’s quite possible that schizophrenia did not exist as frequently as it does in the modern world, a world filled with pollution, stress, drugs, aldehydes, bad food, and on and on and on.
But let’s just take migration. It is a well-known risk factor for schizophrenia. See the paper below.
So no schizophrenia is not the price we pay for mine poison near the edge of a cliff, it’s the price we pay for technology. The technology that enabled not only all the wonderful things to get, but also all the horrible things that come with it.
I had schizoaffective disorder, and I have essentially cured it. But I really can’t say it’s a cure because what was happening was there was a Mitch match between my genetics in my environment. It’s like curing yourself from celiac by not eating wheat. Celiac is only a disease if you eat wheat.
So I am one of these involuntarily relocated people because of capitalism. My great great grandparents on my mother side were Sami and I still carry those genetics. Changing my environment and changing my diet changed my life. Frankly, I’m tired of these articles saying that there’s no cure for mental illnesses and it’s just a price we pay.
This is personally interesting to me, as I am the first generation of my family that is not semi-nomadic (not sure about the exact term in English). When you say you've cured it - did you move somewhere more adequate or you did you stop moving?
Mine are from south-eastern Europe and I have been ignoring the longing for my mountain for so long, I've figured everyone longs for their habitat anyways so it's not that special.
We also have a lot of mental health issues in my family since the switch to "civilization", not sure that any one of us is totally sane.
I think many people are suited just fine to handle all this pollution and stress and stationary living. The farmers have taken over the world and they have left us hunter/gatherers to struggle.
Never held water for me. There's no evidence that gay uncles expend the majority of their time raising the offspring of others in the family.
In fact the gay uncle is behaviorally driven to do things that are evolutionarily detrimental. Like spending time mating, flirting and being with other gay men. I don't really see gay men abandoning all of that to care for a nephew or something like that.
Take Sam Altman for example. He's not spending time caring for other kids in his immediately family. He's sinking time into getting rich from openAI and snogging his current partner.
The gay uncle gives about as much of a shit about nephews in the family as the straight uncle which is virtually for all intents and purposes: zilch.
maybe theres a reason religion represses gay people, without the pressure of raising their own offspring there is 0 barrier to overt hedonism. lacking the opportunity to live this way and instead existing under a system of morality, the energy of gay people would naturally be inclined towards taking care of their own family, especially when a sibling dies in battle or by disease
its not like capitalism forces the hand of a gay person any moreso than a straight person , I dont see why the extra time on hand of a gay person could not be devoted towards aiding children in the family for example babysitting or financing extracurricular activities , a gay person elsewhere in this thread concluded as such
> They computed a polygenic risk score for schizophrenia for each participant, calculated by summing the weighted effects of thousands of risk alleles.
I am not an expert by any means, but this analysis only makes sense if we assume there is a strictly linear relationship between alleles. It will not capture nonlinear relationships.
I wonder if schizophrenia (or perhaps psychosis) could be in some way analogous to the LLM temperature function becoming disregulated?
I mean, what is the extreme opposite of psychosis? If it is matter of degree, which it seems to be, then there is probably a tuning mechanism. Perhaps too little and you fail to account for factors that might not be apparent but might be guessed or inferred, too much, and too much seems plausible.
If so it would be possible to have a great deal of different “causes” given the tight and complex coupling of biological mechanisms.
There was a theory that autism and schizophrenia were opposite ends of a spectrum, but it's fallen into disfavor. The theory went that autism produces mechanical, rigid thought patterns while schizophrenia takes free association too far.
I think it is possible to be diagnosed with both schizophrenia and autism which is why the theory is not considered anymore.
Interesting. I wouldn’t have intuited autism as being on the opposing end of psychosis, really, at least not based on my experience of both in my family.
I think your LLM temperature analogy is interesting in this deprecated dichotomy between autism and schizophrenia.
One Youtuber Jreg used a breadth-first search (schizophrenia) vs depth-first search (autism) analogy when comparing the the two, but I think your temperature analogy is more apt. Higher temperature results in more disorganized thoughts like schizophrenia. And if you buy into the idea that the root of most schizophrenia is thought disorders, then this analogy implies that dialing up temperature corresponds to more signs of psychosis through speech
My experience with many friends on the autism spectrum is that their speech tends to be more scripted, but I certainly don't think autism and psychosis are mutually exclusive.
They are. Autism is normal, and neurotypicality is simply the socially acceptable/expected level of insanity.
I know I have unconventional beliefs, but the reason is the opposite of what people describe here. There are no patterns and commonly accepted beliefs seem unjustified, and crazy. So I need to find my own answers, but it's difficult. I think that people used to be more like this until recently, and people messed it up because iron is toxic, and heavy metals belong in the brain. I become more and more like this as I keep taking them, and it's better. I admit my IQ has probably dropped, but it's better this way.
Interesting article. Also a good amount too high above the paygrade for me to decipher all concepts in it, but as someone who had close contact with schizophrenics a lot, I was missing one aspect in particular:
All schizophrenics I know didn’t start as obvious psychopaths, but rather have their personal „cliff“ usually around an age associated with hormonal changes (eg early twenties, menopause).
So in other words the negative selection effects aren’t there until after reproduction.
As expected a lot of the comments here are anecdotes. I’m assuming there exists a class of highly technical articles that get posted regularly that incite ancillary discussion, but no real contribution involving the article.
For me, I don’t like that this is about a mathematical model. I don’t want a mathematical model. I like the theory, and I think it’s interesting. I don’t need further digressions into a model. I want to see the real thing. Prove it, replicate it, codify it.
The odd thing is that among identical twins when one has it the other has it roughly 50% of the time. Which suggests that having the generic basis still requires something external, and it is common but not too common.
Induced schizophrenia is well known. Your brain is not a machine. It's several independent chunks of meat that were assembled in situ. There are more failure modes than operational modes.
"The persistence of schizophrenia is an evolutionary enigma. It is a disabling psychiatric condition that reduces the likelihood of having children, and yet it has roughly 1% lifetime prevalence worldwide. Traditional evolutionary hypotheses, such as those invoking kin selection, mutation-selection balance, and evolutionary mismatch don’t quite explain this."
Much the same could be said for gayness. If it were genetic, it should have been eliminated by evolution by now. Which suggests that it's not.
There are some differences in incidence of schizophrenia in populations.[1]
Birth order matters, slightly, with prevalence higher for firstborns. (This is the reverse of homosexuality and left-handedness.) Migrants have higher rates of schizophrenia than non-migrants. Women vs. men, about the same. Rural vs. urban, about the same.
What the original paper suggests is that they didn't discover anything significant. It's more like a discussion of feedback control problems near a cliff, but by people who don't know about that part of control theory.
> Much the same could be said for gayness. If it were genetic, it should have been eliminated by evolution by now. Which suggests that it's not.
There are very plausible explanations for the genetic basis of gayness. One is that being gay is essentially a "byproduct" of higher fecundity in women - I'd have to search for the study, but gay men with sisters tend to have sisters with more kids than the norm.
The other is the "guncle" hypothesis (which is related to the previous one). While gay men and women do not have their own biological children (at least through gay relationships), they are able to spend additional resources on their nieces and nephews. Anecdotal obviously, but it certainly worked this way in my family. As a guncle I helped pay for my niece's education (and was happy to do so because I don't have to care for children of my own ).
"My intuition doesn't explain something, therefore my prejudice is justified." Evolutionary psychology functions better as a tool to present one's prejudices as neutral and without ideology or politics than it does for explaining the world.
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.
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.
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”
This was treated as pretty much a fact when I took a class on psychological disorders in the US circa 2007, too.
This was discovered pretty much early on when LSD was first discovered. One of the early (cough) "uses" for LSD was for medical professionals to simulate what some patients experience.
(At least that's what I remember from "LSD, My Problem Child" by Albert Hoffman. Granted, it's been ~30 years since I read it.
Marijuana was known to do this in 1936.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kg0sK-dY98
Ah okay, good to know!
And at High School too on talks about drugs; the marijuana->schizophrenia link it's widely known.
Unfortunately it's hammered on so hard, and without nuance, that kids will discard it with the other half-truths that are told. And also the tendency for families to cover up and hide any "shameful" facts like uncle Jim having spent some time in a facility, that kids might not know at all that there's a family history.
DARE is one of the reasons I started smoking cigarettes. The only time the teacher was ever actually honest was when he described the effects of nicotine. Everything else was half-truths and scary lies.
Funny what kids pick up on.
Do you know what is considered as "latent schizophrenia"? Is it like in your 40's or 30's or just couple years after the mean?
Schizophrenia is pretty interesting this way. It's rare for it to show up outside of a certain age range, somewhere around 20 to 35 iirc.
It's strongly correlated to genetics, and most people are totally asymptomatic, no idea they have it until one day they do.
The story of sudden-onset schizophrenia inducing a psychosis making the patient unwilling to consider treatment is depressingly common.
> It's strongly correlated to genetics, and most people are totally asymptomatic, no idea they have it until one day they do.
Depending on whose stats you go with, you can also argue that most people with schizophrenia never know they have it due to anosognosia.
if you are a man and make it past age of 29 without starting to hear voices, you can breathe a sigh of relief (I did)
Unfortunately, this is just statistics. There are cases that lie outside of that age range. I know of two cases, personally.
Things like stress, drugs, childbirth, significant life changes, etc can trigger psychosis and latent schizophrenia at any age, it's just statistically more likely to happen during adolescence and the period right after.
Another way to look at this is that adolescence is when someone experiences new stresses, significant life changes, drug experimentation, etc, which can be triggers for schizophrenia especially during age-correlated prodromal phases.
Yeah, in this case it seems to be menopause + losing her job and having all the free time and nothing to focus on plus who knows what other stressors. I think something bad happened with her Phish friends.
The really tough part for me is she was out of work, so I paid her to be a beta reader for my book. She's a brilliant person and very detail-oriented. She went way over and beyond what I asked for. She spent months and took three passes on the book making different kinds of notes. Then her problems seemed to come on right at the end of that. I worry that all the increased mental activity, and then suddenly not having anything to focus on again, might have been the trigger.
Sounds like it was bound to happen. If she hadn’t hyper focused on your book, she’d likely have found something else.
I can identify with the guilt. In my case with my friend, their behavior lead to me distancing myself from them, not knowing what was going on, and I was his main source of socializing. Same thing happened with several of his other friends. The isolation definitely was something that amplified the progression of his illness to detachment with reality. Didn't help that the people he sought friendship from in lieu of us were scammers who fed into his delusions to take what little he had even when he became homeless.
If I could go back in time, I would do things differently, but at the same time I can't blame myself for not understanding what was happening and doing what was, at the time, the healthiest thing for myself.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
indeed, it just becomes less likely
I kinda heard lots of whispers when I was very young (like 6-7) and now I'm 40 and haven't had any such problems.
I blamed it on the drugs I got prescripted for sleeping (I had bad allergy and was scratching myself to the point of bleeding during sleep so I got some "pacifying" drugs).
Older antihistamines were anticholinergics, the latter of which are famous for causing vivid auditory, visual and somatic hallucinations.
Well, not just drugs-children are more likely to experience hallucinations even without drugs.
I still have vivid memories of experiencing what (in hindsight) I realise were hypnopompic hallucinations, around the age of 6 or 7. I wasn’t taking any regular medications, that I can remember. But, I grew out of it, as kids usually do.
A fun aside here: experiments in which people who’ve taken hallucinogens are placed in brain scanners reveal activation patterns which look an awful lot like what we see when we put small children in brain scanners, and this somewhat accords with the neurogenesis vs pathway pruning see-saw model of brain development.
I’ll say personally my experiences with psychedelics brought back memories of childhood - how I engaged with the world, how my mind would go off down different paths, the intensity of focus - so, you’re probably not far off here.
I always said psychedelics reduce you to a child, with reduce having no negative connotation, just a word that describes the experience. It's like sending your perception back in time in some ways, while retaining some matured aspects.
Also known as "delirium". They cause delirium. Benadryl (DPH) for example does that. It is very dysphoric.
Lower doses can induce hallucinations before it becomes full on delirium that you see in higher doses. You'll regularly hear about people seeing "spiders" after taking 25-50mg of Benedryl, the recommended dose.
I think that may be more common in the elderly. I had full-on delirium from 5 x 50 mg, however. I would not recommend. It took me months for my body to recover. The auditory hallucinations lasted the longest (2-3 days), but my body and my mind was a wreck for months. Thanks to our beautiful hospital that did not administer the antidote for anticholinergic toxicity.
I started hearing the voices well after 30. First it began with gang stalking, and by coincidence I am from the “home town” of Americas thought control elite. I was “recruited” (press ganged) and it is only a determination not to accept a word these say that keeps me unconcerned with the collapse of the lie that is modernity in my life.
I just want to point out that psychosis and schizophrenia tend to get worse over time, so while you might have a handle on it now, without treatment you might not in the future. They also have much better prognoses with treatment, even complete remission.
I've watched several people go from having a grip on reality, thinking they don't need treatment, to absolutely losing their minds. It's tragic and I hate to see it happen.
Point is moments of lucidity should be seized upon, I say this as someone who briefly experienced psychosis after extreme sleep deprivation. It was fucking terrifying and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I keep hoping my friend gets to the point where you are someday. Another thing not working in our favor is she's the most stubborn person I know. She thinks she can beat this thing with her mind and no help from anyone.
I have a friend like this, it's unfortunately one of the prominent symptoms of schizophrenia.
I am sorry to hear that.
Don’t be. After nearly two decades of development I experience the precipice of humanity. The state of the art of human consciousness. I have peered beyond the veil and what I see is terrifying yet truth.
i would be much obliged if you were to share insight derived from force disagreement with concensus reality
Were you afraid you had it at 29?
We dont even know what constitutes a mental voice. Hell, a huge percentage of people cant hear their own voices in their heads
During psychosis there is no question about what you hear. You hear it. You may know it isn't real, but you hear it.
I think people often imagine hallucinations as glaringly fake—I did, at least.
It was an eye-opener when I finally realized the faint FM radio sounds I kept hearing in the middle of the night were actually manic hallucinations.
As someone who had psychedelic experiences, I thought they'd be like that.
In the few hours I experienced hallucinations after not sleeping for ~7 days, I also heard a radio playing faintly in the background. "Faintly" doesn't do it justice because it was very much undeniably audibly there, even if I knew it wasn't.
I also heard footsteps, felt their vibrations, heard and felt stuff on shelves shake in response to the stepping. It was stunning how in concert and real it was. It was like it was more real than reality itself.
I was aware it wasn't real which made it fucking terrifying, but it was both beautiful and absolutely fascinating at the same time. I was both in awe and horrified that it could be permanent.
Brains are crazy stuff and I can see just how easily someone can become delusional based on what is very much factual in their own experience of reality. There literally is no boundary between reality and true hallucinations, which is a terrifying prospect and
I wonder if there are any schizophrenics with dissociative identity disorder. We're not schizophrenic but we have voices (we don't hear them as from outside though)
I have met a few people online who told me they were diagnosed with both.
Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) and DID can apparently co-occur.
From [0] (2016): > One study showed that in a sample of patients diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) 74.3% also met diagnostic criteria of a SSD, 49.5% met diagnostic criteria for schizoaffective disorder, and 18.7% met diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia.
The study cited in [0] is dated from 1996, however(!), so it was done not long after the change from changing the name MPD to DID. Not sure how much weight to put on a study that old.
From [1] (2022): > Numerous studies have shown that up to 50% of patients with schizophrenia meet the diagnostic criteria for dissociative personality disorder.
The two linked studies cited in [1] are dated in 1998 and 2004. So also, still old, but not quite as much.
It seems well-known that the two conditions co-occur. I don't have access to the linked studies, however, and am not willing to pay the subscription or single-paper fees.
I do have DID but SSDs have been thoroughly ruled out for me (I was checked for both, as well as other potential conditions). My assessment seemed quite thorough.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5216848/ [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8885543/
I'd be willing to try institutional academic accounts if you ever have some paywalls article you want to read. Just shoot me an email at partner_privacy@proton.me
Also, my partner likely has DID and is struggling with it somewhat. If you have advice or are willing to answer some questions, I'd appreciate talking about it. But I know it's a big ask, respectfully, so I understand if not.
We also have DID and would also be open to talking; you can find our contacts on our Keybase (or contact us on Keybase itself).
> ...if you ever have some paywalls article you want to read. Just shoot me an email...
Thanks. I appreciate it. Will do if I come across something.
> Also, my partner likely has DID and is struggling with it somewhat. If you have advice or are willing to answer some questions, I'd appreciate talking about it.
Sure. Not sure if you're wanting advice/help for yourself, your partner, or both, but email me at shippage_hn@proton.me if you'd like to talk. I know more about my own particular kind of DID than others, but am willing to talk about what I know of the generalities, too, as well as a bit about my experiences (including getting a diagnosis) if that helps you or your partner.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41980986
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads?
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.
> 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?
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.”
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.
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.
Heh. Probably just as well.
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.
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
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.
> 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.
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?
> 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?
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.
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.
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.
I wonder if alcohol is one of the seemingly harmless drugs whose abuse catalyzes such conditions in susceptible people.
Because, if so, then alcohol's ubiquity in society would imply that it is probably responsible (in the sense that substances are responsible) for most such conversions.
It's kind of worse with alcohol because the psychosis associated with that as an exacerbating factor is more related to alcoholic encephalopathy, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome etc... much of which can be brought on with self medicating with alcohol. Definitely a component but more like psychosis and mania drive you to drink because these experiences are awful more than a causative factor that's been proven
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459134/
Nobody serious believe that alcohol is harmless. There are many anti-alcohol campaign and laws always running around. It's just that alcohol has been part of our culture for thousands of year, that we monstly manage it. It's not the case of cannabis, psilocybin and even less LSD (even if you can find historic usage for the not man made ones)
The aldehydes that are produced from drinking alcohol heighten the risk for schizophrenia if you carry certain genetics.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26941382/
Interesting - we've known these are very bad for you for years but I had not heard of a direct link
Complicated interaction.
Schizos may take alcohol or cigarettes to calm down, a form of self medication. On the long term these may worsen, in the immediate they help. Why do you think they smoke a lot?!? To treat. If you smoke or drink, what do you do after a tough day - smoke or drink, to relax, feels great. Schizos may have a tough day , but not from external stimuli, but from internal stimuli
Nicotine is a more effective schizophrenia treatment than the actual medications, which is why over 80% of them smoke.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2613326/
That study might say that there is promise in further research instead of better, but yes a lot of smokers.
Alcohol is pretty bad for your brain so I would not be surprised. And while it's not really a hallucinogen itself (comparatively) I've heard some pretty hellish stories of severe alcohol withdrawals. Just going without sleep (completely) for several days can cause hallucinations and stress - and this is a common symptom of more serious withdrawal.
I would imagine other drugs which produce severe (and stressful) withdrawal could also trigger this. The stress alone cannot be good.
Even peculiarly stressful life events can trigger onset
Or perhaps people predisposed to schizophrenia are more likely to seek out drugs. Something like 9 in 10 schizophrenics smoke cigarettes too, is schizophrenia caused by nicotine or do schizophrenics smoke because they’re predisposed to do so? I find it hard to believe that so many schizophrenics smoke cigarettes and are not also predisposed towards using other drugs.
I think blindly accepting the statement ‘drugs can cause schizophrenia’ is harmful because we don’t actually know if the drugs trigger it or if the disorder makes them seek out drugs.
Some drugs have been known to activate schizophrenia; particularly psychedelics like LSD. However, in order for this to happen, one likely already needs to have a genetic predisposition. I use LSD about once every week or two and I haven't noticed any schizophrenia yet, so it is very much a YMMV.
Iirc, there's some evidence that suggests that nicotine helps with the symptoms, so it's self-medicating.
It's important to know that the correlation can have some other cause. Like that people with predisposition to schizophrenia may seek out drugs.
Keep in mind also the typical onset for schizophrenia is teenage years or early 20s in men, and is often later, up to early 30s in women. These are years you might experiment with drugs.
I also suspect people with schizophrenia that haven't yet started showing symptoms are more likely to take drugs.
Based on what?
The huge number of them who smoke cigarettes prior to their first episode - a different form of self medication. 90% of people with it smoke and there is research indicating a greater likelhood prior to first episode. I’ll have to look up those numbers though. (Edit, seems about 60% at a time when the average US population was at 20%)
[flagged]
> And no, please spare us all your justifications for how caffeine is fine or micro-dosing has been amazing, because they are simply varying levels of rationalization, I do it too, I’m just not in it as deeply. And no, just because you were able to become rich with and on the back of drugs does not mean you did it without harm, you likely just scandalized a lot of harm to, e.g., get rich selling some service to some coke head investor who will only fuel the abuse of data mining and social media addiction.
I think you make some interesting points, and it's a very well thought-out post, but this is the definition of "poisoning the well". You're attempting to preemptively discredit the most obvious flaw in your argument.
There is a massive amount of evidence for the impact on both society, economy and neurology for each of the drugs listed in your last paragraph – and it's these impacts that often change personal and societal perception of risk and reward. Caffeine, at average doses, induces an effect that is comparable to a small cortisol spike – it is mildly addictive, but nowhere near that of an opioid, for example.
Drugs like meth and heroine (and one wonders why you left off fentanyl) are highly addictive and destructive, cause enormous loss of life an an inconceivable scale, and can permanently damage neurological pathways. From what I've read, the impact of hallucinogenics is less well understood... but probably not great.
If your argument is "we like to say caffeine and alcohol are fine, when they're really no different than opioids and meth", well there _is_ a staggeringly enormous difference in the potency and impact of caffeine vs the other drugs you've listed. I do agree with you that alcohol is far more harmful than society cares to admit, however, and that's both well-studied and often ignored.
I hate to write out these words, but you're strawmanning.
The point is caffeine etc. corrupt the mind and cause a person's mental faculties to run in a way they were not initially designed to.
The point is not that these drugs are all extremely harmful, only that they are all harmful. Caffeine and other things get a pass because the "hard drugs" are so uniquely and visibly harmful that they overshadow all other forms of harm.
One could even say that this has tricked us into thinking that lesser drugs like caffeine or canabinoids are "effectively harmless" because they're not causing us to OD or steal things to get another hit or causing visibly psychotic states. But that is not true. We've simply accepted that the harm they due is not worth thinking about (this is subjective, not objective).
The use of the term "corrupt" rather than "alter" or "affect" is assuming the conclusion here. The human mind is not something that always works in the same Platonic perfection in a state of nature. Biological and cultural differences are major factors in what is considered normal at any given place and time.
Some people have conditions that make the way their brains work different than what is considered normal. Western technological culture imposes differences in social interaction and pressures on thinking and required performance that are far different than existed in societies even mere hundreds of years before.
Drugs can be a way to compensate for these pressures and find a way to exist in the world with as much equanimity as possible. And I say all this as a person who avoids all caffeine and illegal drugs, and uses alcohol very infrequently. I'm lucky I can do this and thrive in today's Western culture. Not everyone is as fortunate.
A small percentage of people, like myself, have clearly autosomal genetic conditions that means being 'normal' is just not on the cards. I have to take psychopharmacological drugs just to get close to normal.
Not everyone is the same, there is a lot of variety, what you say could indeed be true for most people but can also not be true for a small minority of people.
> A small percentage of people, like myself, have clearly autosomal genetic conditions
What is the Autosomal dominant disordered gene polymorphism you have that causes your mental illness? I am assuming you are just guessing here?
> I have to take psychopharmacological drugs just to get close to normal.
I hope you can consider that you are taking drugs to manage being in an environment/diet that you are not genetically adapted to.
I used to think like you, but then I saw my genetics, now after 35 years, I am on no meds and have essentially cured my schizoaffective disorder.
hEDS, there is a very long list of comorbidities and I tick off most of them. Not guessing, runs in the family, did a WGS and found the TNXB SNPs responsible.
I tried the no-drugs and being super healthy approach for the vast majority of my life, I look like a pro-athlete, the only reason I started the meds was due to figuring out the statistical possibility of having X things wrong with me was next to impossible without a common cause, and the ME/CFS with brain fog was destroying my life.
I also tried to quit caffeine but that only resulted in very negative effects that persisted for more than 4 months after going cold turkey, that's 4 months being largely housebound and not able to work for that one experiment. I've been at this so long that if you can think of something I've probably tried it - including the healthiest of healthy lifestyles.
Just comparing within my own family most are anti-drugs and anti-medications and their health is an absolute mess. I wish living a healthy lifestyle would be sufficient, I wouldn't have to walk a tightrope of balancing meds, but I don't get that option.
What are your thoughts on people who self-medicate with caffeine due to their baseline ability to focus being reduced (which in modern society is cause for trouble)? That’s the reason for starting caffeine use for many.
My use is also light and fully legal, but personally I’m not sure that this is something that’s so binary. It seems more likely to sit on a spectrum, as most things do, and is largely dependent on the individual due to wide differences in brain and body function. It’s the same reason why the prescription drug that works wonders for one person and do nothing or worse, be detrimental for somebody else. We’re not all identical units of a particular model rolling off an assembly line somewhere, after all.
So I guess I would say that yes, we should be more conscientious of how substances (even those that are common) interact with our minds, but I have a hard time labeling them all as harmful. It’s just too broad of a brush.
I think the main problem is conflation and averaging out experiences to the general population. There are distinct subsets of people who react to things very differently to the others and the focus should be on first finding out if someone is in a particular group.
I do a lot of DIY psychopharmacology, mostly modafinil and amitriptyline, in a successful effort to reduce ME/CFS/hEDS related brain fog. I’ve given modafinil to normal people and they tend not to notice any effects where for me it’s a super strong drug that’ll keep me wired unless I take other drugs to calm down.
I think quite a large subset of human behavior is seeking self medication for genetic anxiety disorders and I think in knowing the mechanisms people can avoid stumbling around in the dark and go directly towards things that work.
Could there be a similar cliff function for alcohol and psychoactive drugs iff used in moderation which may confer to a society an advantage to the detriment of individual health. If used above a limit things fall of a cliff. Abstinence however may also be sub-optimal even if best for any individual.
Recently doctors and research show that there is no amount of alcohol that is "healthy" to drink.
Statistics literally show this.
One of my ex' father triggered a lifelong episode of schyzophrenia by excessive drinking during mandatory military service around age 18-19. So i'd say there are number of triggers
Alternate theory; schizophrenia tends to manifest in men between 18 and 22. The drinking was him self medicating because of symptoms he was experiencing?
Final thesis: schizophrenia was starting to manifest and the drinking was him self medicating, not knowing it was making the schizophrenia worse and causing further harm.
> harmless like marijuana
You a joking. Nobody talks about it to not to harm 'suffering minorities' business. However there are researches that show harm from marijuana is significant and likely permanent. It's no better than tobacco. But you'll never see it on CNN for political reasons...
> You a joking. Nobody talks about it to not to harm 'suffering minorities' business. However there are researches that show harm from marijuana is significant and likely permanent. It's no better than tobacco. But you'll never see it on CNN for political reasons...
Two downvotes so far. Any explanation? Can't please everybody, especially Kamala voters.
But my advice: if you value your cognitive abilities, blood vessels health, and I'm sure it's snowballing, stay away from any form of marijuana.
I believe since the 80's it's been well-established that people with a predisposition to schizophrenia have a greater risk to break out into psychosis when taking hallucinogenics. Even with today's clinical trials, they will exclude those with a family history of psychosis/schizophrenia.
I have more friends mucked up by LSD like drugs than any other type - at any rate three of them and I don't have much in the way of junkie of alcoholic friends. I say LSD like as they all took other stuff. From my n=3 data I'd say if you do it more than once a week for more than two years you have a good chance of ending up like your friend.
It's called "getting fried". Know many people that fried themselves doing that stuff recreationally every weekend. Good rule of thumb is if they can't hold their alcohol they won't be able to hold their psychs.
My friend had a very similar episode with a psychosis, but turned out to be bipolar, not schizophrenic. Sounds very similar though!
He was smoking a lot of weed leading up to and during the psychosis.
Ended up in psychiatric ward for a month, which was followed by a couple of years of depression/introspection/therapy, but is now doing great with lithium.
It’s why I profoundly dislike the line of thinking that easier access to drugs means social progress.
It’s rather a shedding off of an inconvenience for those that have no (direct) problems of functioning (eg risk of developing addiction, psychosis, etc) at the heavy costs payed by those that are more vulnerable.
> It’s why I profoundly dislike the line of thinking that easier access to drugs means social progress.
While that framing might change the aperture for people to support decriminalization efforts, "helping people who have addiction means social progress" is the greater good here.
Unfortunately, at least from a USian perspective, we only got so far as the decriminalizing part, and we did it while actually cutting a lot of the social services, health care access, and safety net that actually help people with addiction function in society.
I had a parent with schizophrenia. I can tell you what a privilege it is to have my cannabis use be the primary risk factor I have to worry about, and not the financial stress and eventual homelessness, untreated health issues, and lack of mental health support my father faced.
I'm all for getting illicit drug users out of jail, that's social progress. There needs to be more education and attempt at shoring up mental health in the public sector and not just kicking everyone into a room and calling it a day, like the problem is solved.
There is pretty much zero barrier for accessing any drug. Even being busted by police or border guards for drugs don't make it a permanent problem. The real problem is advertisement. Cities have drug advertisements everywhere and it's legal. Banning all types drug ads, including ads of brands selling drug products, would be a genuinely great step towards limiting their impact.
> It’s rather a shedding off of an inconvenience for those that have no (direct) problems of functioning (eg risk of developing addiction, psychosis, etc) at the heavy costs payed by those that are more vulnerable.
And what about those who have a "direct problem of functioning" (like anxiety, depression, ptsd, whatever) and get no real help from the medical profession, but do get help from the drugs?
> whenever I see wellness healers and the like extolling the virtues of psilocybin, I want to point out that there could be a downside
Anecdotally, I had a friend once who was very into psilocybin for its mind-expanding properties. He certainly thought he was enlightened and loved to brag about the great understanding he'd gained from his trips, but he was one of the more selfish and un-curious people I've ever known. It seems to me that these drugs create a feeling of having accessed great knowledge, but the "knowledge" is just whatever nonsense your brain conjures up on the fly, like a dream world that makes sense while you're asleep but whose logic falls apart the moment you wake up.
As someone who has gotten a lot out of psychedelics therapeutically, you are correct. Psychedelics do not in of themselves grant any insight or wisdom beyond perhaps raw experiential evidence that our senses are fallible and our perception of the world is an artifact of cognition.
Past that, psychedelics are (kaleidoscopic, funhouse) mirrors. In the hands of a curious and humble person they can (in addition to being a lot of fun shared with like-minded others) be valuable therapeutic tools for approaching firmly rooted hangups, attitudes, etc. In the hands of someone like your friend, you get what you observed.
Both are commonly occurring patterns, and if you know a person's character even a little well you can usually predict how they'll engage with and come out of the experience.
To quote Shulgin,
> The most compelling insight of that day was that this awesome recall had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. Everything I had recognized came from the depths of my memory and my psyche.
That tracks with what I've heard about people getting genuine therapeutic benefits from it, like with PTSD. Thanks.
Yeah the main great insight I got out of doing that stuff was to see reality from a different perspective for a while. Kind of like travelling and realizing that things you take for granted aren't the same in every culture.
But I never felt like I was getting at some deeper meaning, and it wasn't something I wanted to keep doing throughout my life.
Cannabis is also a potent psychedelic, and its association with psychosis is well established.
(Not to condemn psychedelics, I just think the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the "it's totally harmless" direction.)
Could you elaborate on The Game? What did she say about this?
As someone who has had psychotic breaks, you aren’t going to learn anything from what was going on in their head.
100% agree with this. It's not rational in any way. From the period of time when she was still talking to us at least, there's no reasoning with it.
> Cannabis is also a potent psychedelic, and its association with psychosis is well established.
It's really fascinating to read this, because Alex Berenson has been beating this drum for a while now and he claims the psychosis risk has been downplayed or even denied. It's easy to find evidence supporting his take because if you just search Google for [cannabis legalization psychosis] you get a big pile of papers like this one:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36696111
"Abstract: Psychosis is a hypothesized consequence of cannabis use. Legalization of cannabis could therefore be associated with an increase in rates of health care utilization for psychosis [...] states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses"
That's from 2023. So apparently it's not that well established? Or if it's well established, there's a lot of researchers denying it.
I've used cannabis a handful of times. The first was a bong hit, and I felt a little funny. The second was a bong hit and I was seeing a light show half an hour later. The third was a bong hit and I got paranoia and dry mouth. The fourth was one square of THC chocolate and I felt a little funny and relaxed. The last time was two squares of chocolate. I was out for the evening with visual and auditory hallucinations.
I realize modern preparations are stronger, but the amount is too low, the dosage difference between relaxed and out there is too small, and after doing some research, it sounds like this is a sign I'm either more prone to schizophrenia, it could trigger it, or increase my likelihood of getting it, so the slightly relaxing high isn't worth it.
Yeah, it's not worth the risk. When I tried the stuff, I first felt absolutely nothing. Then I took some more, and a couple of minutes later I had a full-blown panic attack, probably some hallucinations too. My brain felt a bit weird/slow a day or two after that.
Only later I found out that a deceased close relative of mine had schizophrenia. That killed any remaining interest I might have had towards the substance.
As someone who has a person with psychosis in my family, I don't think you can find any interesting insights from the details of their delusions. It's like dissecting dreams or AI slop, there is no hidden meaning behind it. Usually best not to discuss it.
You can definitely get fried on cannabis but you have to do it a lot, like multiple times a week for a while. In my mid twenties I smoked all day everyday for years and in my case it definitely left me paranoid and agoraphobic. That was more than a decade ago and I haven’t really smoked much pot since then (maybe once a year) and you end up making a full recovery after about 6 months to a year of no usage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_and_delusions_of_referen...
Of course there's a downside. It's a tale as old as time. Some new miracle cure comes on the scene and people promote it without relaying the risks. You see this with mushrooms, pot, etc going back to snake oil and silphium. I've never looked into it, but I would bet that there are no medications that exist that don't have some sort of side effect or increase in risk of some negative outcome. So if someone is pushing a cure/medicine its best to assume there is risk, even if we don't yet know the risk.
As opposed to what belief? That it is possible for there to be medical interventions or substances that are entirely risk-free regardless of your individual circumstances, potentially hidden allergies, or other known or unknown contraindications? Was anyone ever under such an impression?
"Was anyone ever under such an impression?"
If you've ever listened to some of people pushing or debating psychedelics, or natural remedies, or even "totally safe" vaccines, then it should be readily apparent.
Vaccines are a bit of a different can of worms in that first generally, they’re well-studied and the risks are reasonably well known, and second the impact isn’t solely personal — you’re trading off in most cases a small risk for the betterment of society — maintaining herd immunity, reducing capacity for spreading, etc depending on vaccine. The lives of many others can be negatively impacted, in some cases fatally, by one’s personal choice to not partake. There’s a certain amount of social responsibility involved.
Psychoactives and homeopathy have plenty of capacity to be harmful and aren’t necessarily anywhere near as well studied, but at least their effects are more bounded to the individual. (This does not however justify pushing them blindly.)
The effects of drugs aren't bound to the individual, that's the reason nearly all societies have banned them throughout history: they cause addicts to create large external costs.
Saying vaccines are well studied is like saying drugs are well studied, it's a category error. You can't study vaccines as a whole, and the quality of studies of specific cases vary wildly. As a consequence, common psychedelics are probably much better studied than some common vaccines. LSD in 2025 is the same substance as it was when it first became available, as far as I know, and there's lots of research into its effects. Compare that to the COVID vaccines which weren't even the same substance from trial to deployment, as the manufacturing process was changed completely. The trials were done on vaccine made using a very slow, non-scalable and expensive process that yielded a very pure result. The stuff people actually took was made using a totally different process designed for cheap mass manufacture. That second process had problems, leading to DNA contamination in some batches, which seems to explain why injury effect reports clustered by batch serial number.
All this was heavily suppressed for a long time (e.g. by rules forbidding study of vaccine vials), but has been coming out over the past year or so as the initial findings were confirmed. Research into psychedelics at least doesn't have that kind of problem, I think?
The context of this thread is that anything that is a medication has some sort of side effect and that some people overlook that. This is just as true for vaccines as for mushrooms. Cost benefit analysis is completely different.
As much as side effects get overlooked in some circumstances, they’re wildly overplayed in others and sometimes become the singular factor going into cost-benefit analysis, which is a problem.
The same way that not acknowledging that some accepted-as-benign substances can bring about mental health crises, overweighting of personal risks can cause weight-bearing pillars of modern society to crumble.
> 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.
Schizophrenia is not defined strictly enough that it's possible for you to be right or wrong when you say your friend has it.
Here's a discussion of the change in diagnostic criteria from DSM-IV to DSM-V, which has the side effect of describing what the criteria formerly were and now are: https://psychcentral.com/schizophrenia/dsm-5-changes-schizop...
Has your friend seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(1997_film) ?
Yes, I agree with that. I'm just guessing because she's super paranoid of doctors. One of the downsides of being in and around the wellness community for decades.
I don't know if she's seen The Game, but I do know that she's always had a deep insecurity about being the naive one in the room, being the one not in on the joke. It seems like this thing plays on your worst fears and brings them to life.
> We don't know because she's cut off all contact with friends and family and refuses to see a doctor.
It is not just schizophrenia, any mental health condition is isolating, others cannot understand it. I have OCD,ADHD etc so I know it, that's why we prefer who have been or going through same thing than normal people.
That sounds so terrible. But damn it, "I just lost the game". Sigh.
> She thinks she's in some kind of Truman show that she calls "the game".
Might be depersonalization. I had suffered from it in my twenties; everything feels fake, although you know it is not.
Derealization, I believe - not depersonalization? Believing everything around you to be made up - perhaps even by yourself in some cases. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, just trying to make sure I have the terminology correct
So brain realizes it's completely making up the reality on fly?
It is more like a feeling.
For example when you get very aroused your pupils dilate. Your brain fixes this for you so you don't feel like more light is hitting your retina even though it does. When you are high on psychedelics you can experience this though as the world getting literally brighter and darker with your mood. Feels like you are shaping reality with your feelings? As soon as the drugs wear off the effect is gone but you still have the memory that it happened.
Weirdly enough, the same way dreams can feel more like an episodic story or more like an immediate experience, that unfiltered dreamlike experience feels more real than the rest of the trip. Maybe because it literally is closer to reality because it was less bring-filtered, or maybe because the contrast between this and the hallucinations of wallpaper shifting before your eyes put the search for "real reality" into your head in the first place, now the concept of more or less reality is in your brain as an experiential concept. Now you have the memory of having struggled for real perception and achieving it.
Like in inception: you fell into a dream, you are trapped for longer than you anticipated and don't like it and want to wake up. Weeks later when you have a deja vu it triggers the uncomfortable feeling that your mind is playing tricks on you. Are you dreaming now?
Though this is not schizophrenic. From what I was told from someone who had schizophrenic episodes it makes you completely unable to tell apart illusions from reality.
Also I guess there are degrees to it.
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Plenty of intelligent people entertain this possibility, as well as many other possibilities, around how our world works.
If they then become obsessed with the idea being a fact and refuse to even consider updating their mental model when presented with evidence contradicting it then they have developed a fixed belief.
When that fixed belief is not common among their culture, it becomes a bizarre fixed belief.
When, as a result of their obsession with those bizarre fixed beliefs, they are unable to function (hygiene, nutrition, finances, care of their dependents, etc.) - then there’s a problem.
Or do you think a mind is a perfect thing that can never be ill?
> When that fixed belief is not common among their culture, it becomes a bizarre fixed belief.
> When, as a result of their obsession with those bizarre fixed beliefs, they are unable to function (hygiene, nutrition, finances, care of their dependents, etc.) - then there’s a problem.
But why does the issue of whether it is “common among their culture” matter? A person unable to function due to a non-bizarre fixed belief has just as big a problem as a person unable to function due to a bizarre fixed belief, if we assume the same degree of functional impairment in each case. The question of whether the belief is “bizarre” seems irrelevant, and possibly even encoding cultural prejudice
“Common among their culture” is a quick way of determining whether lots of other people are able to hold this belief and function fine. It also suggests an origin for the belief that isn’t unique to the person. You can’t go around saying “ah this person’s problem is they believe in angels” if the person’s belief in angels is simply part of their religion or culture. “But they believe in imaginary beings” is not a helpful observation in that context.
> “Common among their culture” is a quick way of determining whether lots of other people are able to hold this belief and function fine.
But some people’s functioning is impaired by beliefs common to their culture, whereas other people have very unusual beliefs but aren’t impaired by them to anywhere near the same degree
One person obsesses so much over “culture war” topics they lose their job… another person spends all their free time contemplating elaborate idiosyncratic theories of parallel universes, yet still manages to put a lid on it at work to a sufficient degree to keep their job. The first person has a non-bizarre obsession with serious functional impairment (they lose their job due to it), the second a bizarre obsession but the degree of functional impairment is significantly less. So the fact that we label one obsession “bizarre” and the other “non-bizarre” seems of little relevance
You should get her to watch one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E61Hup6hWWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZSWS6rNv0I
why?
one of the cards in the first video looks like it says "the game" but then I went back to read it and it actually says "the care", so I though it might help.
People who reject in-group socio-economic norms and isolate themselves from their previous in-group may or may not be mentally ill. If they were in one of those cults that programs their members behaviors incessantly, then it's entirely plausible that they became sane and escaped from a community of insane people.
For example, I've met several people who reported the set of symptoms and behaviors you describe - but in their case, 'the game' involved the fact they came from a wealthy extended family whose entire existence revolved around hanging onto their pool of capital and ensuring some rogue family member didn't gain control of the capital, which funded all their connected lives (including this guy, who was able to travel the country and go to music shows solely because of his family-linked trust fund). The game they all played was keeping the family members that controlled the capital happy, rather than going out into the world and finding jobs, making their own money, and being self-sufficient.
There's just not enough information in your post to evaluate whether the example was escaping from a cult or being indoctrinated into another cult, who is sane and who is crazy, etc.
This isn't one of those cases. She had a career and tons of friends and now she's shunned everything. Her family lives in another state and had zero influence on her life.
But we can't do anything because she still knows how to take care of herself and isn't a danger to herself or others. So it's just sad.
You don't develop schizophrenia in your 50s. It sounds like you track her behavior and habits quite closely?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/schizophr...
https://archive.ph/zT99C
> But when the protective hormone is withdrawn during menopause, some who avoided earlier psychosis get a later onset. Having a first experience after age 40 is uncommon, but it may include up to 15 percent of the women with schizophrenia—twice the percentage of men who have schizophrenia onset after age 40.
> It sounds like you track her behavior and habits quite closely?
No it doesn’t. It sounds like they’re really concerned about a loved one who went off the deep end.
I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much.
For me psychosis feels like pattern matching going on extreme overdrive, while at the same time memory goes to shit. It's truly an awful illness, and what's worse is that the current medical treatments are bad. I've been fortunate enough where I can get by on a low dose olanzapine, but for many people they simply don't work at all.
Even though I'm doing well enough to function normally and hold down a good, well paying job, it's impossible to find a partner. If I were to have kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services. I am strongly in support of these screening services - the disease is truly horrible.
There has been little progress on treatments for schizophrenia, the mechanism of action of these drugs has remained the same for decades. The side effects are almost as bad as the disease, which is why so many schizophrenic stop taking them. The only novel medication recently released is Cobenfy, which I have not tried yet.
Personally I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease. There was a cancer patient who had a bone marrow transplant and ended up being cured: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/schizophre...
I have family with that.
The most striking thing, is the absolute certainty of the thinking. They feel as if their thinking is crystal-clear, and that they are the only one that "sees the patterns."
Currently, they're doing well. I know of others, that are not so fortunate.
It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. I've not used it in about 45 years, and I've heard that today's pot is a heck of a lot stronger than what I remember.
>It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid.
from the guys I knew who chewed the tabs of acid and had evident schizophrenic problems, I don't think so.
Exactly. This well matches my hypothesis about how the brain works.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44347211
> It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use.
This isn't entirely true, and it's a dangerous misconception. High THC, low CBD cannabis wouldn't be recommended, but that's exactly what making cannabis illegal selects for.
High CBD, low/zero THC cannabis, on the other hand, will probably be one of the paths to treatment if we ever get over our Reefer Madness and pharmaceutical obsession.
"High CBD will probably be one of the paths to treatment"
On what exactly are you basing that off of? Vibes?
I wouldn't dismiss personal anecdotes any more than I'd dismiss someone claiming they saw something in a reputable journal but can't remember the citation.
In other words, yeah, don't just believe it at face value- but if you have good reason to trust the source, it's worth considering and checking into further.
In this case it's not just one individual but many people saying that THC and CBD are almost opposites if eachother, for example in how they affect anxiety.
Definitely worth proper research imho, could lead to medication that has more of the pros and less of the cons
Not trying to be glib, but this is a genuine lmgtfy moment.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=cbd+antipsychotic&atb=v340-...
No it's not. The poster should have referenced some sources. CBD has been touted as a miracle drug for over a decade now and it seems mostly like a fad at this point. But also it's not well regulated so it's easy for unscrupulous companies and individuals to profit from misleading marketing around it.
> The poster should have referenced some sources.
Who, me? ... Why? It's very well known and established that CBD has antipsychotic properties.
And if you don't know, that and don't bring any evidence against it, then why claim otherwise before like, doing a simple search to check your priors?
In any case, I've provided multiple citations elsewhere in this thread, and a whole bunch more come up on the linked search results. This isn't hidden knowledge or anything.
> CBD has been touted as a miracle drug for over a decade now
That's a separate issue.
> it seems mostly like a fad at this point
If you click the link you can see that isn't true.
> also it's not well regulated so it's easy for unscrupulous companies and individuals to profit from misleading marketing around it.
That's a separate issue.
“Dangerous misconception”? Get out of here with that. Cannabis is dangerous for schizoaffective people. Why are people that smoke pot so tiresome about this? Just accept that it’s not good for everyone!
> “Dangerous misconception”? Get out of here with that.
I will not.
The demonization of cannabis has led directly to it becoming high THC and low CBD, as I said. It also has lead to it often being tainted with all manner of adulterants, from ketamine to glass beads to plaster dust to worse.
> Cannabis is dangerous for schizoaffective people.
CBD is a leading target of research for it's anti-psychotic properties; and if you don't know this it's a complete mystery to me why you feel entitled to weigh in.
And it's not even the only compound in cannabis that is being investigated; there are others with anti-psychotic and synergistic potential.
> Why are people that smoke pot so tiresome about this?
What if what I'm saying might be true, and you're dead wrong to accuse anyone who disagrees of being a 'tiresome stoner'?
... Because, in fact, it may well be [0].
> Just accept that it’s not good for everyone!
If it's not for you, that's fine; but the wilful ignorance around cannabis over decades has caused far, far more harm than cannabis ever has.
Can you accept that it will may well have a role in treating "psychosis, in general and schizophrenia, in particular" [0]?
0 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22716160/
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Legal competition had lead to much higher concentrations of THC than was normal in the bad old days of smoking Mexican brick weed, not to mention the pure accessibility of buying 96% THC vapes wherever you go in unlimited amounts as opposed to being happy you could get your hands on an ounce.
Eh, maybe. I can certainly say that I have "skin in the game." Someone very dear to me suffers from it, and it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake.
That's one reason that I have compassion for parents of autistic children, that are vehemently anti-vax. I completely disagree with their stance, but I know what they are dealing with, and the very real fears and stresses that they are under.
> it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake.
It's not a theory that CBD has anti-psychotic properties. It certainly does, we just don't fully understand why.
My theory is that it will someday be part of treatment plans; and as someone with skin in the game I would hope that you care enough to learn a bit more about it. The comparison to anti-vaxxers with autism in the family is not appropriate here.
> is not appropriate here
Actually, if the agenda of pushing CBD therapy applies, then it is. I know a number of folks that have autistic children, of various levels, from "nerd," to "wheelchair-bound." Their parents are usually absolute saints, regardless of their political views, or misinformation diets, and live in constant pain; making daily sacrifices that I don't think many folks here, can even comprehend.
We were discussing a serious mental illness, and, as someone that is a caregiver for someone like that, I think that my experience is relevant; just as someone who believes that their child's condition was caused by something that is really a red herring.
The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas), and look at people like us, with very real pain, as nothing but pawns, to be used to push their agenda (Think of the children!).
CBD, like Blockchain, probably has some valid application, but, because it was so unexplored, scientifically, it is currently about 75% snake-oil. We'll find out what it's good for, over time. The same can be said for other drugs, like MDMA, microdose LSD, or psilocybin.
CBD has an antipsychotic effect. There's not really any debate on that in the scientific community, and I've already provided a link. That's not part of some sinister agenda to legalize cannabis, it's just stating facts to clear up the misinformation which at this point you are willfully repeating.
> The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas), and look at people like us, with very real pain, as nothing but pawns, to be used to push their agenda
Your assumption that I don't also have personal experience, and a stake, and real pain with this issue is based on what exactly? Did I miss the part where you asked me about my own experience, or does your personal experience trump my own for some reason?
I do, in fact, have all three. That has no bearing whatsoever on the basic fact that CBD has confirmed anti-psychotic potential with particular regard to schizophrenia, as was already linked above.
Finally, there's no secret agenda here - cannabis should be legalized. It's just basic common sense and decency, for all the reasons I've already stated and more. Prohibition doesn't work and we have decades of data proving that beyond any doubt.
Have rates of psychosis shot up in states where cannabis was legalized? No, according to a massive analysis of 63,680,589 beneficiaries followed for 2,015,189,706 person-months [0]. So please, stop with the reefer madness. I'm sorry about your family member but if you want to help people you could really try looking at the data.
> I do, in fact, have all three.
I don't believe you. If you had, you would have led with it, just like I did. I value people that have skin in the game. Jenny McCarthy is a big fat pain in the ass, but she really does have an autistic kid, is a good mother, and has formed her worldview around that.
> So please, stop with the reefer madness.
WTF? I've never believed that crap in my life. Interesting that it's important to you, that I support that twisted worldview. You've mentioned it a couple of times, so it seems to be something that you're fixated on.
I do, however, have considerable experience with the fallout from drug use. I have spent my entire adult life, helping folks out, who have had their lives shattered by it. There are a small percentage of the population that can't handle drugs, and need help to recover from it. I do my best to help them out, and don't insist that the vast majority of the population change their worldview to fit mine.
Personally, I think that pot should be legal everywhere, including at the federal level (which will basically kill all the "mom and pop" operations out there, so be careful what you pray for). I don't use it, and don't care, myself. That doesn't make me an enemy.
I'd gently suggest that a professional forum, read by many of the most influential people in tech, might not be the best place to be a crusader for drug use.
> I don't believe you. If you had, you would have led with it, just like I did.
You really can't imagine someone arguing from scientific research over their own personal experience?
> Jenny McCarthy is a big fat pain in the ass
Again with the autism/vaccines comparison, again missing the point, again doing yourself and your family member a disservice.
> WTF? I've never believed that crap in my life.
You keep repeating the claim that there's no therapeutic value to cannabis. That's madness, my friend, by the very literal definition of ignoring reality.
> don't insist that the vast majority of the population change their worldview to fit mine.
That's exactly what you're doing though? You're insisting that people ignore the research which I've linked multiple times now, and adopt your worldview which is based on vague assertions and claims; and you insist that anyone would argue the same way as you're doing when that's neither true or sensible.
> Personally, I think that pot should be legal everywhere, including at the federal level (which will basically kill all the "mom and pop" operations out there, so be careful what you pray for).
Huh? I can't tell if you're insinuating I'm a drug dealer or what your point is here. I'm certainly not the one who made this debate about whether cannabis should be legal or not; I just pointed out that prohibition made it much more dangerous to consume.
> I'd gently suggest that a professional forum, read by many of the most influential people in tech, might not be the best place to be a crusader for drug use.
As has been pointed out by people above, you're the one on the crusade here. My point, which I've repeated many times now, is that CBD has shown potential to help people vulnerable to psychosis and schizophrenia. I don't know why that triggers you so hard, or why you can't engage with the research which shows that very clearly, but I wish you the best all the same.
The one paper you keep shopping around here does indeed affirm that CBD may have some neuroprotective properties. That doesn’t change the fact that for the vast majority of people susceptible to schizophrenia or psychosis, that cannabis (always a mixture of THC and CBD in its natural state) is dangerous for them and can trigger mental issues. You can feel superior or more intelligent than others as much as you like, but that will not change this fact. You are getting a negative reaction from people who know this because we have been negatively affected by it, either ourselves or people we know. If you yourself “engage with the research” beyond your tunnel vision, you will see that the link between cannabis and mental issues is pretty well established by this point. In fact, refusal to acknowledge downsides of cannabis use is one of the hallmarks of cannabis use disorder. Pluck the beam out of your own eye.
> cannabis (always a mixture of THC and CBD in its natural state)
Come on man, I've been explicit from the start that I'm talking about high CBD low THC strains. If you refuse to acknowledge that then you're wasting both our time.
> You can feel superior or more intelligent than others as much as you like,
Weird thing to throw out there. Do you often feel like people giving you more information is an assault on your intelligence or value as a person? Is that helpful for you? ...
> You are getting a negative reaction from people who know this because we have been negatively affected by it
By high CBD, low THC cannabis? Be honest now.
> If you yourself “engage with the research” beyond your tunnel vision, you will see that the link between cannabis and mental issues is pretty well established by this point
I never denied there's a 'link'. There's clearly a link, but to claim that it's well understood is a gross exaggeration, and insisting that it applies to high CBD low THC cannabis is an obvious lie (no matter how many times you repeat it).
> refusal to acknowledge downsides of cannabis use is one of the hallmarks of cannabis use disorder. Pluck the beam out of your own eye.
Now you're implying I have a disorder and a drug problem? Even though at no point have I "refused to acknowledge downsides of cannabis".
So, recapping: I posit that high CBD low THC cannabis could help schizophrenics. I provide multiple links to researchers in this field saying the same thing. And by doing this, you feel entitled to make to accusations of me being a drug dealer, having a substance abuse problem, a superiority complex and a mental disorder?
... It's not ok to talk to people like that. And yet you end all that with "pluck the beam out of your own eye"; as if I were the one casting judgment??
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eeEyVZiVW_M/hqdefault.jpg]
> The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas)
The natural state of affairs is silence, as plants don't care about humans. The actual history of plant illegalization is inherently political, and inextricably racist in America due to Nixon.
I agree, except that the racism involved with prohibition goes right back to Day 1 with Harry Anslinger [0].
0 - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=harry+anslinger+racism&atb=...
I agree, except that isn’t how you cite sources. What’s the point of that? I know how to search, thanks. I will treat every instance of this kind of “let me Google that for you” whether it has Google or not as a native ad and will flag. Please cite a source, or don’t, but either way, stop shilling.
Thanks.
> that isn’t how you cite sources
And this isn't an academic paper. If you want to learn about Anslinger, so you don't make false claims, my link is a perfectly cromulent starting point.
> Please cite a source, or don’t, but either way, stop shilling.
Not sure you know what shilling means - I trust you can google it if you don't? If you do, what is it you believe I'm shilling?
> Not sure you know what shilling means - I trust you can google it if you don't? If you do, what is it you believe I'm shilling?
The search engine you mentioned is who benefits.
We’re both right, actually. I don’t disagree with what you said, just the needless url you linked. I agree with what you said, but Nixon is also responsible for his racist words and recordings thereof. There were a lot of racists in history.
Can I ask how you are sure they haven’t had some novel insight that you just don’t currently understand? Like maybe they are bad at explaining but whatever pattern they noticed is valid?
I’m not defending them as I don’t know any details, I’m just curious how you came to be certain about your assessment.
I can't speak for the above person, but what the OP of this comment thread said also tracks with my own experience of schizoaffective disorder: when I'm psychotic, the pattern matching part of my brain goes into overdrive and not only does my brain erroneously fill in the blanks in sensory input (causing hallucinations), it does the same thing on an abstract or logical level with ideas and people. It's easy to fall into the trap of paranoid delusion when you feel like you're seeing connections between so many otherwise benign, disconnected things and events.
I think what really gets me is that despite my constant vigilance and skepticism toward my own thoughts, I simply cannot talk myself out of how truly real those delusions feel when they happen. I can even acknowledge how absurd they are, even in the moment, but I can never shake the feeling that they're still very, very real. It's so maddening. The best I can do is to just not act on those thoughts.
Maybe the above person's family is actually unearthing valid insights, but if they're prone to psychosis, in that state they'll be prone to finding connections, associations, patterns, and so on between things in a way that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It'll feel very real to them in the moment, but when they exit that state (if they do) they'll likely be on the same page as others in thinking those ideas were a stretch.
Do you take adhd medication by any chance?
I used to on and off in the past, but I found it made me more prone to mania, so I've since stopped. Why do you ask?
Stimulant induced psychosis is very common. One of the major side effects of those medications, just like their street cousin, is paranoia.
I don’t really believe in the dormant/latent argument because once you shift down to the underground (as in, entertain all possibilities, even the possibility that you share something in common with drug abusers) where people abuse drugs, there you can see just how common psychosis is.
The drugs fuck people up. Interestingly, after many years of laying off the substance, many do find their way out of the psychosis.
Many people are actually caught in this trap and don’t tell anyone because they are struggling between reality and their delusions and trying to present a calm face to the world. It’s often directly the result of the substance, but it’s allowed to fester in the person due to all kinds of reasons (”hey, I’m really going to confess this is the crazy shit that feels believable to me?”). By the time they are done wrestling with reality and unreality, often they are left extremely damaged from the ordeal psychologically.
I can't say I've experienced psychosis due to stimulant use personally, but I see what you mean. For me it's maybe brought on instances of hypomania a few times, but I get how it could trigger issues in others, especially in high doses.
My instances of psychosis outside of depression/mania tend to be triggered by stress. I don't use drugs or take any stimulant medications, but they still just happen sometimes. It sucks. I'm thankfully not in an active episode at the moment, but I do suffer on a daily basis from the "negative" symptoms of schizoaffective disorder (i.e., the symptoms that take away function, like anhedonia, avolition, alogia, etc).
[flagged]
My brother has schizophrenia. He has never met or interacted with any jewish people, and lives in a part of the world where they have no influence. He still fell entirely for online antisemitism and will text me insane messages about the typical theories.
You misunderstood. I meant that they thought that they were superintelligent people who should teach others and lead the world, but they had schizophrenia.
Talk to them for 2 minutes when they are having an episode. The effects are not subtle.
It’s an extremely debilitating condition.
Schizophrenics do sometimes have novel insights. I've noticed that schizophrenics tend to be extremely talented at coming up with deeply cutting insults. Like, insults that will change how you see yourself forever. Something about high pattern recognition. Plus an ability to mentally "go there", to countenance dark things that other people willfully ignore.
I'm not certain, but, in the case of my family member, their "certainty" is that everyone is conspiring to kill them. As I am one of the "conspirators," I can assure you that they are dead wrong.
Also, in my days of yute, I was fairly profligate in the use of ... mind-enhancing chemicals, shall we say. They basically gave me the same exact certainty and "insight."
Once, I decided to write down the marvelous insight that I experienced, while tripping. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff in a notebook, and then read it, a couple of days later.
It was pure gibberish. Made no sense at all.
[EDITED TO ADD] I should say that I had the luxury of having two distinct states of mind, including a "control state," in which to review the ramblings in the "enhanced" state. This is not a luxury that someone suffering from schizoaffective disorder has. They have no idea that their thinking is off.
I wonder about this as well...like maybe there's some comfort in automatically "diagnosing" someone when they might see patterns or think in ways that challenge your priors..
EDIT: Imagine being powerful and wealthy and assured in your position in the Catholic Church and someone comes along and questions geocentricity and says you're wrong. It's a pretty easy leap to huffily say well, they are "mentally ill, crazy, delusional, paranoid"
all kinds of authoritarian regimes and movements certainly do this.
that said... you just have to have a conversation with someone experiencing psychosis. it's a totally altered state of consciousness, they are sensing and understanding the world in a radically different way. it's never just an otherwise normal person with a nonconformist belief.
> I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease
From article:
So while autoimmune might be the cause for some people, other people have other causes?As humans we look for a simple A therefore B story. Even then most people in my experience are either (a) poor at spotting cause and effect or (b) go into denial e.g. many political arguments
> kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services
Have to? Do you mean you would want to? Or is there some compulsory force where you are?
I have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type as well. And man when I have anything with THC in it I’m a basket case. Worst psychosis in my life.
He might be interested in looking up THC, glutamate and schizoaffective disorder. Here’s a good start.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0374-8
This post convinced me to never try marijuana again.
I've tried 3 times, last time was a bad trip, I went into a very cold state (was shaking) and I was seeing random visual images every second. It felt like my brain was telling chat gpt to generate a random image on the fly none stop.
Anyways I was fine the next day, but I'm not trying it ever again if there is some risks associated with it. I took a low dose (half gummy).
Cannabis is not to be trifled with.
While other stimulant substances when used might also lead to psychosis, it is cannabis which stands out with the highest risk of a psychosis becoming chronic and developing on into schizophrenia.
Sources:
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis
[1]: https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/substance-induced-psychoses...
It also makes you near unemployable as stress triggers the paranoia/psychosis.
Not for everyone. Many schizophrenics find their work calming and grounding.
Depends on the work. If it’s solitary work then yes, if it’s fast paced, social and stressful (like most high paying roles are) then no.
Sorry, it depends on the person. Elyn Saks is a law professor at USC who gives speeches to international audiences when she's not writing books - and she has schizophrenia. Her fame gives her a unique position: many people write letters to her. She's said that she's surprised by how many highly successful people confide in her that they have schizophrenia. There are schizophrenic CEO's, lawyers, doctors, founders. You just don't hear about them because they don't publicize their condition. Possibly because they fear judgment. Possibly because they want success on their own terms, to be simply a "successful person", not a "successful person with schizophrenia".
How do you know there are schizophrenic professionals?
Interesting, I had some really bad experiences with weed and the pattern matching thing strikes out to me as on these trips I experienced a ton of visual geomteric shapes and came to believe our intelligence is based on pattern recognition and spent 5 years, not to much avail, thinking about them.
Interesting article:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-unintuitive-properties...
Interesting link, thank you!.
One other possible immune system link is the relationahip between the parasite toximoplasis gondii to schizophrenia.
If I'm not mistaken that's the paper about that:
https://dbc.wroc.pl/Content/39095/PDF/1031.pdf
Why do you need to do embryo pre-screening for something that’s not genetic? Or do you think it still is genetic despite also thinking you know the specific trigger in your case?
Edit: are you thinking it’s genetic, but exacerbated by weed?
Everything is at least partially genetic.
We have a friend whose sister has it and she went to genetics counselors before having kids.
They told her that because her sister has it that her kids had a 20% likelihood of developing it. Obviously 20% is way higher than normal.
Be sure you understand what this means. 20% higher chance (of a 1% baseline) is vastly different from a 20% chance.
I think its pretty clear which case is being discussed. 20% increase in chance is not something to generally worry about.
This is through the grapevine. I thought they said 20% likelihood, not 20% higher likelihood. But this isn’t me and I don’t know the numbers well.
I do know that this woman chose to not use her own eggs for their child. And you would think that going from 1-1.2% would not make you do that. Perhaps there is another variable involved that I am unaware of. Her sister developed it after their parents divorce in her 30s fwiw.
That is much, much higher than I am aware of - and my mother's sister has schizophrenia so I did look this up a while ago. And the outcome so far is 0 cases in 25 nieces and nephews, all of us in our mid twenties or older.
From my understanding of the science, weed can trigger schizophrenia in the genetically predisposed. Schizophrenia can be triggered by other environmental factors, so the embryo screening makes sense to lower the risk of the child getting it as well.
As someone who is currently dating someone with history of psychosis, I have vested interest.
90% of the time she is truly the most amazing, compassionate, full of life and thoughtful person one can ever meet. Then there are times when it’s truly awful. She can barely sleep at all, leaves house without telling anyone seemingly thinking the presence of third person around. And she strongly feels others around are judging her hard, giving non verbal communication. It’s truly awful.
I didn’t know to the full extent her symptoms when we started dating. But one thing that was clear was she could barely sleep at night. Or sleep too long. There was no “normal sleep cycle”.
Over the time, some triggers are noticeable. Places with crowds, bright lighting, or sometimes stress at work. Aripaprazole so far seems to be holding up, no one knows for how long. I hear meds become resistant at some point. I don’t know what future holds. Kids are probably not an option. Although she very much wants it.
She will break down, then she'll get strong meds and she'll change unrecognizably. Think twice before making a long relationship with this person. You'll get a lot of stress and eventually she'll change drastically.
Schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, so think twice about making a children as well.
> She will break down, then she'll get strong meds and she'll change unrecognizably. Think twice before making a long relationship with this person.
Isn't this risk mitigated if the respective person is (also) an anti-psychiatry activist? ;-)
Doctors prescribe meds for a reason. Schizophrenia is not a funny thing. Person with voices in the head, can hurt or kill, themselves or someone. It's a choice between two evils. My spouse has these issues, and it was much worse for me, when she resisted to take a treatment. And treatment eventually changed her, so it's very terrible thing that I wouldn't recommend someone to experience voluntarily.
> Schizophrenia is not a funny thing. Person with voices in the head, can hurt or kill, themselves or someone.
I know people with schizophrenia (both treated and untreated), but I really seem to be the kind of person who seems to have much less problems getting along with schizophrenic people than what is common in society.
If you ask me: a lot of "weird" stuff that I read on the internet over the decades is magnitudes more "weird" than what most schizophrenic people do - so by being an avid internet users for decades, what many people consider to be "repulsive" in schizophrenic people is just "normal variance" to me. Honestly, I often find "well-adjusted", conformist people to be much more repulsive and annoying than what I experienced with schizophrenic people.
Update: If someone told me they hear voices in their head, I'd rather be the kind of person who curiously asks for details, and will attempt to do some scientific investigations (e.g. about the personality traits or "true" intentions of the voices that the respective person hears). :-) :-)
Please don't downvote or flag this person unless you have a family member (or better, family members) with schizophrenia.
I have family with diagnosis. I upvoted the comment.
The original article does point out the polygenic nature of the disease.
Currently dealing with a schizophrenic brother-in-law randomly calling for the death of his wife. They have a 2-year-old. I have high hopes for her though, but not for the ability for HN commenters to be able to make empathetic comments instead of random barking.
> Kids are probably not an option. Although she very much wants it.
Like many (but not all) people, my bias is love of children. But extend that love to your dearest future hopes. A marriage will be a serious test of commitment and stable teamwork every day — for decades. Otherwise it is likely to crumble and the children will be victims too.
Even as an optimist, I will say to a HN brother... there are short hikes, but for the longest you choose your ascent, your kit, and the weather conditions.
That sounds like my mother (except for the "90% of the time" comment). I can tell you from experience it would be a bad idea to have kids, even adopting.
I have schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, and I just wanted to acknowledge and thank you for staying with your partner. I’ve never been able to get someone to stay through my illness with me through my life. But that’s probably because I am man.
I was on so many meds. I can’t even count them. Now I’m not on any, and I consider myself essentially cured after living with it for 35 years.
If she has triggers, that means she does not have a disease , it means she’s a different person that sensitive to different things. If someone who carries the celiac risk genetics, never eats wheat they never get celiac disease. If your partner was never exposed to triggers, you would never know she had a mood disorder. Do you see what I mean?
> If she has triggers, that means she does not have a disease , it means she’s a different person that sensitive to different things
This is not the medical consensus. Schizophrenia, along with many other mental disorders, are well known to have a complex interplay with not only background genetic/chemical factors, but also the psychological conditions of the patient -- stressors like homelessness, drug use, and lack of sleep very much can trigger psychotic episodes. Suggesting otherwise is to suggest that a sick person not get care that they very well may need.
> homelessness, drug use, and lack of sleep very much can trigger psychotic episodes.
Yes, I don’t understand your disagreement, that’s the point I was making. That for some of us these things will cause schizophrenia for others. Maybe some other illness like lupus. The problem isn’t the gene. The problem is the environment. If you’re not homeless, don’t use drugs and get good sleep And you don’t get schizophrenia, an we say schizophrenia is a disease? Or is it a symptom of environment that is not fitting for the individual?
And in fact, schizophrenia is not a disease, it’s classified as a disorder.
The disease or disorder is always present, the symptoms can come and go. Someone allergic to peanuts is allergic to peanuts whether or not they have eaten some this week.
But you see I only care about the symptoms. And the symptoms are used to classify disorders. No symptoms, no disorder.
You can carry all these jeans and not be exposed to any trigger and would never know you had the disorder so can you call it disorder if you have zero symptoms?
Yes, actually, you can. Feel free to call yourself allergy free and stop carrying an epipen though.
Thank you for sharing your journey! Most difficult part of this relationship has been to have her not worry about me leaving her because of her symptoms. Communication is the key. The only thing that can get tiring is when sleep schedules are so messy, and I have to go to work in the morning.
If you don’t mind sharing, what was your progression towards being cured? Did you do anything different lifestyle wise? I have consulted many psychiatrists but the general consensus seems to be that the management is the only option.
I am also somewhat concerned about the genetic component of it. The general feedback I received from pedestrians is most meds are not safe during pregnancy and postpartum episodes are very likely. And the risk of passing down is also about 10-20%. Her dad’s sister also seemingly had it.
First, I’m sorry if there’s any typos I am doing speech to text on my iPhone writing this and it’s early in the morning.
There are many psychiatrist that have different viewpoints, for example I’ve talked to many who see purines as a problem and then you have the whole keto/mitochondrial doctors. There are many psychiatrist that will never change their minds about mood disorders because why do they have to?
I should add as well that there are so many things out of my control that are triggers that I still carry Klonopin with me just in case. It’s the one thing that can stop my psychosis in a heartbeat. I think the glutamate GABA balance is extremely important and unlooked with a lot of mental illnesses. Glutamate are a big trigger for my psychosis.
To me, and I think this can be true for anyone, it’s all about connecting the dots between the triggers and not only mood symptoms, but physical symptoms as well. But obtaining my genetics and also learning about genetics over a 10 year period helped me tremendously. I knew it was in my family because my mother, my brother and my nephew, including myself all had extremely similar experiences and also suicide attempts.
The first thing is, I could not have done this if I did not stop my medication. I’m not recommending anyone stop their medication‘s but it’s going to be really hard to find things that affect glutamate, dopamine and serotonin if you’re taking these drugs at the same time. But being on the same drugs my mother was o 50 years ago did not seem logical to me. And then I started hearing stories about people recovering from mental illness, real stories. Then my nephew hung himself at 13 and that changed everything. I knew it was genetic so I knew that’s the direction I had to go to investigate what was going on with my family.
So I got to know my mother side of the family a bit better both genetically and from stories. It definitely came from my great great grandmother side and it turns out while we all thought that side of the family was Polish, they were actually from Finland.
For myself, my gut was a big indicator and clue. I’ve had IBS-D really bad since I was a child. I managed on my own to find foods that were triggers, but it was not until I discovered I was a FUT-2 non-secretor that thing is really changed. Only 20% of Europeans carry this gene so I knew it was important
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9301175/
Eating a diet heavy in Fucose (not fructose!) fixed my gut. Seaweed, mushrooms, etc.
This was not a cause of my schizoaffective disorder, but it definitely was a trigger. When my gut was bad, I was bad. But there were a lot of times when my gut was good and I was bad as well. So I kept looking for triggers.
Then there was the early heart attacks in my family and my hyperlipidemia. In my genetics, I saw that I had genes that were more like people who were the Inuit when it comes to poly unsaturated fatty acids. At this time, I was a vegetarian. With all the research about how omega-3 helps with heart disease I decided to eat more like an Inuit and what do you know, my cholesterol totally reversed. LDL down and HDL from 30 up to 54. Plus, I was feeling much more stable. Don’t underestimate how omega-3 can control receptor function.
Both my mother and I also had what is called multiple chemical sensitivity. I don’t really like that name but that’s what I’m left with. It’s essentially a sensitivity to a lot of aldehydes. The story here is kind of long and complicated so I’m not gonna go too much into the genetic details but I’m just showing you another of several triggers that helped me find out what was going on. A lot of foods have aldehydes, aldehydes impact flavor of foods and food manufacturers add aldehydes to foods as well as add glutamate and purines to increase our taste but sensitivity to flavors.
And then we could talk about air pollution. Another big trigger. My grandparents lived in Manhattan and every time we went back there I would feel worse. I even tried to work in Manhattan for a year and that did not end well.
Alcohol is complicated. At the front end, it brings me really really big relief. But I could never drink too much because it gave me a really bad fatigue in the end. It turns out that the calcium ion channel blocking effects of alcohol are great, but the aldehydes alcohol creates just make me feel worse in the end.
So I just started avoiding those foods and eating Whole Foods that are people in a cold climate would eat, and they went away a bunch of more of my triggers.
And then there was heat. Heat is the number one trigger for me. And for some stupid reason, I moved to North Carolina. Since I ended up homeless because of this and living in a van, I was able to move to different climates to different places and also found not only the cold weather, but high altitude were triggers.
see the problem with all this is my mother married an Italian man. So instead of eating a more Polish/Finnish diet we were eating in Italian diet having a carbohydrates and red meats and little fish. This was the worst diet for me.
I do take some supplements and two supplements. I’ve been tested deficient in, and that helped me are zinc and B6. When I say these supplements help me, I mean they dramatically make me feel different when I’m am low I them and when I supplement with them. And magnesium is another one.
So now I try to live like a Sami. I ate a lot of seafood, salmon, mackerel, oysters, mussels and wild game meets. I say low latitudes in cold climates. And I also avoid polluted cities.
Now that’s gonna sound depressing because I know that not everyone can do what I did, live in an van and move somewhere that fits them genetically. But that’s the truth of the matter. In my humble opinion, they have the idea of mental illness all wrong. It is a disease more like an allergy than a mental illness. There is an environmental trigger that causes a reaction. And make no mistake I think for the majority of us, including myself, it is an immune disorder and not a nervous system disorder in a fundamental way. For example, I’ve had very low white blood cell counts, but also showed signs of lupus that they were always testing me for. They also kept testing me for HIV because of my symptoms in white blood cell counts.
And then the doozy was when I had COVID-19. Both times I caught it I had the worst psychosis in my life. For some reason, no one finds this interesting not even my doctors.
Edited to add
I want to add this in a shorter post cause I can’t believe I didn’t bring it up.
The first thing I would do was get all of her nutrition levels, tested, and ruled out as causes. There are several tests you can get without a prescription.
The first important one is a hair mineral test. But getting a full iron panel, zinc, B6, homocysteine, B12, methyl malonic acid, serum amino acid test, and of course, a complete CBC with differential and metabolic panel. Keeping track of the last two were really important for me. I noticed my white blood cell count changed when I was in different locations. For example, my white blood cell count was consistently higher in North Carolina than it was when I was in Washington state.
As an example, I had a friend who was on Prozac since she was 18 and she was now 48. I looked at her blood test and it was clear she had anemia. They did an iron panel and her serum ferritin was only three. It turned out they were treating her lifelong anemia with SNRI’s and antipsychotics.
Thank you so much for writing this.
The thing about treating it all as some sort of an allergy makes sense for me since connecting some ideas from Gabor Mate about the immune system.
And the covid triggering a phychosis like state rings true for me as well (not that I need to corroborate what you are saying, once you know you know). One of the worst trips I've had was "just" having covid during the summer.
You're welcome.
Yes, people underestimate how stress effects the immune system and why it is so hard for people to see this link even when they can become fatigued, depressed and irritable when they have a cold.
They have investigated me for some sort of primary immune deficiency and found low T cells but they said they were "not low enough to cause problems".
When I had COVID I was running around this small town hiding from people and taking pictures of the, texting them to my friend as evidence they were following me and spying on me, and picture of my van and how people were messing with it. They I thought she and her family were in on the conspiracy. She finally convinced me to take a klonopin and I came out of it enough to take some more and it was done. The next day I had a fever and COVID. So it was weird that both time sit preceded my physical illness.
Sending love to you and your partner and hoping she can stay curious about why she is ill.
I lost my brother to suicide in a similar situation. Thanks for writing this and I hope it helps others stuck on the med treadmill.
thank you for writing this out , im sure r/antipsychiatry would genuinely appreciate a copy paste of this comment
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This is a shot in the dark, but there is a lot of excitement right now about treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as a metabolic issue. Some people are seeing complete remission, without medication. This isn’t a quick easy recommendation to just go off meds and go keto, but for some people that apparently has worked. Chris Palmer M.D.[0] is one of the main people driving it.
[0] https://www.chrispalmermd.com/chris-palmer/
Is there a reason to go off the meds when starting keto? If the meds are only mostly effective, and then a keto diet makes them very effective, then I might be inclined to go off the meds – but only if it stacks like that.
> Kids are probably not an option
I’m assuming this is due to life complexity? If it’s generic fear, you could consider adopting (although that also has the potential to be difficult in it’s own way).
Also wanted to +1 to the other comment, you seem like a wonderful person, thankyou for making the world a better place. I hope I “grow up” to be like you :)
Even if you love someone and can manage your life with them, it's important to consider how that'll play out with even a little bit more pressure placed on a situation that thrives on stability. Kids are not a little bit of pressure, and if there's a possibility their mother (or adopted mother) will disappear for periods of time unpredictably, it would make an already extremely demanding obligation that much more tenuous.
Disappearing unpredictably is one of the less harmful ways it might show up. Imagine having a parent who you literally cannot trust to recognize how to care for you. My aunt is schizophrenic and was not diagnosed until late (as seems to be common, she moved away from family and friends to get away from interference). Her kids were 13 through 5 when she was diagnosed and had serious trauma.
Yep, I have an older friend who'd grown up with a schizophrenic mother who he's had lifelong trauma from. It's a bit horrifying. Incidentally it seems like the genx and beyond in my life never grew up with a framework for either identifying or addressing even something as common as clinical depression or ADHD, let alone the more potentially externally destructive ones like borderline, bipolar, schizophrenia. Seemed like they carried on to raise their kids with a sort of hope that if they ignore it, it'll eventually go away.
Did you ever check for sleep apnea? The tests for it can be done at home now if anxiety would otherwise be a concern.
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Did you just suggest that lactating might cure schizophrenia?
Did you just suggest that hormones don’t play a roll in mental health?
Big Pharma doesn't want you to know this /j
Very worth it to read the follow up research paper that moves away from this cliff-edge hypothesis, highlights other ambiguities, and attempts some self-correction.
https://www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/the-evolutionary-genetic...
In any case, a fascinating read and well-worth it to explore the linked citations, especially by Crow and Nesse.
If genes that increase schizophrenic risk increases cognitive abilities you should find people who have high polygenic scores for schizophrenia without having schizophrenia test well on these cognitive abilities. I'm not aware of any of data that shows this in a convincing matter. I think I've seen a few small studies but nothing that replicated this on a large scale. And most of the studies show they score worse on cognitive abilities.
The only conclusions I've come to are one of the following.
1. They improve cognitive abilities in some way we aren't good at measuring. 2. There is something about our modern environment that is more likely to trigger schizophrenia which has more recently increased the fitness penalty these genes confer.
seems like they should be good at finding solutions which require leveraging partial information, and generating a large quantity of ideas (which can contain quality)
But the optimal thing might be to have a number of more typical/boring people to filter their ideas through, and that might be hard to test experimentally
Completely anectodal:
Right after the time I was diagnosed (~36), I started to become weirdly good at some stuff.
Music, for example. I've been playing for almost two decades and couldn't progress after a certain level. This changed almost overnight, and I started to learn new instruments very quickly (now I play guitar, bass, drums and piano). I'm not a genius at them, it's not what I'm trying to say. It's just that the pace at which I learn is very different from when I was younger, I can do things I never imagined being able to do.
Somehow, I also acquired some ambidextry. This might be due to learning the instruments. I now can write with both hands (not at the same time, dominant hand is still faster and more acurate). I also developed a second, completely different handwriting (now I have two "fonts" I can use naturally).
I got worse at dealing with people. Everyone seems to be in a haze from my point of view, and it discourages any kind of meaningful relationship. I can pretend though.
I am highly skeptical of the idea that any genetic component is involved in all of this (my father was ambidextrous though, but he acquired it in childhood), it seems purely psychological. I am also skeptical about the stereotypical triggers people often associate schizophrenia to.
Last year I was reading about Havana Syndrome. That was the thing that most resonated with the kinds of psychotic events I had. Weird sounds and voices that seem to come from nowhere, dizziness, balance problems, insomnia, headaches. By the time I got to a doctor, these effects were not there anymore (they last a very short time, at least for me). I was diagnosed by describing them to the psychiatrist. Since the first episode, it has happened again a handful of times. I have learned since that Havana syndrome is not a thing anymore, but there are no official explanations other than "it's likely to be psychogenic". I also wouldn't qualify for it (apparently, only diplomats and spies had it).
> I am highly skeptical of the idea that any genetic component
Something can still be (weakly or strongly) genetic, but not inherited in any direct way. I.e. due to a particular mix of genes.
The kinds of genetic claims people usually make about schizophrenia are of the hereditary kind (including the post article), not random mutations.
I attribute this to how the illness is researched: finding a genetic factor would be a major breakthrough, so lots of people do studies on that, and eventually force their way into a discovery that represents a narrow subset of the illness but ultimately fails to explain it. It's all over the place.
This makes me extra skeptic regarding the validity of some of these studies.
Yeah, I was referring to a mix of genes not mutation.
Some things happen only with the right set of genes, which don’t come together through any obvious combination of parents or ancestors and may also be unlikely to pass on as a set to children too.
Even more complicated, there may be alternative genes, making identifying which genes are a factor and which are not very difficult.
But I am just pointing out that most things have a genetic pattern behind them, since all our features do.
But it appears making any progress there has been difficult.
> But I am just pointing out that most things have a genetic pattern behind them, since all our features do.
I guess I'm genetically predisposed to not give much credit to genetics then. Nothing you can do about it, I will always be skeptical regarding these sorts of claims.
Could be age related. I could never play a musical instrument until my mid thirties. Nobody in my family could. My wife found a Ukulele which was left on the side of the road and which was in good condition and took it home. I started playing just randomly tugging strings to understand the sounds and I kept doing that maybe 10 to 30 mins a day for about 2 months and the tunes became less and less random and now I can improvise full 1 to 2 minute melodies on the spot with multiple strings.
I don't need to plan the melody ahead of time I just pick a few notes that go well together then I pick some starting notes and I just intuitively know how to join them together into a full piece. It's like when I play some notes, my fingers themselves resist certain bad notes and whatever note I end up choosing (high pitch or low pitch) seems to work out every time.
I had a guitar since I was 16, and never gave up trying to learn. I reached a plateau very quickly (knew some chords, simple songs), and could never go past it. I then spent almost 20 years in that plateau.
Then, suddenly, it all started to click. I was reharmonizing, writing my own lines, improvising, soloing. It was uncanny. I moved to other instruments at similar speed, stuff I never played before. It became so easy.
I heard many times that once you age, you lose some ability to learn music. What made this experience so jarring was that I experienced the exact opposite.
Maybe this thing that you have to start young is all bullshit (probably what's going on here), and before I had some kind of block. I can't explain what that block was though.
Did the diagnosis perhaps relax some defensive structure in your mind which freed up an ability to tolerate the discomfort of actually identifying what you need to improve?
I don't know. It seems too vague of a description.
On the guitar, I did some identifying and learning.
On drums though, I just sat there and in a matter of months I was able to play to a lot of songs. I was doing polyrhythms, for example, before I knew what polyrhythms were.
Possibly, this is nothing extraordinary and fits the overall learning curve for the general population (I'm assuming lots of people do polyrhythms without knowing them). Which means that before the first episode, I was below that general curve of learning music (slower than everyone else would learn), then something changed right after such episode.
Since I'm on HN, let's use a computer analogy: I would describe it as upgrading a PC to new hardware, things felt smoother. The world of music (and arts in general) felt higher resolution, faster, more responsive to my actions.
If you scan Wikipedia's "Famous people with schizophrenia" article, as in people whose talent was so exceptional that they could succeed despite their disadvantages, most of the people on the list are musicians.
This reminds me of the "Natural engagement pattern" sketch that Mark Zuckerberg made about facebook content back in 2018: https://www.facebook.com/notes/751449002072082/
Content gets more engagement as it gets closer to the "policy line" of getting banned, and in a competitive information environment (an engagement maximizing algorithm) you end up with a lot of content close to the border of what's allowed.
Facebook is hostile to archive sites, so I am quoting this link for discussion purposes:
https://pastebin.com/S4bWZpma
This is fascinating, and makes me wonder if human intelligence itself is such a cliff edge trait. For most of human history our advanced intelligence has obviously been a benefit, but now we see, as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously. Perhaps we've overshot the intelligence cliff and evolution is now gradually pulling us back. (Evidence of this would be less intelligent people having more children on average than more intelligent ones.)
Humanity is changing so quickly nowadays, biological evolution most likely doesn't matter at all anymore, at least for the kind of questions and time scales you're discussing.
Humanity is still subject to evolutionary pressures. We are "natural" and what we do is "natural", and if something like our environment were to drastically change as an evolutionary pressure, selection would absolutely happen.
Consider a change in environment where, for example, oxygen levels drastically drop. That might make living at altitude deadly for those who don't have genetic adaptions to high altitude living.
As an extreme example, in ~500 million+ years when the sun starts expanding, you can bet natural selection will finish off non-extremophiles that aren't living deep within the Earth.
Sure, I never claimed otherwise.
What I'm saying is that evolution matters across large timescales. By contrast, I believe the topics I was commenting on concern timescales where effects of biological evolution are negligible compared to the effects of memetic evolution.
Thus, biological evolution doesn't matter at all for predicting what will happen (or is happening right now) to humanity, unless predicting so far into the future as to be completely futile speculation (imagine someone 200 years ago wondering how biological evolution might affect humanity during the next couple thousand years).
Its impossible to properly seperate biological evolution from current day enviromental pressure. There have been many natural and man-made disasters that have killed or otherwise economically robbed millions of people from a good future in their lifetime. Its difficult to say what the fitness function actually selected for.
If you could look back far enough and understood most of the enviromental pressures we faced, then we are all lottery winners of our tumultous history.
Again, sure. However, this is still looking at things at the timescale of millenia at best.
In my original comment, I was claiming that biological evolution is not relevant for this:
> as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously. Perhaps we've overshot the intelligence cliff and evolution is now gradually pulling us back.
Biological evolution is also impossible to measure on small timescales. that does not mean it does not exist, clearly it exists. It has an exponential effect on the future. I think we fully agree on this definition.
>as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously.
There is also the unmistakeable influence of evolutionary psychology on people throughout human history, that seems to have accelerated. When people decide to have fewer kids, especially the more affluent ones, doesnt yet point to any biological influence. Other than the correlation between wealth, IQ and genetics. I dont think there are any risks of a reduction of intelligence through evolution. The world population reduction we're seeing might accelerate it instead.
There is no evidence people are measurably more intelligent now than two-three decades ago.
I think there is evidence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
And there is evidence that this trend has been reversing in the last decade(s) (Reverse Flynn Effect):
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-...
Nearly everything around you save for a sliver of software was invented (and often built) by people over the last hundred years. There is no empirical evidence for qualitative difference in intelligence, certainly not to account for sudden onset of infertility.
If the effect from 1934 to 2008 had been 14 points (believable given advances in nutrition and education), what had it been from 2008 to 2025? And is it reasonable to believe that those hypothesized couple points from the old median did it?
Yes, the genetics wouldn't have significantly changed over such a short period, but the environment has.
Genetics isn't all that matters. Things like malnutrition (and a lot more things) very much also do.
I think the point is that the evolution of human intelligence reached a point that enabled us, over evolutionarily short timescales, to develop an environment (social structures etc.) that broke evolution as it was – the meaning of "fittest" is now rather arbitrary in human context.
I'm not sure it is arbitrary, just different from what it was a hundred or a thousand years ago. There's no real survival differentiation in modern society, and while classically beneficial traits like physical fitness and intelligence do help with finding partners, most people are able to do so regardless. The other big difference now though is that people can have sex without choosing to have children. So istm the most successful traits from an evolutionary perspective at this point are those that encourage a desire to have more children. (If there's a genetic predisposition toward religious adherence, that's a likely example.)
The cliff theory is an interesting one. I don't have any kind of schizo propensity, to my knowledge, but I did, for a brief period of my life, have what I call a "firemind" experience.
During that period I spent an unhealthy amount of time alone. I also spent tons of time reading. During that time the ability of my brain to free-associate seemed to absolutely explode. I felt like I could see a pattern or form a connection between almost anything whatsoever. I read symbolism in everything. The few times I did see friends during that time, I remember them being kind of shocked at the callbacks, linkages, etc. that I was able to fire off instantaneously at the board game table.
My brian no longer works like this. I underwent several lifestyle changes and it seemed to really rewire me. I'm much more logical in my thinking now, but it's taken practice, and the shift was gradual. Every now and then I kind of miss the "semiotic aptitude" I had in those days, but I wonder if I was really just teetering on the edge of a cliff. Maybe a few more months of isolation would have pushed me over the edge.
Schizophrenia can coexist with extreme levels of intelligence and lucidity.
A schizophrenic member of my family argued in divorce court that her husband, a leading physician at one of the most famous medical institutions in the world, was secretly involved in outrageous nefarious activities.
The stories were all fiction but she was so convincing that the judge awarded her a ruling in the divorce that ruined her husband financially and took an emotional toll.
An alternative explanation is that the judge was stupid.
"Stupid judge" is rather a pleonasm. :-)
I wouldn't exactly call it intelligent to lie to a court ;) Perhaps another descriptor would be more precise? For that matter, can one be "truly lucid" if one lies in such a manner?
Lucidity is a feeling let's say. And the stuff you feel it "about" does necessarily mean that the stuff is legit.
Or to quote Moby Dick ~ "Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form..."
People with schizophrenia are often not lying, they really believe the bizarre things they say. How do you know what your brain is telling you is true?
People lie in court all day every day. If you think everyone is being honest, you are delusional and must not be truly lucid.
Note, I don't question your lucidity. But hope it shows the fallacy of your logic train.
Terry Davis was a genius despite having schizophrenia.
Is it possible that the pro-schizophrenia genes persist because they offer other (non-neurological) benefits, e.g., lower risk of cancer? Siblings of patients with schizophrenia are less likely to develop cancer, and in several studies these patients had lower risk of developing cancer despite higher prevalence of smoking.
The benefit must be to reproduction. Cancer generally happens after peak reproductive years.
There’s no such thing as a “pro schizophrenia genes”. There are only genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia, and this is probably due to environmental variables.
Exchanging a risk for cancer for a risk of schizophrenia is not a win-win situation. You’re just switching one set of risk genes for another.
> There are only genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia
I think that's what GP was saying?
> You’re just switching one set of risk genes for another.
I think... that's what GP was saying?
>> You’re just switching one set of risk genes for another. > I think... that's what GP was saying?
If you are switching one low survival gene for another there is no net benefit.
It depends very much on the likelihood that the gene causes a disorder, and the deadliness of the disorder. Those two outcomes could be vastly different.
You're begging the question, They asked is there some unnoticed survival benefit.
>Exchanging a risk for cancer for a risk of schizophrenia is not a win-win situation But it can be though. Consider a population that works with carcinogens like coal. due to capitalist class structures, they cannot leave their occupation, so a gene that would increase their survivability would be a great help.
Schizophrenia is far more likely to prevent you from reproducing than cancer, because schizophrenia hits way earlier.
Yes, this is what I was going to comment, and adding that it was funny they used a coal miner as an example since my family side that has the mood disorders were all coal miners in central PA.
This makes good sense in my experience. I was struggling socially and academically in college so they proctored an IQ test to look for things like ADHD etc. I scored in the 98th percentile for verbal comprehension. Only 2 years later did I have my first psychosis and was diagnosed with Schizoaffective. Luckily after a few rough years I'm doing well on the lowest dose of an antipsychotic and can function in society again. But there are definitely cases of highly creative or people with strong language skills that the expression goes too far like this post suggests.
R.D. Laing was saying the same things 50 years ago.
" We must remember that we are living in an age in which the ground is shifting and the foundations are shaking. I cannot answer for other times and places. Perhaps it has always been so. We know it is true today. In these circumstances, we have all reason to be insecure. When the ultimate basis of our world is in question, we run to different holes in the ground; we scurry into roles, statuses, identities, interpersonal relations. We attempt to live in castles that can only be in the air, because there is no firm ground in the social cosmos on which to build."
"Sanity today appears to rest very largely on a capacity to adapt to the external world — the interpersonal world, and the realm of human collectivities. As this external human world is almost completely and totally estranged from the inner, any personal direct awareness of the inner world already entails grave risks."
Julian Jaynes' theory is always interesting to think about. I self-diagnosed myself as schizophrenic in my late teens and I still stand by my diagnosis 20 years later. I do believe it is a spectrum though and the degree to which one is schizophrenic is not static, and I don't think it's even necessarily a bad thing.
I assume you mean the bicameral mind / consciousness?
Though it doesn’t mention it by name exactly, I think a related idea for systems that are optimized close to a point of phase change is “the edge of chaos”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos
Trading stability for agility, basically?
https://www.humanfactors.lth.se/fileadmin/lusa/Sidney_Dekker...
For your consideration: the theory of "Positive Disintegration" developed by Kasimir Dabrowski does help to explain the capacity and reality of schizotypal disorders. The easiest way to explain it, is that human brain potential for "over-excitation" leads to personality development; this is natural and human. The stages of personality development are not guaranteed to succeed and proceed correctly. Most cases of schizophrenia may be a result of failed re-organization, or a failure to develop the final, executive, function. In cases of "arrested development," this process may be delayed till later in life. This is the so-called mid-life-crisis, which also can fail, and then you get adult onset schizophrenia. This is all emerging research thats usually locked up in foreign language journals. Almost no medicine to be sold here, AMA and APA are not interested...
Genetics is messy - as I understand it most genes don't code for a single thing, so assuming evolution is "selecting for schizophrenia" that only implies that there is an evolutionary benefit to some of the things controlled by the same gene(s) that control schizophrenia, that outweighs the disadvantage of schizophrenia.
Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it, yet basically fatal to reproduction, so what are the benefits that evolution is selecting for? Is it advantageous to groups, or maybe the same genes confer an individual benefit to non-homosexuals?
> Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it,
Are we sure this is the case? I think it's more like homosexuality isn't extremely selected against on a population level. Evolution doesn't really select for, more like evolution is a process in which least-viable-specimens are killed off for their environments. It could very well be that a small number of homosexual specimens are simply irrelevant to evolutionary fitness.
For evolution to “select” for homosexuality, wouldn’t it have to be hereditary in large part? As far as I can tell, to the extent that theres any evidence for that the effect of genes on sexuality is kinda limited
Male vs female differences, including differences in typical sex-specific sexual attraction, are obviously genetic, even if we've yet to figure out all the specifics (where are the male's "curve detector" genes, etc).
Do men and women both have the coding for male/female attraction, with one typically disabled ? This perhaps seems most likely, in same way both sexes have nipples, etc. Without knowing exactly how this all works we can only speculate how male/female genes can combine to create same-sex attraction. Obviously it's not so simple as inheriting a gay gene from one of your parents!
> Male vs female differences, including differences in typical sex-specific sexual attraction, are obviously genetic
Typical is putting in a lot of work in that sentence. I could rephrase it with the same truth content and make it much more ambiguous.
"Many phenotypical sexual differences in humans are obviously genetic. Some very common differences in sex-specific sexual attraction are likely genetic as well. For large swaths of sexual attraction, we have absolutely no evidence of a genetic link."
What's funny is that the one example you facetiously picked (a curve detector) is extremely culturally dependent. Trying to tie elements of human sexuality to evolutionary just so stories is usually pseudoscience. When we start isolating genes for the things that we think of as natural, if we ever do, I bet you $100 the mapping from our social experience of these traits to some kind genetic reality is muddled to the point of total detachment.
> What's funny is that the one example you facetiously picked (a curve detector) is extremely culturally dependent.
Actually, it wasn't intended as facetious! I'd bet money that male attraction to females is indeed based on curve and jiggle detectors! If not this, then what - it has to be based on some (simple, perceptual) physical characteristics. I realize that female ideals vary a lot between cultures, and time periods, but the differences are more about things like fat percentage and distribution than the underlying characteristics that visibly differentiate men from women.
> Some very common differences in sex-specific sexual attraction are likely genetic as well. For large swaths of sexual attraction, we have absolutely no evidence of a genetic link
Sure - it seems there may be a large degree of imprinting as well, but homosexuality does seem to be an important special case given that it typically means lack of descendants. Of course evolution is really about sub-populations and gene-pools, not individuals, and it seems there has to be some benefit at that level otherwise this trait would have been out-competed in the population.
> but homosexuality does seem to be an important special case given that it typically means lack of descendants
For much of human history, that has been false. In many societies, there has been strong pressure to (heterosexually) marry, arranged marriages - with the result that most individuals with a homosexual orientation end up participating in heterosexual reproduction-so homosexuality is much less of an evolutionary disadvantage than you’d assume.
Modern Western society puts great emphasis on marrying for love, marrying on the basis of actual attraction rather than social pressure or political calculation, being “true to yourself” - and in such a society, a homosexual orientation does significantly reduce the odds of participation in classical heterosexual reproduction. But modern Western society isn’t normal in world-historical terms, what we consider “normal” is actually rather novel
The article's first paragraph has some alternative factors in selection
> Traditional evolutionary hypotheses, such as those invoking kin selection, mutation-selection balance, and evolutionary mismatch don’t quite explain this.
There's lots of explanations here but one that is often mentioned is "kin selection". If you increase evolutionary fitness of nephews, nieces, etc. There's many others, some of which apply here and others which don't.
I always wondered if it was natures check on overpopulation. I know that is controversial to say, but it seems most fitting on its face
My best guess it that there is a societal/group benefit in reducing aggression (maybe not unrelated to they way our closest DNA match, Bonobos, function).
I don't think we're at the point yet, and certainly not in last few million years of evolution, where overpopulation is an issue, and since evolution is all about (collectively) creating the largest next-generation population, this isn't the way I would expect to see increased competition for resources to play out.
Do rural populations have lower rates of homosexuals as a % of offspring? How would nature "know" we are overpopulated and bias towards homosexuals?
Do you think schizoid personality disorder has actually anything in common with schizophrenia, apart from aptitude and even preference for social isolation?
Maybe this could explain why mental illness & creativity seem to be so closely related? Just as one example, James Joyce's daughter was schizophrenic.
Mental illness and creativity are not closely related. There is correlation but mental illness is not required for creativity.
According to Wikipedia, creative people are 25% more likely to have a mental illness.
As for why so many bipolar people are famous, manic episodes can be very productive.
For myself, being bipolar has given me several lifetimes of perspective to inform my writing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_mental_health
Not my area of expertise, so it should be taken with a boulder of salt, but there are other studies that seem to indicate a much higher correlation. Part of the problem may be that “creative” is a nebulous term. One Swedish study found that people with artistic backgrounds have a 1.9x likelihood of developing schizophrenia and 1.62x odds of developing bipolar disorder.
I suspect (with nothing to support it) that there is a range where people with mental illness are able to interpret the world differently than normies (and thus make connections that normies do not), but also a point where that perception gets so out of joint that they can no longer function in reality. So in the former case, it may help in creative pursuits, but the latter may hamper it.
> Mental illness and creativity are not closely related. There is correlation
What do you think a correlation is if not a relationship? No one said it was "required".
Yeah. I wasn’t clear. I do not believe that 1 and 1.25 is considered “close”.
There’s absolutely a correlation, enough to be causation. But it doesn’t make mental illness a primary factor in creativity in modern society.
Why does no-one dare say "schizotypy?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy
many people hear voices and experience symptoms of schizophrenia while managing to keep their cool and thrive amongst the nerts. hearing-voices.org is a support network for such people
It's dangerous to existing systems for people to become aware they're capable of creating/conjuring/channeling useful new voices in the mind to help learn different things. People get burned at the stake for that.
I've never ever had any symptoms of schizophrenia but the idea of trying to consciously encourage myself hearing voices is terrifying, Im sure I could send myself truly insane with probably not much effort.
> the idea of trying to consciously encourage myself hearing voices is terrifying,
This is not unreasonable.
It could be less awful if the voices were positive and not harsh and negative. Schizophrenics outside the US were found to have a more benign relationship with their voices.
ref: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luh...I once accidentally came up with another conscious voice in my head & we decided to govern through the 12 traditions of Codependents Anonymous. She also had specific qualities I'd chosen 3 weeks prior as qualities I chose to believe I could come to embody, so that was an interesting pointer to what's possible.
And as others have pointed out, it really depends what kind of programming you're carrying around. Feeling terrified of something isn't the issue...it's how you've trained to respond to terror that matters. If you lash out or avoid, yeah....don't cultivate multiple voices. If, instead, you're choosing to purge the addiction to violence & domination fairly rooted in American imperial colonial indoctrination, it's really quite something. I'm now working on bringing in 16 others as a way to better connect with different parts of the population and spread this and other blackness-embracing ways.
Hearing/seeing things that aren't there has historically for the majority of humanity's time on Earth not been an issue. We can get back to living in such ways, especially since doing so can be extremely helpful.
My belief about is that the core of schizotypy and schizophrenia is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_disorder
as did Eugen Bleuler. I have a friend who is schizophrenic whose speech hardly makes sense and she is always calling people on the phone and carrying on nonsensical conversations. Somehow the general public is hung up on ‘hearing voices’ but I have never once heard a voice but under stress I (schizotypal) did once spend about six months under the influence of a ‘system of delusions’ yet stayed mostly functional, kept working, and managed to avoid getting in serious trouble.
I think it is quite ordinary also for people to have a dialogue with an ‘invisible friend’ or believe that they ‘talk to God’ when they pray, the auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia seem to be something like you have a thought that you don’t think is your thought but somebody else talking, notably schizophrenics often believe that somebody is putting thoughts into them or taking thoughts out of them, see
https://www.theairloom.org/mindcontrol.php
It's like gang-stalking--its not that there's something being introduced, but rather that the subject sees relations that are not objective relations (like, for instance, the relation between temperature, pressure, and state change). Typically, however (and I can't imagine a case where this didn't happen), the relations are social in character--and since social relations are subjective to the extent that all the social world is not expressly a fact, it can be difficult to differentiate between an illusion and a reality: people imagine their partners are cheating on them, whether or not its true. And there are many things we do not know about the social world around us; but, statistically speaking, nobody has ever actually been gang-stalked.
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Please don't post unsubstantive comments.
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Modern medicine.
Hey there! Let's be friends! Too rare are there people speaking/writing past myopic American/western views here.
That is very interesting. Excuse me if this question is too personal, but what do you mean by "system of delusions" exactly?
A constant state of needing to do continuous reality testing. The GP almost lost a grip basically.
Dangerous to the autism-industrial complex and as well as the addictive stimulant industry.
> addictive stimulant industry.
Whom I thank every day for repairing my retention processes, just enough that lessons become learning.
Stimulants reduce addictive behaviors in ADHD patients.
https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-and-substance-abuse-stimula...
They're also less habit forming than the non-stimulant drugs; I'm taking a non-stimulant right now (Intuniv) that you can't safely quit without tapering off for weeks.
The combination is good enough that I lost my caffeine addiction. Of course that's a relatively mild one.
Is this supposed to be some kind of diss for adhd stimulant therapy?
Gotta a friend who’s 52 and has all his teeth rot out 10 years ago. He goes to Wegmans every month and comes back with a pill bottle the size of a small trashcan. He says he could get nothing done without out but I don’t see him getting anything done. Wouldn’t be surprised if will fall and break his hip 20 years early.
I’ve seen plenty of those pills get diverted with outcomes like somebody stays up for 4 days and gets hospitalized so, yeah, I want to diss ADHD medication. It is clear it helps in the short term, not so clear if it helps in the long term.
> Gotta a friend who’s 52 and has all his teeth rot out 10 years ago.
FTR, meth mouth has no overlap with ADHD meds. I specifically looked into this, way back when.
> He goes to Wegmans every month and comes back with a pill bottle the size of a small trashcan.
If he took that many ADHD meds he'd be dead on day one. Three tabs/day is a heavy dose.
How scientific.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35091797/
Even that very limited study didn't link stim use to poor teeth - at all. As far as study went, this was it.
ref: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9062265/>The persistence of schizophrenia is an evolutionary enigma
how much schizophrenia is actually going to manifest in peak procreating years?
Reproductive fitness does not end as soon as offspring are born. Maximising the likelihood of genetic continuation is a lifelong endeavor.
I have two relatives with schizophrenia. Both had onset in their mid 20s.
yeah but a sizeable part of the discussion here has been about women with menopause starting to show schizophrenic behaviors. So that might be a significant amount of the schizophrenic cases in the population.
> So that might be a significant amount of the schizophrenic cases in the population
I dont think they are. Most are diagnosed in their teens or early twenties. Women slightly later than men.
Women diagnosed in their menopause are not a majority of diagnosed schizophrenics; far from.
I understood that part as merely a curiosity.
OK, I just figured if there were specific large groups of schizophrenics that manifested outside of prime procreative years that it might be a reason for it to not be such an evolutionary mystery. Of course it was unlikely this was the case as surely some of the people claiming evolutionary mystery would have thought of it and ran the data.
I wonder if Autism would be even simpler to explain with a cliff-edged fitness function. Because there seems to be a high correlation between extremely intelligent people and people on the spectrum. Maybe the group of genes rewarded for high intelligence/creativity/quantitative ability also, by accidental design, inhibits social capacity.
> Maybe the group of genes rewarded for high intelligence/creativity/quantitative ability also, by accidental design, inhibits social capacity.
Maybe living in a world with neurotypical people who immediately dislike you [0] 'inhibits social capacity' after years of traumatic experiences piling up.
0 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8992906/
Is it possible that every non-typical presentation simply tells others in society to give them space enough to develop the intellect?
Maybe it does when you are an adult but it can make childhood a disaster.
After reading this article, I’m really curious how you would model all kinds of other reproduction reducing behaviors that have become popular in recent years and how they many generations it will take them to be squeezed out of our culture. Like say taking care of a pet instead of having a kid in Korea.
One plausible explanation is that birth and childhood have become much less dangerous. Before 1900, children with poor genes died; since 1900, children with poor genes survive and have children of their own.
My understanding of high child mortality rates in the past is that it has little to do with genetics, and more to do with infectious diseases and poor hygiene.
> Let’s say schizophrenia is associated with a 50% loss of reproductive fitness in 1% of the population (and there is no offsetting benefit in the rest of the population), then it would take roughly 180 generations to cut the rate in half and about 560 generations to reduce it to one-tenth of its original value (Mitteroecker & Merola, 2024). We’ve had a comparable number of generations since the Neolithic era, but as far as we know, the prevalence of schizophrenia has not decreased in the manner anticipated.
What if the number we experience now IS 1/10 of what it used to be? Would explain a lot of religious talking to God in the past.
The article suggests a possible model where the schizophrenia is an extreme linear progression. But the inability to find a culprit genes suggests something more complex. It is possible that there are is a group of genes that all have variations that confers benefit, but when those variations are all together negative effects occur. That makes the positive variants overall beneficial, and keeps them in the gene pool. This is why it is dangerous to presume that when we correlate genetic variants with disease and then presume they should go away. In fact, nearly any inherited disease that has survived may be conferring value to other individual when in proper partnership with other genetic profiles.
This is true for every population. For instance, the price of protecting many African populations from malaria is sickle cell disease.
But I think environment plays a bigger role in modern society to increase the risk of mood disorders than genetics alone.
I think people should study the RCCX gene cluster and link to giftedness more, I have TNXB SNPs which results in hEDS, but C4 SNPs have a similar effect and is likely to result in Schizophrenia. There are some cross over symptoms such as dopamine dysregulation and flat affect. I think dysautonomia and auto-immune plays a big part. Our lifestyles are very different than they used to be and this could be exacerbating auto-immune issues and as we get better at treating auto-immune conditions I expect we'll get better at treating Schizophrenia.
Is there some puzzling chronic condition that isn’t on this list?
https://me-pedia.org/wiki/RCCX_Genetic_Module_Theory
Of course there are. I'm guessing you're insinuating two things, it's highly improbable that individuals can have this many simultaneous issues, and it's impossible for medical researchers to miss such an anomaly. The Ehlers Danlos subset is shorter but still covers a huge amount of issues (https://ohtwist.com/about-eds/comorbidities).
Well there is a reason why doctors kept telling me I am a hypochondriac, but I do have a whole zoo of conditions simultaneously, and this is a pretty common state for people with hEDS and I'm on the extreme end of it. So while milder versions of it are ~2% of the population the extreme versions of it are < 1/20K.
And yeah, medical researchers are in fact in the aggregate really bad at their jobs. Look how long it took to convince surgeons to wash their hands. But a lot of the genetic stuff relies on Linear Regression for GWAS which assumes independents of SNPs, otherwise you get multicollinearity problems, this is not a safe assumption and they've confused their results as confirming their assumptions. Instead of listing everything they get wrong a much shorter list is what they get right, Dr Jessica Eccles (https://x.com/BendyBrain) does great research into Long Covid and Generalized Joint Hypermobility which should put to bed the theory that GJH is benign - still good luck trying to talk a doctor out of that train of thought.
If you find someone who has hEDS the odds are they have a very large number of those things and most of them don't even know the names of most of the conditions, just one or two that bother them the most. The RCCX / hEDS list is a distinct subset of all possible things, the list of all medical maladies is far longer. It becomes highly improbable that a set of people have the same set of maladies - doctors tend to chalk this up to social contagion but that doesn't bear out. Genetic and behavioral causes have distinct diffusion patterns.
It's confirmable with WGS which I've done and I've encouraged many others to do and it turns out that you can indeed predict with a great deal of reliability if someone has TNXB / CYP21A2 SNPs. Unfortunately it's harder to find people who have C4 since they're likely to have schizophrenia.
Do you have a list of which SNP's are related to this/are pathological?
I have an Ancestry partial genome that I've imputed to expand. Would be curious whether those SNP's are present in the data.
They are listed as benign, since I find the people first then get the sequence I think that classification is incorrect.
There are many TNXB SNPs and many are not rare, while I can theorize that the number and severity of the SNPs can explain a spectrum I don't have enough data to prove it. The data that I do have is highly improbable to be from random chance, but not impossible so I'm still collecting and am open to being wrong.
I know someone who had a clear psychotic break and still hasn't fully recovered. The scariest part wasn't when he lost control. It was that he truly believed everything made perfect sense. The more you tried to care for him, the more he thought you were acting and trying to manipulate him.
If you have caution and paranoia about potentially being schizophrenic, does that mean it's less likely to manifest due to extreme self-awareness? I have been diagnosed with BPD, psychosis (sometimes) and depression, but I think I'm too aware when it comes to shizhophrenia.
Isn't it due to synaptic pruning going wrong, a sort of off-by-one error of a gene tagging synapses for deletion?
> For instance, if schizophrenia risk genes were not under positive selection, we would expect them to be purged from the gene pool over thousands of years.... Let’s say schizophrenia is associated with a 50% loss of reproductive fitness in 1% of the population (and there is no offsetting benefit in the rest of the population), then it would take roughly 180 generations to cut the rate in half and about 560 generations to reduce it to one-tenth of its original value (Mitteroecker & Merola, 2024). We’ve had a comparable number of generations since the Neolithic era, but as far as we know, the prevalence of schizophrenia has not decreased in the manner anticipated.
... Okay, but you already acknowledged that
> The process will be slow, but it will happen (this is not the same as saying schizophrenia itself can be eliminated, since it is highly polygenic and the pool of risk genes is not static).
So how do we know that modern-day schizophrenia isn't caused by a different set of genes? Maybe the Neolithic ones have been dying out from the gene pool, but new ones have consistently managed to keep replacing them. New genes can start contributing to the incidence of schizophrenia right away; even if they're otherwise neutral, they but won't die out due to the marginal effect on schizophrenia incidence for a very long time (much longer than the calculation above - since each one is, as we already established, causing only part of the loss in reproductive fitness). They don't need to be under positive selection, unless I've misunderstood something.
Schizophrenia is the price we pay for owning a Cat
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38041862/
The problem with this whole line of thought is that the human environment since the neolithic period has changed.
It also does not take into account the huge amount of human relocation that’s taken place over the last 200 years. For example, we have a large number of Africans that are now living in climate that are much colder than what they evolved to live in. The same as truth for northern Europeans, who lived in cold, cloudy climate now living in sunny, warm climates. Does anyone hear really think that that wouldn’t affect the populations mental health?
We know schizophrenia genes are almost always risk genes, meaning their polygenic, or they don’t cause schizophrenia, and everyone who carries the genetics. There are a very few number of cases of people who carry genes that directly caused schizophrenia.
So it’s quite possible that schizophrenia did not exist as frequently as it does in the modern world, a world filled with pollution, stress, drugs, aldehydes, bad food, and on and on and on.
But let’s just take migration. It is a well-known risk factor for schizophrenia. See the paper below.
https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.1....
So no schizophrenia is not the price we pay for mine poison near the edge of a cliff, it’s the price we pay for technology. The technology that enabled not only all the wonderful things to get, but also all the horrible things that come with it.
I had schizoaffective disorder, and I have essentially cured it. But I really can’t say it’s a cure because what was happening was there was a Mitch match between my genetics in my environment. It’s like curing yourself from celiac by not eating wheat. Celiac is only a disease if you eat wheat.
So I am one of these involuntarily relocated people because of capitalism. My great great grandparents on my mother side were Sami and I still carry those genetics. Changing my environment and changing my diet changed my life. Frankly, I’m tired of these articles saying that there’s no cure for mental illnesses and it’s just a price we pay.
This is personally interesting to me, as I am the first generation of my family that is not semi-nomadic (not sure about the exact term in English). When you say you've cured it - did you move somewhere more adequate or you did you stop moving?
I believe my sensitivities came from a semi-nomadic people, but northern European cold climate, so I generally focus on staying in cooler climates.
Mine are from south-eastern Europe and I have been ignoring the longing for my mountain for so long, I've figured everyone longs for their habitat anyways so it's not that special.
We also have a lot of mental health issues in my family since the switch to "civilization", not sure that any one of us is totally sane.
I think many people are suited just fine to handle all this pollution and stress and stationary living. The farmers have taken over the world and they have left us hunter/gatherers to struggle.
I am of the same mind, need to get a van it seems :).
X
I'm curious how you've cured your schizoaffective disorder? Diet?
I’ve made a very long reply to another comment that explains everything. As well as I can at least.
Homosexuality is a similar prevalent trait.
gay uncle theory is good enough of an explanation for me personally
Never held water for me. There's no evidence that gay uncles expend the majority of their time raising the offspring of others in the family.
In fact the gay uncle is behaviorally driven to do things that are evolutionarily detrimental. Like spending time mating, flirting and being with other gay men. I don't really see gay men abandoning all of that to care for a nephew or something like that.
Take Sam Altman for example. He's not spending time caring for other kids in his immediately family. He's sinking time into getting rich from openAI and snogging his current partner.
The gay uncle gives about as much of a shit about nephews in the family as the straight uncle which is virtually for all intents and purposes: zilch.
maybe theres a reason religion represses gay people, without the pressure of raising their own offspring there is 0 barrier to overt hedonism. lacking the opportunity to live this way and instead existing under a system of morality, the energy of gay people would naturally be inclined towards taking care of their own family, especially when a sibling dies in battle or by disease
They must participate in capitalism or trade and other activities that help survival. I don't think it just switches to doing favors.
its not like capitalism forces the hand of a gay person any moreso than a straight person , I dont see why the extra time on hand of a gay person could not be devoted towards aiding children in the family for example babysitting or financing extracurricular activities , a gay person elsewhere in this thread concluded as such
> They computed a polygenic risk score for schizophrenia for each participant, calculated by summing the weighted effects of thousands of risk alleles.
I am not an expert by any means, but this analysis only makes sense if we assume there is a strictly linear relationship between alleles. It will not capture nonlinear relationships.
Random layperson musing:
I wonder if schizophrenia (or perhaps psychosis) could be in some way analogous to the LLM temperature function becoming disregulated?
I mean, what is the extreme opposite of psychosis? If it is matter of degree, which it seems to be, then there is probably a tuning mechanism. Perhaps too little and you fail to account for factors that might not be apparent but might be guessed or inferred, too much, and too much seems plausible.
If so it would be possible to have a great deal of different “causes” given the tight and complex coupling of biological mechanisms.
There was a theory that autism and schizophrenia were opposite ends of a spectrum, but it's fallen into disfavor. The theory went that autism produces mechanical, rigid thought patterns while schizophrenia takes free association too far.
I think it is possible to be diagnosed with both schizophrenia and autism which is why the theory is not considered anymore.
Interesting. I wouldn’t have intuited autism as being on the opposing end of psychosis, really, at least not based on my experience of both in my family.
I think your LLM temperature analogy is interesting in this deprecated dichotomy between autism and schizophrenia.
One Youtuber Jreg used a breadth-first search (schizophrenia) vs depth-first search (autism) analogy when comparing the the two, but I think your temperature analogy is more apt. Higher temperature results in more disorganized thoughts like schizophrenia. And if you buy into the idea that the root of most schizophrenia is thought disorders, then this analogy implies that dialing up temperature corresponds to more signs of psychosis through speech
My experience with many friends on the autism spectrum is that their speech tends to be more scripted, but I certainly don't think autism and psychosis are mutually exclusive.
Psychosis is a symptom of schizophrenia, which is a thought disorder according to psychiatry.
Psychosis can also be caused by a lack of sleep (like not sleeping for days) and in this case sleep can end the psychosis.
Which is to say that schizophrenia and psychosis have an intersecting relationship.
They are. Autism is normal, and neurotypicality is simply the socially acceptable/expected level of insanity.
I know I have unconventional beliefs, but the reason is the opposite of what people describe here. There are no patterns and commonly accepted beliefs seem unjustified, and crazy. So I need to find my own answers, but it's difficult. I think that people used to be more like this until recently, and people messed it up because iron is toxic, and heavy metals belong in the brain. I become more and more like this as I keep taking them, and it's better. I admit my IQ has probably dropped, but it's better this way.
Don't we see something similar with how very smart people seem to be prone to fall for conspiracy theories?
Interesting article. Also a good amount too high above the paygrade for me to decipher all concepts in it, but as someone who had close contact with schizophrenics a lot, I was missing one aspect in particular:
All schizophrenics I know didn’t start as obvious psychopaths, but rather have their personal „cliff“ usually around an age associated with hormonal changes (eg early twenties, menopause).
So in other words the negative selection effects aren’t there until after reproduction.
As expected a lot of the comments here are anecdotes. I’m assuming there exists a class of highly technical articles that get posted regularly that incite ancillary discussion, but no real contribution involving the article.
For me, I don’t like that this is about a mathematical model. I don’t want a mathematical model. I like the theory, and I think it’s interesting. I don’t need further digressions into a model. I want to see the real thing. Prove it, replicate it, codify it.
Schizophrenia is genetic. So you're born with it. This makes zero sense. Maybe you mean shizo-effective which usually has to do with traumas.
The odd thing is that among identical twins when one has it the other has it roughly 50% of the time. Which suggests that having the generic basis still requires something external, and it is common but not too common.
Induced schizophrenia is well known. Your brain is not a machine. It's several independent chunks of meat that were assembled in situ. There are more failure modes than operational modes.
Nobody is born with schizophrenia.
Parent most likely meant you are born with the predisposition for it to present when it usually does.
I also happened to have a schizophrenic father. So I looked into this one a little bit :D
~10%
"The persistence of schizophrenia is an evolutionary enigma. It is a disabling psychiatric condition that reduces the likelihood of having children, and yet it has roughly 1% lifetime prevalence worldwide. Traditional evolutionary hypotheses, such as those invoking kin selection, mutation-selection balance, and evolutionary mismatch don’t quite explain this."
Much the same could be said for gayness. If it were genetic, it should have been eliminated by evolution by now. Which suggests that it's not.
There are some differences in incidence of schizophrenia in populations.[1] Birth order matters, slightly, with prevalence higher for firstborns. (This is the reverse of homosexuality and left-handedness.) Migrants have higher rates of schizophrenia than non-migrants. Women vs. men, about the same. Rural vs. urban, about the same.
What the original paper suggests is that they didn't discover anything significant. It's more like a discussion of feedback control problems near a cliff, but by people who don't know about that part of control theory.
The title is overly dramatic for the results.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
> Much the same could be said for gayness. If it were genetic, it should have been eliminated by evolution by now. Which suggests that it's not.
There are very plausible explanations for the genetic basis of gayness. One is that being gay is essentially a "byproduct" of higher fecundity in women - I'd have to search for the study, but gay men with sisters tend to have sisters with more kids than the norm.
The other is the "guncle" hypothesis (which is related to the previous one). While gay men and women do not have their own biological children (at least through gay relationships), they are able to spend additional resources on their nieces and nephews. Anecdotal obviously, but it certainly worked this way in my family. As a guncle I helped pay for my niece's education (and was happy to do so because I don't have to care for children of my own ).
"My intuition doesn't explain something, therefore my prejudice is justified." Evolutionary psychology functions better as a tool to present one's prejudices as neutral and without ideology or politics than it does for explaining the world.