Schizophrenia diagnosed by simple eye test

Originally posted by SymbolicLogic
reply to post by moniesisfun

 

In this day and age, what with the "average Joe" being so disconnected... people who are aware of reality are apt to be labeled as psychologically divergent.

Thats because this world needs order, structure, affirmation as much as it need air and food. The psychologically divergents suffer with the fate, be they prophet or thief, of not having the normal control handles most folks have.

I was the services supervisor of a dual diagnosis behavior modification ward at a state psychiatric hospital when I was made aware that the a person with mental disorders could be detected by looking at their eyes..... It was the housekeeping staff supervisor that clued me in when he said: "If they eyes ain't right they ain't right and you don't have to go to have to go to no medical school to know that"... He was a huge man that had worked there for decades so I agreed with him... It wasn't the first time I had heard that.

reply to post by hypervigilant


define "right".

what you're really saying is that you may find psychological deviations from particular eyes funkiness. no qualm there. but to think that you can diagnose someone as being "pathological" from funky eyes, is just ignorance.

whom is it right by? societies institutions, and the political leaders who push "reality" onto the general public.

you know who else has funky eyes? people who look outside of socially accepted realities, and push the species forward by bringing cultural, social, and political advancements.

the eyes actually tell which region of the brain is activated. if your eyes shift rapidly, you're jumping from hemisphere to hemisphere. and what? if your eyes diverge from each others focus, perhaps you have a weak corpus collosum. and what? if they flip back and forth up and down, perhaps you're rapidly switching from visual and logical processing. if they are focused and looking beyond, perhaps they have great self control and use of their whole brain.

what you can tell is that what's "right" is what's socially accepted. what's "wrong" is what's a sufficiently psychological deviation. it depends on how that deviation is perceived within the public, whether or not it becomes a problem or not.

Originally posted by hypervigilant
I was the services supervisor of a dual diagnosis behavior modification ward at a state psychiatric hospital when I was made aware that the a person with mental disorders could be detected by looking at their eyes..... It was the housekeeping staff supervisor that clued me in when he said: "If they eyes ain't right they ain't right and you don't have to go to have to go to no medical school to know that"... He was a huge man that had worked there for decades so I agreed with him... It wasn't the first time I had heard that.

edit on 3-11-2012 by hypervigilant because: correct a mistake in wording

Well this isnt a secret or anything. As it is said the eyes are the window to the soul. But the truth is that your better psychos cant be detected by looking into the eyes or by voice tone or anything else. Ever watch that show "American Crime"? deals mostly with big time confidence guys that take folks for millions, groups mostly. No one, not many anyway, suspect a thing untill its to late. Photos are the psychos often show them in good spirits, happy, having a good time, or with loved ones ect ect.

Folks in the nut house are another matter and can, but not always, give away there violent intentions by their eyes

reply to post by alien

Medication is NOT the be-all and end-all option when it comes to assisting/treatment of Schizophrenia. If it was there'd be far greater efficacy rates from anti-psychotic usage...there isn't.

You're sort of wrong, but you are partly right here.

There are two general categories of symptoms in schizophrenia, positive symptoms and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms mean something is present, negative something is lacking.
Medications are pretty much the only treatment for the positive symptoms and they are oftentimes successful. The negative symptoms are generally untreatable by medications. If someone is incapable of showering, or going to work, there's no magic pill for them to take. But if someone is seeing Jesus, there are effective pills to take.

So you're right about medications for the negative symptoms, but you couldn't be more wrong about the positive symptoms.
Medication is pretty much the only treatment to cure hallucinations, and other positive symptoms, and they are usually effective.

reply to post by alien

Medication is NOT the be-all and end-all option when it comes to assisting/treatment of Schizophrenia. If it was there'd be far greater efficacy rates from anti-psychotic usage...there isn't.

You're sort of wrong, but you are partly right here.

There are two general categories of symptoms in schizophrenia, positive symptoms and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms mean something is present, negative something is lacking.
Medications are pretty much the only treatment for the positive symptoms and they are oftentimes successful. The negative symptoms are generally untreatable by medications. If someone is incapable of showering, or going to work, there's no magic pill for them to take. But if someone is seeing Jesus, there are effective pills to take.

So you're right about medications for the negative symptoms, but you couldn't be more wrong about the positive symptoms.
Medication is pretty much the only treatment to cure hallucinations, and other positive symptoms, and they are usually effective.

Originally posted by Ghost375
reply to post by alien

 

Medication is NOT the be-all and end-all option when it comes to assisting/treatment of Schizophrenia. If it was there'd be far greater efficacy rates from anti-psychotic usage...there isn't.

You're sort of wrong, but you are partly right here.

There are two general categories of symptoms in schizophrenia, positive symptoms and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms mean something is present, negative something is lacking.
Medications are pretty much the only treatment for the positive symptoms and they are oftentimes successful. The negative symptoms are generally untreatable by medications. If someone is incapable of showering, or going to work, there's no magic pill for them to take. But if someone is seeing Jesus, there are effective pills to take.

Thats great. I take it then that someone with positive symptoms, if they stoped their meds would then see a big old 350ft Jesus. Gots to make up for the lost time! Just as long as they shower and go to work then fine.

Originally posted by dontreally

That's bizarre.

It's not that I don't believe you or anything, but it does seem to abnormal. It was as if your mind was entrained to a 'future tense' state of things; your mind would think and reality would follow.

An interesting example of this from my own experience was when I dealt with hypochondria when I was younger. Ironic to say now, but I used to be deathly afraid of schizophrenia. I recall on some days when my anxiety was so great that EVERY OTHER THING I looked at seemed to bring me to the word schizophrenia. It was unnatural, and frankly it didn't seem normal to come by a word like that so often. I would scroll the internet and I would be 'led', it seemed, to the word. It would 2 am, I'm watching TV, and all of a sudden I pass by the news, leave it there for a second, and a story comes up about schizophrenia! And I also have examples of this with parkisons disease (another fear I used to have) and cancer.

There is obviously some deep fundamental relationship between emotion and the external world of our experience; as if the latter is predicated and a corollary of the former. If some very energized unconscious content becomes active within the personality, it leads the thoughts towards things associated with that content.

I imagine something similar was occurring with you; but instead of being a fear or phobia leading you, it was something else.

What you say about the unconscious contents seems to be the idea behind Jung and his archetypes and synchronicity, which is something I've been studying recently. If you somehow activate an archetype, it sort of takes possession of you, and attracts things that are related to it in the outside world, causing synchronicity.

I think that's apart of the natural state of things; inhalation and exhalation, coming close and coming back; the infinity of the godhead, and the limitation of the world we live in.

Frankly, I think it's perfect this way. We get to bring our insights from such states into the real life terms of living, family, love (which is always preferential, i.e. for a mother, father or a particular woman, or your children) etc.

Yea, maybe you're right. I have this thought in my mind that it's some sort of process that occurs a few times, until you realize what you need to learn, and then you are able to stay in it. Who knows.

reply to post by paxnatus

Medication is an absolute must in managing the disease.

I'm not sure if you're referring to my posts, but I've been very careful not to make schizophrenia out to be a 'gift', although some other posters have implied that. It is a nightmare. However - and you seem to be knowledgeable of this subject, so I imagine you have read stories like this as well - there are many examples of people living with schizophrenia without taking medication, and just tolerating the voices. Perhaps only a certain personality type can truly make due with it. While the person more prone to anxiety will be sling shot into a nightmare of psychotic confusion and bodily anxiety.

However, there is room to discuss this disease from the perspective of ontology. This is what Aldous Huxley did in his 'doors of perception'. It's also relevant that amongst primitive peoples, the tribal shaman is often a person with congenital schizophrenia, whose children carry on the 'gift' of being a window into the other world.

I think it is rash and frankly peremptory to just ignore such examples as primitive naivete. When a hunt can be accurately predicted by the schizophrenic shaman, or when a storm is accurately predicted, or when things about individuals are accurately known, it becomes increasingly clear that the reality the schizophrenic is exposed to contains extra-temporal information. Now, of course, this does not mean the visions and voices are always accurate. More often than not, the schizophrenic experiences his own subjective states. However, if you aren't riddled with anxiety and submerged in a state that is entirely your own (which is the net effect of anxiety), schizophrenia could be utilized for psychic investigations.

Of course, in the current state of things, it is unreasonable to expect a person with schizophrenia to 'just relax' and summon the willpower to take control. 99/100 people wouldn't be able to do it. And I wouldn't blame them in the least. It is frightening, it is exhausting, it is confusing. They have so much against them, that medication appears to be the only route to living a normal life.

reply to post by paxnatus

The catalyst could be a traumatic event, or head injury, or repeated exposure to a very stressful environment, Scientists are not sure. Then the bigger question will become why does A get the disorder and B doesn't. Back on point, schizophrenia is one of the most complex diseases for doctors to understand, it is virtual almost impossible for this study to be correct.

There have been studies showing that an obsessive neuroses appears to offset the development of schizophrenia.

It's as if a very conscious mind staves off the possibility of the development of this disease. Some people theorize that schizophrenia develops in individuals who foster in themselves an unconsciousness of their inner personality, of who they are. So that, as you mentioned, when a major traumatic event occurs, or if there is a long term build up of stress, these aspects 'split' away and speak to the conscious mind in a manner similar to the way dreams release 'pent up' unconscious energy to the slumbering conscious mind.

Of course, there's the hereditary issue, which counters any degree of 'consciousness' that one can have. But, I would like to mention, there are people who are able to live normally without medication with this condition. If a child who is prone to schizophrenia was brought up exposed to transcendental meditation, and other yogic type practices that brings control of the mind under the will of the ego. Such a person has an increased odds of being able to live with schizophrenia without medication.

Originally posted by Ghost375

So you're right about medications for the negative symptoms, but you couldn't be more wrong about the positive symptoms.
Medication is pretty much the only treatment to cure hallucinations, and other positive symptoms, and they are usually effective.

Hi There,


Firstly...thank you for the discussion. Personally love such discussions as they help raise all our awareness...which I reckon is a great thing. So, cheers!

Guess the issue - to me anyway - when it comes to positive symptoms is whether or not the positive symptoms, the hallucinations, the delusions etc are actually problematic for the person.
Rather than the prevalent MH System approach which pretty much cuts a black and white picture of Symptoms = Disorder, so symptoms must be *cured*.
Perhaps the 'Disorder' isn't/shouldn't be judged via the 'symptoms'...but rather by the impacts created by 'symptoms'. Seems almost a semantic/pedantic thing...but can also be a big thing as well....


Some more disclosure:
I haven't put this out here in this thread...but have numerous times over the years I've been on ATS.
Theres a big reason why I've spent so long working in MH...why my speciality is Schizophrenia and other Psychotic Disorders;
- I was committed to a psychiatric facility when I was 18 years old. Why? I was seeing and hearing things I was finding hugely distressing. I was *treated* with numerous anti-psychotics...at the height of my medication regime I was on 4 different types of anti-psychotics, 3 difference types of sedatives and 2 other medications I don't recall right now...with NIL effect. Nil. Despite at least 2 of those anti-psychotics being above the maximum daily dosage.
The medications did zero when it came to suppression of the positive symptoms I was experiencing.
So then came ECT/Electro-convulsive Therapy...yup...wired up to the national grid a total of 27 times...again with nil effect.
Essentially nothing worked, nothing shut out the distressing voices, the visions, the thoughts...nothing.
All that did happen was I was reduced to a drug-locked drooling Zombie, stuck in my own head, screaming and unable to move or in any way distract myself from what I was experiencing.
Sad thing is, I'm not unique in that...I know more than a few people who also found no reprieve via medications.

I was eventually discharged as 'Treatment Resistant'...nice...the treatment didn't work, so they just discharge you like its your problem it didn't work, rather than perhaps consider the possibility that actually the treatment just sucked - for me anyway.


So why am I not *that* person any more?
I learnt to manage my positive symptoms via other methods.
I approach my experiences from a purely cultural viewpoint...I view it from the perspective of my own culture (NZ Maori) which doesn't see such experiences as the standardised Westernised view of 'unwellness'...we see it quite differently.
Do I still experience positive symptoms? Yes. I've hearing 2 voices right now as I type this. I look around my office right now and I'm seeing what I'd term to be 3 different layers of *reality* all interwoven and intermingled...
I see more, hear more, feel more, sense more now that ever before...well beyond even the levels I was experiencing all those decades ago that resulted in my committal.
There is not one single moment in my day that I'm not hearing at least 2 voices. That I'm not seeing *something*, that I'm not feeling *something*...
By all clinical accounts I could be viewed as living in fullblown florid psychosis.


Yet I am well.
Well, some would argue that point...hahahaha...all good...but I still live well, love well, still raise my family, work full-time, still engage in life to the fullest. Still managed to study and obtain those clinical qualifications as well as a Masters in Philosophy and a Bachelors in Linguistics and Maori Language.
Please know I'm not saying that to be boastful...no way...honestly I'm not a boastful person so apologies if it came/comes across that way...just saying it to highlight that even with full-on endless *symptoms* people can still live well.
It all comes down to the effects those symptoms have upon that persons life.

Sure - for many years I experienced the far more distressing symptoms...so know too well the very real trauma they create...know too well the impacts they have upon the experiencer...having the berating negative voices in on you all day every day, seeing such shocking things, living with no real sense of stability and pretty much just in fear day after day...know the hopelessness and helplessness that can come from that and the places in life it takes you. Know where that road can take you...having been at that point when I thought the only way out was via the barrel of a shotgun...


Where am I now when it comes to what I experience?
My voices are predominately positive now. I'm pretty good friends with them actually...

Originally posted by alien

Essentially nothing worked, nothing shut out the distressing voices, the visions, the thoughts...nothing.
All that did happen was I was reduced to a drug-locked drooling Zombie, stuck in my own head, screaming and unable to move or in any way distract myself from what I was experiencing.
Sad thing is, I'm not unique in that...I know more than a few people who also found no reprieve via medications.

I was eventually discharged as 'Treatment Resistant'...nice...the treatment didn't work, so they just discharge you like its your problem it didn't work, rather than perhaps consider the possibility that actually the treatment just sucked - for me anyway.

well for me it took psychic style actions using my mind to do different thjings over time. It took a couple years but it's been over a month since ive heard anything substantial enough to bother me. I am on meds but they have never worked, in fact they seem to make things worse.

I have a voice in my head. It sounds like me and tells me what to do -right before- I do it. I'm pretty sure it's called.... thinking... gasp. I know, this concept might be difficult to grasp at first for most of you, but, once you get the hang of it you'll enjoy it.

The point I'm trying to make is this, which 'voices' do these medications suppress? How do people fair with critical reasoning before and after medication? Are there long-term side effects that these medications have?

reply to post by alien

So why am I not *that* person any more? I learnt to manage my positive symptoms via other methods.

That is an amazing story.

How many years ago was this?

I approach my experiences from a purely cultural viewpoint...I view it from the perspective of my own culture (NZ Maori) which doesn't see such experiences as the standardised Westernised view of 'unwellness'...we see it quite differently.

Isn't it remarkable the effect a collective cultural consciousness can have on an individual member of said consciousness? The biblical idea of 'nations' and their 'guardian angels' refers to just this phenomena. We are subject, or conditioned, by the aggregate unconscious forces of the environment we exist in.

You are case in point of what I have long regarded as the reason why people have such tremendous difficulty countering their obsessive thoughts (OCD), schizophrenia, bi-polar etc. This society is materialistic. To quote Carl Jung:

Loss of roots and lack of tradition neuroticize the masses and prepare them for collective hysteria. Collective hysteria calls for collective therapy, which consists of abolition of liberty and terrorization. Where rationalistic materialism holds sway, states tend to develop less into prisons than into lunatic asylums

Hence, its your RESPONSE to the voices that conditions your ability to live with it. If you fret and panic, then you open yourself further to the voices. If you try to repress the voices, they merely increase in frequency and pressure. All psychic conditions are like this. The more you fear, the more you attract the thing you fear.

I cannot tell you how inspiring your story is for me. I've dealt with something else, a neurosis, fortunately, I never had to be institutionalized, thank God, but the thought of going insane tormented me for a long time. I cannot express the fear and anxiety I felt, but I imagine you can empathize, and probably felt much worse than I ever did.

At one point, a decisive moment in my life, I was put on seroquel 2mgs to help me get to sleep, since I hadn't had a wink of sleep for 3 straight weeks. The net effect of perpetual anxiety and no sleep for 3 weeks is too nightmarish to give justice to in words, but I was shaking, tingling almost, with paranoia and nervousness.. I had electroshocks pumping into my brain, generated by my anxious body, which was so enervated at this point that any mild emotional disturbance would generate these shocks. It was horrific.

The seroquel did it's job getting me to sleep, but it was disturbing my personality. After 4 days, I got off it. Fortunately, that was the end of it. I have since gone without it, for 7 or 8 years now, dealing with my troubles in the traditional way.

By all clinical accounts I could be viewed as living in fullblown florid psychosis.

It's amazing how consciousness can handle things. The reason lives aloft it's 'external' disturbances.

Please know I'm not saying that to be boastful

You should be proud of yourself. You're a living testimony of the will to meaning. That nobody is inextricably 'lost'.

The picture created by modern psychoanalysis is pathetically myopic. It has yet to (besides Frankls logotherapy) take into regard the resilience of mans power to transcend his sufferings. A simple attitudinal adjustment is all it takes.

Originally posted by SymbolicLogic
I have a voice in my head. It sounds like me and tells me what to do -right before- I do it. I'm pretty sure it's called.... thinking... gasp. I know, this concept might be difficult to grasp at first for most of you, but, once you get the hang of it you'll enjoy it.

The point I'm trying to make is this, which 'voices' do these medications suppress? How do people fair with critical reasoning before and after medication? Are there long-term side effects that these medications have?

edit on 3-11-2012 by SymbolicLogic because: for not to

For me the voices were/are sometimes external. The voices are to me a type of psycho-spiritual technology. I still have my normal thoughts, which i sometimes heard externaly in a metalic sounding not my own voice unless I really focussed and made a sound like my own voice. The medications don't seem to do anything to get rid of the voices, just reorganize my brain so i don't respond to them "psychoticly" which doesn't really work either. trust me when reality starts getting affected and your being chased around by loud evil sounding voices, you would freak out too. The medication mix at the last hopitalisation last winter caused me to get neck twitches which bother the heck out of me. So i really do not trust the health care system to properly "treat" me as they refuse to want to acknowledge the schizo's who know that voices aren't just in the head and cannot be silenced with traditional methods.

reply to post by SymbolicLogic


The problem is involuntary voices.

I understand that, but my concern is for the patient. I don't want people, diagnosed correctly or otherwise, suffering long-term detrimental consequences to their cognitive facilities. "Hearing Voices" has a LOT in common with cognition... in this case it is unintended/unasked for cognition, but cognition all the same. Correct? So my question is, how do these medications effect critical reasoning skills? How do these medications effect your base personality? Etc.

I'll admit that this can be a very serious disorder, one which I thankfully don't suffer from. But I've seen young teens going through therapy and on medication for various forms of schizophrenia; I couldn't help but think to myself, that at least a couple of them didn't actually have anything wrong with them, until, they started taking the medication and getting their heads messed with by therapists. No matter what some website says, eye-tests just don't cut it.

reply to post by SymbolicLogic

So my question is, how do these medications effect critical reasoning skills?

I wouldn't know as I've been on an anti-psychotic for only 4 days. But in that period, it severely warped my experience of reality. It's hard to describe. I had a definite feeling of being 'arrested' in my ability to think in certain ways. In a way, its like confining the individual to a drug induced psychic jail. I wanted off as soon as I started feeling those symptoms. Besides, I was using it for a severe case of insomnia (Seroquel can be used as a mild tranquilizer at higher dosages). To an otherwise psychically healthy person, I was far too cognizant of the effects it was having on me.

And apparently, it doesn't help all people. And it also has severe physical effects down the road. i.e. severe liver and nerve damage.

eye-tests just don't cut it.

Oh, undoubtedly. This is pretty much worthless information that doesn't actually bring relief to patients. It just 'finds' a possible way to diagnose such conditions.

But as someone else already mentioned, schizophrenia has 9 subtypes. They aren't all the same.

reply to post by dontreally



Hi there,

I'm 40 years old now, almost 41...so that first committal was over 22 years ago.

I've been completely medication-free now for well over a decade.

I completely agree that a big portion of ones ability to cope with anything...be it mental illness, physical illness, any other number of lifes struggles is simple perception. How YOU yourself frame it and phrase it within the wider context of your life and who you are as a person.
Thats the thing. I'm a person first and foremost...a soul, a spirit...my 'diagnosis' is merely just a small component of the wider *me*.

Love this old saying: "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change".




Certainly proud - I guess - of what I've achieved in life.
However I'd say I'd more humbled by it all than anything.
Even the real dark despairing times have held their own hidden blessings in them.
Hindsight is 20/20 as they say...and you bet at the time I would have given anything, done anything, to just make it stop...hence being a few times in the past at the point of active suicidality...but now, looking back, I actually appreciate and *thank* even those indescribably painful times.
Why? Well...as you can imagine we have people who may be experiencing similar walking through our services door or being referred to us every day...and on some levels perhaps beyond most I am able to connect with and truly empathise with what that person may be feeling.
Thats the real blessing...the connection it can provide for others who may be experiencing similar. As cliche as it sounds...its very true. Any potentially *healing relationship* must first start with basic interpersonal connection.


Guess what I'm really trying to say is that these experiences are so often as individual as the individual. As such I also strongly believe we must individualise our approaches, our support, our assistance - dare i say our *treatment*...be that medication, be that meditation, be that whatever...whatever works for the individual is perhaps the most important thing.

I personally think we as 'health professionals' (hate saying that by the way, sounds so *pigheaded* and egotistical) need to actually be driven by the PERSON...not by whatever we're trained in or the professional roles we are employed to do.
Its that persons life, their walk, their journey...so why do we tend to insist on stripping the person of their own autonomy and try so hard covertly or overtly to stuff people into nice little defined boxes.

Options. Options. Provide people with options...different possible pathways forward...rather than dictate what will and won't happen.

Hope. Simple Hope. That, IMO, is perhaps the greatest *Pill* we can ever offer to another person.

anyway...sorry...I'm going waaay off topic now, might have to issue myself and Off-Topic Warn...

For people within this thread who may be experiencing Voices etc...I'd suggest you link in with groups like Intervoice.
Intervoice is an international group/community comprising Voice-hearers, family, clinicians, public, anyone with an interest in such experiences.

Intervoice can also, if you wish, link you in with any support groups, discussion groups and the like that may be operating in your area.


One of the real disheartening things about such disorders/diagnoses is that there is a huge bulk of pretty discouraging and dismissive 'information' out there.
A label like Schizophrenia/Psychosis can so often be viewed as like some form of living death sentence...if you read what so often gets bandied about you'd think "gee, thats my life over then, I'm stuffed with no hope of ever living any form of positive or pleasurable life"

Much of what is out there is all darkness and doom.
All "you MUST do this, you MUST do that or there is no hope for you!"
If anything, its that thats the real kicker...the stealing of hope, the drumming into you that you will have no chance of recovery...no chance of truly living.
That is of course patently a load of twaddle...as so many of us who experience such have shown.

Hooking in with such groups can provide you the other side of the coin.
Can show you that yes you can 'recover', yes you can live your life how you choose, yes you can experience *life*.

Another wealth of information can be obtained via ISPS.
ISPS are an international group of Drs, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, alongside Voicehearers, family etc etc...who are focussed on reviewing and in many ways pushing for a revision of the whole basis of such things as Schizophrenia.
ISPS are principally focussed on approaches towards Psychosis/Schizophrenia that are more psycho-social based rather than medication/medical based.
You'll find many a varied *professional* with many a varied perspective amongst ISPS.


Hit 'em up...worth a shot don't you think...