#grayrambles

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I've been thinking of changing the way I view personality disorders by separating it into a "core" (inner world experience) and "adaptations" (behaviors) view, because the current DSM-5 model just treats it as if the adaptations are signs of the core, and I don't think that's necessarily true

Lacking empathy could be a sign of many personality disorders, but if it's because of an inner sense of superiority compensating for a deeper sense of inferiority it would be a narcissistic core, regardless of how many "narcissistic adaptations" it would present with, for example

Like if a person shuts down when presented with others' issues and becomes detached and cold when responding to it, with the inner belief/thought process that "they're detracting from me being the center of attention and admiration" and just goes quiet, you might consider that a schizoid adaptation to a narcissistic core under this approach

Though I'm just a highschool student who reads a lot with no professional training or experience or any data to back up if this would be useful in any way. It's just an idea to throw out there

#graypost #grayrambles #personality disorder #narcissistic personality disorder #schizoid personality disorder #low empathy #no empathy #npd #szpd #psychology #abnormal psychology

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I thought I looked nice for a change so I decided to post these selfies ✌🏽️🔥

#me #my face #selfie #grayrambles #hot sexy #maybe?

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Examples of double-bookkeeping from my life

Double bookkeeping is often defined as when a delusional person does not act on their delusional beliefs. It's basically when you know you're delusional but at the same time still fully believe the delusion.

My parents poisoned my dinner, so I won't eat it, but three hours later I do eat it because I'm too tired to make something else for myself.

I believe I'm a ghost, but I don't question it when other people can clearly perceive and talk to me.

I believe my robotics teacher might kill me, but getting this assignment done is really important!

I believed multiple people were going to sexually assault me when I was in middle school, but I made no effort to report this to the police or a trusted adult, because that meant I had to take this very seriously and it was a responsibility I didn't think warranted the scenario.

I believe roads are fake, that they're images laid over a series of tubes our souls are transported through, but at the same time I'm aware that I'm in a real vehicle that is driving on a real road and my beliefs are more than just a little bizarre.

My brother has been replaced by a doppleganger, there's a clone of my psychiatrist at my school sent to keep an eye on me, etc. but I do absolutely nothing about this because honestly...do I care enough? Nope!

I think someone is going to steal our groceries, but I don't warn my parents or try to guard the groceries, because that would take too much effort.

Someone is coming to kill me or is stalking me, but I don't tell authorities - I'm just being silly.

I'm always wary that the stairs will collapse under my weight, but I still walk down them and ignore how they just don't do that as I walk down them.

I will often be afraid that a person aims to harm me in some way, but still be able to interact with them in a wholly normal manner, because I get swept up in the conversation and forget about the delusion.

I'm convinced the people running the busses have changed the schedule to have my bus arrive 10 minutes early and told everyone but me, but every day the bus arrives on its scheduled time and I kind of just grunt and get on the bus anyways. I still think the same thing the next day.

I believe the bugs in my skin can spread to other people if they touch me, but I still accept hug offers because I think hugs are nice and don't like, vehemently apologize when I bump into people because that'd be awkward.

People that experience delusions and double-bookkeeping, feel free to add on!

#graypost #grayrambles #actually psychotic #psychosis #delusions #double bookkeeping #nerdpost

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Chapters 1-4 of Psychosis, Trauma, and Dissociation: Historical conceptions of psychotic disorders and schizophrenia

The term 'psychosis' was first used as an alternative to terms like 'insanity' and 'lunacy.' It was coined by the Austrian physician Ernst von Feuchtersleben, taken from the Greek word 'psyche' (meaning mind or soul) and the Latin suffix '-osis' (meaning an abnormal condition). It referred to a sickness where both the body and the soul were sick, or a disease that affected 'the whole person.' The coining of this term was in response to a German psychiatry debate between mental disease located in the 'soul' and disease located in the 'body' - /Psychiker/ and /Somatiker./ Modernly, 'psychosis' is used to mean 'having psychotic symptoms.' However, psychosis is often used related to incomprehensibility. It's not new - Jaspers argued more than a century ago that 'genuine psychotic delusions' are 'not understandable.' Often, terms like "quasi-psychotic" and "psychotic-like" are used when the behavior can be made sense of in some way. The book then argues that a useful conception of the word psychosis would be one where it means that a) an alteration in the 'hierarchy of reality' has occured, and b) the person as a whole has been changed in a fundamental way.

Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) used the term 'hysteria' to denote any mental disorder short of 'frank alienation' (outright psychosis), while Thomas Willis (1621-1675) outlined a picture in 1672 of a condition what two centuries later would be called 'dementia praecox' by Emil Kraepelin. In 1808, the term 'psychiatry' was first used by Johann Reil to refer to the treatment of the mind. Now, larger scale scientific observations could be brought to what used to be isolated accounts of individual observers. John Haslam (1766-1844) provided cases that would be consistent with what would later be called 'schizophrenia', and his 1810 book /Illustrations of madness/ detailed a single case of insanity. It was of a paranoid psychotic man, James Tilly Matthews, who believed an 'infernal machine' was controlling his life and torturing him. Haslam also recognized that in some people there were states of excitement and depression that alternated - an early recognition of bipolar disorder. In the mid-nineteenth century, the term 'psychosis' was first proposed by Ernst von Feuchtersleben to replace 'insanity' or 'lunacy.' Ironically though, he considered 'hysteria' to be a neurosis (a term proposed for any disease caused by the functioning of the nerves), and as such it was more 'biological' than psychosis… Less than a generation later, Wilhelm Griesinger helped the somaticists win the soul versus soma dispute and 'psychosis' became a term for 'organically based mental disorders.' Under Griesinger's influence, psychosis came to mean organic (caused by organic processes) and neurosis came to mean non-organic (by-products of psychological development.) Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum (1828 - 1899) labelled the disorders hebephrenia (with his student Ewald Hecker), to mean a psychosis of young adoloscents characterized by mental disorientation, and catatonia, a condition where the patient had no reactivity, was mute, and physically immobile. Emil Kraepelin (1856 - 1926), while he wrote about every major psychiatric disorder, psychosis was a major interest of his. He built upon the ideas of Griesinger and Kahlbaum, observing many patients and outlined a classification of psychosis that is still very evident in the DSM-5. Kraeplin grouped together disorders that had a poor outcome - 'catatonia', 'hebephrenia', and 'dementia paranoides.' On the sixth edition of his textbook, he outlined 'manic depressive psychosis' (bipolar disorder) and 'dementia praecox' (schizophrenic disorders.' Kraeplin claimed that on top of progressive and inevitable decline, essential features were a discrepany between thought and emotion, negativism, stereotypical behaviors, hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thought. His focus on 'inherent bodily defects' in psychiatric disorders and rapid decline led to a pessimisstic outlook on the treatment of dementia praecox. Kraepelin also described 'paranoia,' a chronic illness characterized by delusional beliefs, in the absence of personality changes. He believed paranoia was less severe and associated with partial recovery. The first use of the term 'schizophrenia' was by Eugen Bleuler (1908/1987). Over 10 years, Bleuler developed his ideas on schizophrenia in close cooperation with Carl Jung. Bleuler criticized Kraepelin's idea of dementia praecox, by saying that not all cases began early (praecox) and not all cases ended in full mental deterioration (dementia.) He proposed the term 'schizophrenia' in a Berlin psychiatry conference. The word literally means 'split mind' as he thought that /tearing apart/ ('Zerreissung') and /splitting/ ('Spaltung') were central to the disorder.

Schneider's first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia had a powerful influence on the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, from the 1970s onwards. They were considered sufficient but not necessary for a diagnosis of schizophrenia to be made. They were (In German, followed by their english translations): Gedankenlautwerden (audible thoughts), Stimmen in Form von Rede und Gegenrede (voices conversing or arguing), Begleitung des Tuns mit halluzinierten Bemerkungen (voices commenting on one’s behaviour), körperliche Beeinflussung (somatic influences), Gedankenentzug, Gedankeneingebung und ‐beeinflussung(thought insertion, thought withdrawal and thought influences/‘made’ thoughts), echter Wahn als Beziehungssetzung ohne Anlaß (delusional perception).

#graypost #grayrambles #psychosis #schizophrenia #psychiatry #psychology #history #nerdpost #book: psychosis trauma and dissociation

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can't stop thinking about Chuck from Better Call Saul. literally the most accurate and relatable portrayel of psychosis I've seen in a show, "This condition, to me it's as real as that chair - it's as real as this house, as real as you. But what if it's not? What if it's all in my head? And if that's true, if it's not real, then what have I done?" Bitch preach

#graypost #grayrambles #actually psychotic #psychosis

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On Distinguishing Voices from Alters

“Hearing voices” is a phenomenon that’s widely recognized to be an auditory hallucination and a part of a psychotic condition. However, research shows that people with DID/OSDD also hear the voices of their alters in a similar way to auditory hallucinations. As someone with a complex dissociative disorder and unspecified psychosis myself, I have found it hard to sometimes distinguish between the two - I find myself always asking, “Is this an alter, or are these the voices?” I believe the easiest way to reliably distinguish between the two, at least for myself, is familiarizing myself with the characteristics of each.

Of course, it is to be said that alters can influence the body and control it while voices cannot. If they can switch and control the body, then it’s a part. But what about experiencing alters as voices when they aren’t in control? How do you tell that what you’re hearing is actually an alter, especially if you struggle with hearing voices as a part of your psychosis? Especially-especially if you hear them both originating from the same space (both being inside the head, for example.)

The main idea in treatment for alters is that you have to accept and integrate them, while for voices you have to ignore them to make them go away. However, I find the latter to be ineffective for myself, preferring to accept and talk to the voices as well. Ignoring them often results in them only escalating in emotion and our ‘conversation’ then becomes an argument, while by responding to them we can have a pleasant conversation. Even if the way I treat both parts and voices are largely similar, voices are not actually real people inside my body that I’m talking to, so entirely conflating the two is dangerous.

I’d like to present a sequence of questions inspired mainly by the Maastricht Hearing Voices Interview (MHVI) and my own observations of my voices and alters. It’s intended to aid one in reflecting on the characteristics of their voices whether they be alters or purely hallucinations. If you want to use this for distinguishing voices and alters, I would recommend thinking of these questions and recording the answers to them when you hear a voice, and comparing the differences in answers between different voices and indicating whether you think/know if it’s an alter or a voice, to familiarize yourself with the characteristics of each and hopefully illuminate differences between them for yourself.

#1: General Characteristics of the Voice

Do you know the age, gender, and name of the voice(s)? Did the voice itself tell you these characteristics, or are you assuming them based on the sound of the voice?

Do you recognize the voice? Is it the voice of a person you know in real life, or a fictional character? Is it the voice of someone you already know is an alter? Is the voice consistently the same voice, or does it change? Do you not recognize the voice at all?

How frequently do you hear this voice? When you hear this voice, how long does it last for (duration of hearing the voice)?

Is there a time of day or certain situation that this voice seems to always talk during? Are there any other triggers for the voices?

Do you hear one voice at a time, or multiple voices speaking at the same time? If the latter, do they speak over each other or take turns?

What tone does the voice speak to you in? Is it kind, aggressive or angry, sad, condescending, etc? Is this tone consistent and characteristic of the voice, or does the voice’s tone tend to change?

What do the voices actually say to you? What were the situations that they were saying them in? Try to aim for exact words and whole sentences.

#2: History and Origin

When did the voice(s) first appear? What circumstances were you in when they first appeared (were you stressed, etc.)? 

What significant childhood/developmental events do you think could be related to the development of hearing voices? Did you go through any significant traumas or losses that impacted you emotionally?

How do you personally think this voice developed? Do you think it was from stress, or from something else?

Why do you think you are hearing voices? What do you think their goal or purpose is? What is your theory on where they originate from?

Have you received any treatment or support for these voices? How effective was it?

#3: Communication/Working with the Voice(s)

In what ways do the voices relate to each other, and you? Do you ever find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the voice? What do the voices seem to think of each other or you? How do you relate to the voices?

How do you communicate with the voices, literally? Do you talk to them out loud or in your head? How do you talk to them, in the sense of your tone? Are you rude or nice to them, etc.?

How do the voices impact your daily life? Do they have a negative or positive impact? Do they impede on your ability to get things done or pay attention? 

What do the voices do for you? Do they give you advice and guidance, command you, punish you, or threaten you? 

How do you already cope with the experience of hearing voices? Are these coping mechanisms cognitive, behavioral, or physiological?

I’m now going to answer some of these questions for myself, to hopefully give an example for how these questions can be used. For me, personally, I find category 1 to be most useful in distinguishing whether it is a voice or an alter, and categories 2 and 3 to be more for coping with and understanding the voices/alters. However, I understand that this may differ for other people. Please keep in mind that I am NOT saying the distinctions I make between my alters and voices apply to everyone, only that I am making the distinctions as an example for how the distinctions can be made.

My Personal Experiences With #1

Overall, the quickest way I can tell that it’s a voice and not an alter is that if I recognize the voice. However, I don’t mean I recognize the alter’s voice, but rather that if the voice is of someone I know in real life or in fiction, I can know it’s a voice since I don’t have any alters that share the voices of people, fictional or not, to my knowledge. When I don’t recognize the voice as someone I know, it then becomes more complicated.

In general, if I can estimate or assume the age, gender or name of a voice, I probably recognize the voice as someone I know in the first place. When I hear a voice I don’t recognize, I can’t estimate age, name, or gender (unless they name themselves as one of my known alters). When I hear a voice I don’t recognize, it’s usually a deep and vague-sounding voice that I can’t exactly place. This deep and vague-sounding voice often is just that, a voice, and not an alter. Ina way, I’ve come to recognize the voice that I don’t recognize like that.

For me, alters tend to respond directly to things as if they were people, while voices just say things randomly. And, while the duration of how long I hear the voice wildly varies with alters, there is a direct correlation between my stress level and how frequently and long I hear voices for.

When I hear an alter’s voice, usually, there is a ‘want’ behind it that triggers it. It may be that they want to front/switch with me, that they want to play a game, that they don’t want me to eat a particular food I’m making and instead want me to eat something that’s more to their taste, that they want to respond to a text in a certain way, etc. It can be anything really. If there’s a want behind it, and identity with likes and dislikes and opinions and beliefs of their own, it’s likely an alter. If it’s randomly appearing, it’s more likely just a voice.

Usually, my alters tend to take turns with each other when speaking. If one of them cuts the other off, the other will stop speaking entirely. However, especially when I’m stressed, the voices have no qualms with speaking over each other freely.

Generally, my alters will all have their distinct tones to them, while voices either are paranoid and demeaning or have no distinct tone. The same applies to what they actually say. For example, one of my alters is very cheery and outgoing, and will typically respond in a tone that is characteristic of the average teenage girl. If I’m doing something that that alter doesn’t like, there’s a distinct whine in their voice that always reminds me of them. Another alter will typically speak in a kind, compassionate, caring, and communicative tone, even if they’re scolding me/another alter. Another alter has a distinct ‘edge’ and masculinity to their tone, another has a distinct childlike whine, another has a distinct darkness and quietness, another has a distinct compassionate grace. The majority of my voices do not have these distinct tones to them, and if they do, it’s that vague and deep voice I described earlier saying paranoid things into my ear. As for what they actually say, it corresponds directly to their tones: the voices who have no tones to them will say random things, while the alter with the childlike whine will say childlike things, and the alter that’s cheery and outgoing will say cheery and outgoing things, etc.

And that’s my experience in distinguishing voices and alters, based on their characteristics/category 1. Even though this makes it seem like there are a lot of differences between the two, often there are times where I genuinely can’t tell the difference. Due to the presence of alters, this often forces me to respond to the voice as if it were an alter or not respond to it at all, just in case (because my way of responding to voices is often fantastical and silly/not grounded in reality). However, by familiarizing myself with the characteristics that apply mostly to my voices and mostly to my alters, I can at least somewhat reliably tell them apart.

#long post #nerdpost #graypost #grayrambles #psychosis #hallucinations #auditory hallucinations #auditory verbal hallucinations #hearing voices #voices #did #did/osdd #osdd #complex dissociative disorder #sysblr #system #plurality

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Chapter 8 of Psychosis, Trauma, and Dissociation: Delusions and Childhood Trauma

Psychosis has forever been associated with incomprehensibility, but the authors contend that delusions may be ways to cope with adverse life experiences or heavily influenced by said adverse experiences.

Psychosis may be a way to contain overwhelming emotions, as evidenced by how anxiety and depression are very common in people who develop psychosis, and anxiety/depression actually decreased with the onset of psychosis. Delusions are also explainable as "explanations for anomalous experiences, associated with strong emotions", with delusions meaning to bear the overwhelming affect the experiences have on the person.

There is clear evidence in and outside of therapy of the body's ability to remember early traumatic experiences in forms other than memories (such as bodily sensations and dreams.) Basically, early memories could still influence later functioning even if they can't be recalled by the person. This is especially true of trauamtic memories. The authors propose that these types of experiences are the basis for delusions.

Most theories of delusions today view delusions as a person's attempt to make meaning and explain strange things they are experiencing. Delusions may be misguided explanations for early experiences, for example: paranoid delusions may be founded in the idea that "a powerful, unknown danger is present", grandiose delusions in the idea that "I, who have caused such fear in my mother (or saved her), must have extraordinary powers." Other delusions that relate to the blurring of public/private boundaries (thought broadcasting, delusions of reference) could be related to boundary violations in childhood like invalidation of emotional experiences and being told what one is thinking or feeling.

Delusions may provide the ability to express genuine emotions/actions that for some external or internal reason can't otherwise be expressed. All of this raises the question: Can delusions be treated by reconnecting the to the life experiences they came from? At the very least, the "incomprehensibility" of psychosis needs to be re-examined.

#Just a post summarizing of what I personally find interesting from this chapter of this book #graypost #grayrambles #psychosis #delusions #memory #trauma #childhood trauma #nerdpost #book: psychosis trauma and dissociation

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Some ableist on reddit who called a school shooter "psychotic" and then when I corrected them doubled down to "psychopathic" deleted their account after a week let's fucking go I destroyed another ableist with my psionic death beam

#win for the menheras #grayrambles #ableism #actually neurodivergent

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Psychosis is the worst. It turns everyone around you into your enemy, and since they're your enemy, the logical solution is to attack them, and then they're stronger than you and they pin you down and it's so traumatizing to be laid bare and helpless as someone bigger and stronger than you holds you down and screams at you, and you don't know what's going on, and all you're trying to do is protect yourself. I will never forget the people that kicked me down, metaphorically and literally, when I was at my worst. Just because they didn't understand the world as it appeared to me.

My heart goes out to all the psychotic people who have been forcibly pinned down or otherwise physically hurt or restrained because of their actions while they were in psychosis. I see your struggles, I've gone through it too, and I hope you're okay. You deserve better.

#graypost #grayrambles #actually psychotic #psychosis

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Wish my parents would give constructive observations and advice to what I'm doing wrong and what I could be doing better instead of just telling me I have low empathy and am manipulative. Bitch I already knew that!

#graypost #grayrambles #low empathy

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In every human being there is probably, to some extent, a lonely person at heart, but in the very ill, it is an utterly isolated being, too denuded of experience to be able to feel like a person, unable to communicate with others and never reached by others.

- Guntrip, H. (1969). Schizoid phenomena, object relations, and the self. International Universities Press.

#hope i cited that right #grayrambles #graypost #mentally ill #actually mentally ill #neurodivergent #actually neurodivergent #this quote struck a chord

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I wonder if delusions could be partially helped by inducing double bookkeeping? Like, I never acted on the delusion that my robotics teacher would kill me - or that my robotics partner would eat me - or that the volunteer in the back of the robotics classroom was an FBI agent come to spy on me - because I put too much importance on finishing my assignments.

Like, maybe finding that hook to the real world you can rely on - like finishing your assignments being important - can help you stay in the real world, at the same time the delusion is present?

#graypost #grayrambles #psychosis #actually psychotic #delusions #unreality #double bookkeeping

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me at 2 pm: i dont need my antipsychotics

me at 2 am watching a scruffy video about how audio enhances the horror of fnaf: freddy fazbear is outside my bedroom door

#psychosis #actually psychotic #graypost #grayrambles

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i reblogged a bunch of shit on another sideblog to add to my neocities site as resources and misc stuff and legit just forgot about it. whoops, will probably get around to that today

I also can't decide if after every chapter of Schizophrenia, Third Edition I should format the chapter write-up in HTML for my site, or if I actually want to sit and format the entire thing in one go for two hours once I finish the book. IDK, I enjoy mindless busiwork like that, it's a good distraction

#graypost #grayrambles

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I finished Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation! I've got four more posts that are all scheduled to post once a day at 9:00 AM MST. For now, I leave you with the end of the book, which I find to be an incredibly raw line:

...perhaps we can move the question from ‘Whose voices are we hearing?’ to ‘Whose voices do we choose to hear?’ Or to put it another way, when next asked whether a particular experience is psychotic, dissociative, or spiritual in nature, shouldn’t we respond, ‘Why are you asking?’

#graypost #grayrambles

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It's exhausting to not indulge in delusion, to instead constantly fight against it, honestly. I'm fighting the very way my brain has developed to be; I am going against the baseline of my existence. And for what? The non-psychotic ideal of normality? What a joke. I'm tired.

#graypost #grayrambles #actually psychotic #psychosis