Archives: Symptoms

For me, delirium is only the fact of feeling things very strongly, even if we may be led to think: "how can this person think that? his brain must be bubbling completely."

, for example during discussions with a friend who was still a little racist I understood that she was convinced that black people were more delinquent, lying and wanted to harm the France and people of French origin, so it makes sense to want to fire them from the France if you think that. By arguing at length, I managed to persuade her that these are mostly ideas that she had because I meet many black or Arab people and it is only rarely that they cause me problems, in the same way as white people. Although maybe after the end of this conversation these ideas came back, and I explained to him that even if, let's imagine, there is a little more delinquency among these people, then accusing them all of delinquency is a bad thing: it wrongly accuses them, makes them suffer and sets people against them.

It is the same for schizophrenia and other delusions: they have an idea in mind that could be understood, although sometimes during their reasoning they make shortcuts, leading to some conclusions that seem foolish, they are only half senseless in reality. These are ideas, I think, generally false, they do not realize that they are false on the one hand because they have an intuition that leads to believe that certain ideas of persecution are likely, where the majority of people think they are unlikely, and on the other hand because shortcuts are made because their mind harassed with disturbing ideas n 'can't see that there is an inconsistency in this shortcut.

The speed with which these ideas appear and the force with which these ideas persuade them is too strong to be able to fight against it by discussion, even if by discussion we can make it clear that something is wrong and that one of the ideas is wrong, the disturbing ideas will eventually come back, so we must take a treatment.

I think it's something biological that creates schizophrenia, something that kind of disrupts all the neurons. Indeed it affects a little all the functionalities of the brain: Interpretation, sight, hearing, smell, touch, will, anxiety, sleep.

Sometimes it can also happen the idea/intuition that taking a treatment will lead to the wrong, in the wrong voice, that one would have to continue to suffer to save the world. In any case this impression came to me with beliefs a little complicated to explain.

I had the intuition that humanity lived in a simulated virtual world, like the Matrix movie, again I realized that this intuition was crazy. I felt that being in this virtual world was maybe what created excruciating suffering in me, discomfort and constant worry.

It would have been necessary, as in the film, to get people out of the Matrix, from this simulation to relieve them and allow them to access the truth.

I felt like I was betraying people who were struggling in the womb if I stopped suffering while taking the treatment, I was torn between the idea that if I took the treatment I would stop suffering but I would condemn humanity, or I would not take treatment and by a crazy supernatural thing, maybe it would save humanity. It was similar to the choice between the blue and red pill in the movie, if he takes the red he comes out of the Matrix and can fight with difficulty, but he can, or he takes the blue, stays in the matrix and lives serenely without worries in the manner of the traitor who prefers to eat the virtual meat steak in the matrix, enjoy life forget everything rather than go out and eat a dough served to the resistants.

I imagined myself to be one of their most important members, or the most important, the chosen one, I imagined that people in my entourage had certain roles in the matrix, and I felt guilty if I betrayed them.

Although I always have a questioning, a feeling of betrayal on my part when I think about it, in reality I did not hesitate to take the treatment, I still told myself that it was too crazy what I thought, that it would lead to disturbing actions at worst, that at best I will end up a tramp suffering psychically intensely, unless the matrix actually exists of course, in which case I will suffer intensely and then a miracle of the matrix would save me. Question to the con that I ask myself anyway, telling myself that I may have betrayed these people, that the disasters in loop that humanity will continue, that we will not get out of this circle!

The intuition that the matrix really existed was very strong in me, even though ever aware that it was a parasitic idea, and sometimes, rarely I still think about it.

My whole life is based on it because from a very young age, around 5 years old perhaps, this intuition has invaded me, and everything I experienced in my childhood is tinged with this idea, as if I forgot it, I forgot everything.

I had the idea that if my optic nerve and other nerves were hacked, then I could be made to believe that I was living in a fake world, the pixels of my vision being hacked like the pixels of a television screen, and I felt that this must be the case.

I think I had this idea, because of course I was paranoid with the impression that people (here the leaders of the matrix) wanted to make me suffer for no real reason, and also because I was intelligent, indeed when you are intelligent you question everything you learn, to really understand things, here I was questioning reality, maybe that's what pushed me to imagine the matrix while many other schizophrenics do not have this delirium it seems to me.

Perhaps some do not want to treat themselves for worries with ideas of the same kind, that if they take the treatment, they will not be able to save humanity in one way or another. I do not know if this is a problem that exists or not in other cases of schizophrenia.

I knew someone who had paranoid symptoms close to schizophrenia and who was not very nice, he did not seem to understand that his paranoid ideas did not hold water. I wonder if the fact of not being very nice or even a little nasty would not be related to the fact that he does not realize that his paranoia is foolish, indeed in the absence of a good effective network of mirror neurons in the brain, he can not understand that most of the people he meets generally have nice intentions. So he could not realize that there was a discrepancy between his intuitions that others wanted him harm and the observation of others in everyday life, who did not hurt him be nice, that would be why he was not aware that his paranoia did not hold the road, and therefore that he did not want to heal himself?

Maybe it was another reason that pushed him not to treat himself, for example I know that he was afraid of drugs, that it was for him the oil industry that created the drugs to make us sick to sell more drugs.

It's true that he spread his paranoia without complex as if he had no hindsight on it, he was also someone very stubborn, maybe that's also why he did not want to treat himself.

I kept a secret during adolescence: I had done a sexual thing in a situation that should not be done around my 13 years, basically it did not go very far, but it bothered me. At that time, I had such an intense libido, it was untenable, I did not masturbate because the gesture had not occurred to me, and because I found it obscene. As a result, my libido was pounding with an erection and fantasies absolutely all day. Generally facing girls I was very intimidated, but with this girl with whom I went on vacation, whom I had known for a long time, I was more comfortable, that's what pushed me to do some things a little sexual with her. I felt guilty about everything a lot, but as my libido was crazy, and as a teenager we have more trouble controlling ourselves than adult and I was quite comfortable with this girl, I still insisted to her that we do sexual stuff, even if deep down it did not go very far and that this one seemed consenting at first. When she was no longer consenting, I continued to be verbally insistent, so intense was the urge, then I stopped being verbally insistent, but it did not go any further and I did not physically force anything and nothing more happened. I believe that this kind of anecdote sometimes happens in teenagers, especially those who have a big libido and do not masturbate thus preventing the libido from dropping.

I felt extremely intensely guilty, knowing that the girl I had done this to was a little depressed afterwards, I was afraid that I had destroyed her psychically forever on the one hand, and on the other hand, I felt bad about my parents. I still don't understand why I felt bad about my parents but I felt compelled to go to this girl at the same time to say my apologies, when in reality I was so intensely ashamed of it that it was very difficult for me to talk to her about it, and at the same time I told myself that I had to confess this to my parents to be somehow relieved of this weight, this unspeakable secret, to keep this secret, however this feeling of obligation to tell this to my parents, I felt it as a rape of the mind because it would have bothered me terribly to do it. This impression was going on all the time and I felt that as long as I had not apologized to this girl and my parents, this secret should totally destroy me for the rest of my life.

The solution to have a clear conscience was to confess the sexual thing to my parents… but it was not a solution, because it would have bothered me deeply, yet I continued to tell myself that I should have done it.

I told her about this again 6 years later apologizing, I was still without treatment, it seems to me that she told me that I was worried too much, I wondered if she took me for a madman given the way I talked to her.

I would like to talk to her about this again, even if it frankly still bothers me a lot, just to make sure that she did not experience it too badly since at the time even if I had insisted, I felt guilty afterwards. And of course apologize to him and explain to him the intense guilt I experienced in the face of having insisted on having the impression of having done something serious.

Already as a doctor, I believe that you shouldn’t put too much pressure on yourself. Even for a person with schizophrenia, it is difficult to understand another delirious schizophrenic person.

I think you have to be polite like you have to be with everyone.

I also caution against insisting on understanding what the patient is thinking at all costs. It can be very badly lived and even more if it is by the family. That’s why, as a caregiver, you have to ask questions, but not insist too much. Indeed, as I explain at the bottom of this page: it is disturbing to share your fantasies. Sharing your ideas can be difficult in schizophrenia when you are feeling bad.

It is also difficult, sometimes impossible, to persuade a patient to seek treatment if he does not want to. Don’t blame yourself for failing to persuade your patients. You shouldn’t harass your patients too much in general either. If they are very very badly and risk being dangerous for themselves or for others, then we can insist. I think the ethic is to let people do their thing and just have a conversation as equals. Rest assured as a caregiver, without being completely sure of my knowledge, it seems to me that a patient must really be going very badly for him to be dangerous for himself or others. A schizophrenic patient who is just angry enough is unlikely to do any harm. You don’t lock up someone with no pathology that’s pissed off enough. You shouldn’t lock up a schizophrenic patient just because he’s too upset. It doesn’t make sense.

Some patients would not be aware that these ideas are parasitic

Apparently some patients with schizophrenia are not aware that their slightly crazy ideas are parasitic ideas. I don’t want to stigmatize these people either, I don’t know this subject of schizophrenia. This is called anosognosia. As a result, they would not understand how to treat themselves. This is what is explained in this document which also gives advice: “Anosognosia in schizophrenia”.
I really believe that I am aware of my problems and I know that they need to be treated. This domain of anosognosia is unknown to me. I don’t want to talk nonsense about these people.

Understanding what the patient is feeling

Try to understand how he feels. I think he won’t mind you asking what he thinks and feels. Except perhaps if he is in a period without treatment or a period where he is really bad and he can be too touchy. And so he would feel this question as if he were taken for a madman. I’ve felt that before when I was too touchy.

Explaining to a newly ill person that it can be cured

Another element when faced with a patient without treatment and never treated: I think it is necessary to tell him that the problems he feels are known. What he saw happens in some people. There is a treatment even if each patient has different thoughts, a different experience. So giving him treatment will really solve his worries. It helps other people and it will allow him to see things more clearly.

Explore some symptoms if it doesn’t bother

Especially for psychiatrists or psychiatric caregivers, I think you should ask the patient for certain symptoms. I think most patients won’t talk about themselves being shy or tying themselves up in fear of being part of the wrong group. I experienced this symptom of wanting at all costs to hide what I felt that I was ashamed of. What I imagined to be shameful. Afterwards, it is not useful to highlight this, if there is no treatment 🙁 . I had it passed following bactrim, but it is not a recognized treatment.

Ask what does not satisfy the patient in his life

I think that as a doctor, you have to ask the patient if there are things that do not satisfy him in his life, precisely in order to be able to improve. For example, it was only recently that my psychiatrist understood that I sometimes felt too paranoid, that it bothered me to be too fat because of the treatment, that I had trouble working and carrying out my projects. Yet I have seen it for a long time. Although I really like my psychiatrist and find him very good, he kinda missed it. Finally the doctor and especially the psychiatrist is there so that the patient is satisfied in his life, suddenly it is important to ask him.

Before 2020 I had a very heavy lack of motivation, I could not make an effort, and I felt guilty, I could not make myself food, and I went to the Flunch almost every meal. This laziness has decreased following the continuous intake of a lot of vitamins, omega 3 that have an effect (light but real) in schizophrenia and the transition to solian (which is known to give motivation) rather than abilify (abilify and solian are two antipsychotics) a few months before the first confinement of covid.

I constantly had the idea that doing something, like the dishes, was going to prevent me from thinking about something important and focusing and moving me forward on my projects, I felt guilty for doing nothing. I didn't feel the point of doing the dishes, even though I felt guilty for not doing it, it accumulated in the sink.

For example, it is highly unlikely that a plane would crash into our building and kill us, yet it was a fear I had. It is highly unlikely that an earthquake would happen where I live, cause my building to collapse and block me in the rubble to death, but yet it was a fear that I had and that could obsess me.

I wanted to leave a very important trace on earth! Make projects that would mark the time!

The sight of people living their normal lives working a lot, hard, dying without a trace on earth created a scare in my mind.

I had this impression for a long time, it is following the continuous intake of a lot of vitamins, omega 3 that have an effect (light but real) in schizophrenia and the transition to solian rather than abilify (two antipsychotics) that this impression that despaired me has decreased a lot (I do not know what caused this improvement among all these changes).

So I was terribly afraid of death, of the idea that it is nothingness. As the brain and the electrical conductions of neurons stop after death, and since it is these electrical conductions that make the reasoning and the feelings and impressions that we experience, inevitably there was nothingness afterwards. It was a fear that improved after the treatment I received began. And then I said to myself something that both reassures and bothers me: we have a soul, but this is not explained by physical phenomena calculated mathematically (at least for me the physical world with mathematical consequences can not create emotions, that's what I feel), but the seat of our soul is the brain that is in the physical world and so maybe there is something really after death.

Here I explain why some people with a psychiatric disorder have a character, at least what I imagine they feel. I am thinking in particular of people who are borderline and who stumble and answer you badly and angry, who we have the impression that they are exasperated and that we cannot calm them down by speaking. I draw a parallel with my experience.

I put back what I put in a previous article:

"When I was hospitalized, just to make the diagnosis of my disease and to adapt my treatment when I was doing it quite well, I ended up not supporting the look of the caregivers who, I had the impression judged me on my ideas, my behavior, as if at every moment they made a silly idea about me. I went home after a week and I was very happy because it was more tenable, it bothered me to think that the caregivers, when I was hospitalized thought that I had had impulse phobias or had some silly stereotypes about me, and that I could not fight against these silly and reductive stereotypes that they had on me, at the risk of getting upset and looking like a dangerous madman, making these stereotypes worse."

And especially this point:

I imagine that a similar thing could happen with a rather heavily borderline person, but that it often happens that it ends for them with a burst of anger and not infinite restraint as for me.

Indeed, I believe that the symptoms of schizophrenia and borderline disorder are the same but much weaker for borderline disorder, this is what we heard in medical school, and I think it is right, with one clarification, it seems to me that in schizophrenia the guilt of doing harm, especially by speech is increased, which leads people with schizophrenia to force themselves not to get angry with others, to be afraid of hurting others, while in borderline disorder, guilt, fear of hurting others, are it seems to me (but I say maybe a stupidity, do not throw the au-probe in doubt) a little diminished. It would be in my idea why the male side of borderline disorder is the antisocial disorder since men feel a little less well the feelings so the suffering in others, so that it bothers them less to make suffer, and that suddenly angry, they are less embarrassed to attack others.

Indeed I tried not to be unpleasant so as not to hurt people, I feared that I would be taken for a dangerous madman, it paralyzed me more than pushed me to get angry but also because I was afraid of doing harm.

I think that in borderline people angry at others, at doctors, they make these scenarios, they are afraid that the discussion will end in a rant, they imagine that they will explain that it is fine, without persuading the doctor, and even by insisting and explaining by A + B we will not believe them suddenly they will be afraid that the doctor will make them hospitalized, so the moment they talk with the person they imagine they were going to get confused with, they can't help but be frankly upset, talk dryly, and suddenly, sometimes the discussion, unfortunately turns into a rant!

… for example I was afraid of being locked up, if I had been told that to lock people up, they had to be quite clearly dangerous for either or others, and that being frankly worried and angry was not enough to lock me up, it would have reassured me a little… After it is completely true that if my treatment was too low, then other concerns of the same kind would have come back a little later.

I believe that the functions of mirror neurons are exacerbated in schizophrenia and diminished in borderline disorder, I explain it here "Thoughts on schizophrenia, difficulties in understanding others, compassion and empathy, psychopathy and antisocial disorder.". And that this difference can lead to a rather different behavior with yet full of similar ideas, such as susceptibility or anger: for schizophrenics, the fear of doing harm would push them as I imagine not to blame things on others if they are angry (as I have experienced many times), while for borderline disorder, they could be quite bad if they are angry, but with an ever-present restraint: the fear of passing for someone bad, without really understanding that shouting at others makes them suffer.

I realize tonight by completing this chapter that yes my guilt, my concern for others, my desire and the feeling of a duty to help others is exacerbated. I do not tolerate not worrying about solving the injustices and sufferings that exist here and there, so I am always worried and want to save the world. That is why I am trying to write this document, I tell myself that the information explaining schizophrenia here may have an interest, an importance to help if this document becomes known.

It seems to me that the name of this symptom is "derealization", but I'm not sure.

During those moments that come when I've experienced too much stress for too long or I don't have treatment, I feel that everything is absurd and that I'm afraid of going crazy if the intensity of this feeling of absurdity is too great.

Indeed, I was often afraid at these times, and it still happens to me sometimes that the world is not real as in the Matrix movie or that others do not have a soul, so I would be alone on earth to really live. So this can be taken for a questioning of the reality described on Wikipedia.

When I was going through periods of great stress because of the fluctuations of my illness…

… by dint of several days in this state of mind everything became absurd and at worst I had an intense fear of going crazy. There was no benevolence in the eyes of others that I felt, just an aggressive judgment towards me to say that I should not be like that, that I think like that, that I suffer like this. And not the idea: "thin then it's hard this suffering, but it's not my fault".

I had the idea that if I was going badly and I feared that it would get worse, I was the culprit, I would have to twist in my brain the ideas responsible for it so that I could get better, I did not see myself as a victim but as a culprit at those times. It could be by dint of putting pressure on me after a large workload, that I ended up feeling this. There were only aggressive sensations from the outside, from the world, by dint of accumulation of its aggressive sensations, I think we have the impression that the world is absurd. When I didn't have treatment, it was constantly and very, very intensely that I felt that way, it was horrible. Now that I'm back under solian in low doses it happens to me a little but it remains light.

To feel this absurdity felt in schizophrenia, think of the movie Mother or watch it (if you've never seen it). Everything is deeply disconcerting, absurd, disturbing, after two hours of this film we are frankly out of whack. I had seen it with a friend, and I had thought about myself, this is what I feel because of my schizophrenia, my friend took a few hours to get back to the absurd side of this film, at that moment I was doing quite well and in ten minutes after the release, it was already getting better:(

During these periods I created ephemeral beliefs that would be solutions to my future without a way out.

In the moments when I was going very badly and sometimes now when I have too much stress, when I fear that my psyche will get worse, that I will become crazy worried for life, that I will end up in a psychiatric hospital, lost in a deep despair and a deep worry about the future that revives me every second, I still create very ephemeral little beliefs in my mind, which say that if I think like this and I continue to think like this, it will scare away my obsessions, my worries and it will save me.

Here is one of my recent writings on the subject: "I understand that it is what I imagine of the judgment of others on me that creates derealization in me, that creates this guilt. So the moment I feel that this derealization is coming, I say to myself "I should not be afraid of the eyes of others because on the one hand it is frowned upon to be afraid of the eyes of others and on the other hand this is what in the end will give me the impression that everything is absurd, so I should stop feeling that the gaze of others as incisive." and I feel guilty for not being able to do it and staying worried."

But in the end, to do this is only to impose a nasty and aggressive judgment on me: "I must make an effort to save myself, otherwise I am cooked and it is justified", so it is a harsh and violent world constantly that I feel, with the idea that I am the culprit. These beliefs that are created were therefore themselves violent against me, I was suddenly a little defensive. a bit like in a machination.

I realize these weird ideas right now, which worries me if I'm in this mode where I feel guilty, usually I don't understand what's going on in my head at this level and these ideas get out of my mind, which is pretty much better. At the limit we should not stimulate patients to realize these ideas and understand them, because if they are trained to understand them, to highlight them in their minds, without forgetting the idea they have just had, it risks creating a vicious circle, they will make knots, and worries, if they are in this mode of guilt where they have to save themselves. This may be what happens in borderline patients in psychoanalysis where the disease can worsen or in hypnosis for schizophrenics.

This feeling that it's not okay, this fear of going crazy, it's also the feeling that if a thought doesn't go into my mind, I'm like balancing on a thread, and then I'm going to fall into the endless worry that leads to disasters.

In clearer (if I understood correctly what I was told) the patient starts a sentence, slows down his speech and does not end his sentence, then resumes on another sentence.

With friends, when I spoke during these periods where I was surely worse than usual, I had the impression, when I said a sentence that what I was saying was stupid, null, uninteresting, that people would end up finding it frankly stupid if I continued, then turning the gaze elsewhere, this impression was very strong and I was ashamed, so by an uncontrollable reflex, so strong was my gene to say a silly thing, I gradually stopped my sentence telling myself that I had done well to stop it before the end because it would have been silly to go to the end, the others having certainly already understood what I wanted to say and already found it uninteresting. In fact I didn't realize that others surely didn't understand what I meant at all and might find it strange.

Also surely at these moments, my mind filled with constantly flowing ideas had trouble understanding what others understood from what I was saying at the moment I said it, I had trouble visualizing what others must have understood with my words, often I had the impression that they had enough elements to understand where I wanted to go, while surely not, I realized that I was misunderstood, but I could not express myself to be well understood.

And then I also had frequent memory lapses, my mind invaded by ideas, making me think one thing and then another, and then I forgot the first thing I had thought of. So much so that my word was hard or impossible to follow.

I think if you are psychiatrists and ask your patient why he has this fading, he will not give you my explanation, because he may be embarrassed to reveal that he is ashamed of his sentences, that is what I would have done at those times. Also because his mind confused in a thousand worried ideas, impressions, he can have a lot of trouble understanding what drives him to do this.

On the other hand, if you put a patient several months later, when he is much better, facing this fading, I think he may be able to tell you that yes, he stopped his sentences gradually because he was ashamed to finish them, if he remembers this moment.

I'm not completely sure that others feel this way during their fading, but I have this memory of not finishing my sentences because I was ashamed to finish them during these periods.