Serotonin peak

dessin de la joconde au crayon à papier
Illustration to embellish the site.

I'm going to describe a symptom that I didn't find on the internet, I'm not sure of its name, but a psychiatrist friend told me it was called serotonin peak if I understood correctly.

Serotonergic spikes consist of getting stuck on an idea that is often a little crazy, and that the person turns if contradicted, this is a common symptom in schizophrenia.

Here is the example of one of these ideas that I had: in my city there is a place where there is a wide sidewalk and above this sidewalk there is a sign that says that you should not put a trash can in it.

As I wondered why there was this sign here, when it seemed strange to me, because there did not seem to be any interest since in this place no one had any reason to put garbage cans, I imagined something to explain why there was this panel. As at that time I was thinking about nuclear missiles hidden underground, I said to myself, if it is, the French state hid a nuclear missile under this sidewalk, in town to keep it discreet, and to avoid a problem during the launch of the missile they put a sign to prohibit the installation of garbage cans on the opening of the roof of the missile compartment. Idea a little crazy, but this idea invaded my mind, and I kept thinking about it, on the one hand it stimulated me to believe in it, but as I felt that this idea was crazy, I told myself that if I told it I would be judged by thinking that I am crazy, it bothered me. At the same time I continued to think that there was not so much reason to hide a nuclear missile in the city in this place, but also I wanted to believe in it imagining other scenarios more crazy and stimulating. And to imagine that I was contradicted, that I was considered stupid and ridiculous to think it robbed me and forced me to want to ask myself if this idea was true or not, and somewhere to believe it. Imagining people judging me on this idea was as if I was being looked at while doing my morale, that I had to stop thinking that, that it's ridiculous to think that, it gave me the impression that people judging me on this idea would have taken the psychological ascendancy if I had confessed that it was stupid, and that's why I wanted to believe that there was this nuclear missile under this sidewalk. When we tend to imagine that we are going to be questioned all the time, we can't have a neutral point of view.

Une tour ancien avec de nombreux moucharabieh vue de loin à Séville
Seville - illustration to embellish the site.

It was also an intuition, and as sometimes my intuition pushed me to have a good idea, so there too I had to follow my intuition, as sometimes my intuitions are right, this one had to be right, otherwise I would be wrong as sometimes I was wrong when I did not follow my intuition, and it would have been a shame.

This is a phenomenon that happens to other people with schizophrenia it seems to me. I remember a person on the atoute forum (the old forum before la-roue.org) who testified that after touching a stuffed animal and putting her fingers in her face, that she was convinced that there was a risk that it would be toxic to her because of the product used for taxidermy. She went to the emergency room for that, and I think it bothered her that she was taken crazy because of this story, I think the emergency staff really judged her ridiculously (I'm not sure either), I think we had to reassure her by explaining that it is very rare for substances to be toxic to this extent, and that the state would surely have made sure to ban such a product too toxic for taxidermy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *