Reddit AMA with a schizophrenic

**This seemed like the most logical place to put this thread. As usual, please move if necessary.**

Morning ATS

Like a lot of people are right now, I am doing my morning rounds on the web. As usual, I visited The Lad Bible as part of my routine. Basically to get a humour fix! I have mentioned this website before, and have mentioned that every now and then they put something up that is not humorous but more interesting.

This one was not a laughing matter.

Before I continue.. I want to say I do not see schizophrenia as a light subject. Although I have never experienced it at a personal level, I think basic knowledge on the subject would tell you it can be a horrible thing. So I urge people not to take this woman's experience lightly.

So, the article I found was this...

Original Article


*Please note, the original AMA turns out to be over a year ago, so if this has been discussed, I am sorry. I couldn't find a thread or I may have missed it*

The article explains the basics and picks out what they consider to be the best responses from the user. It tells us how a woman, who has schizophrenia, did a Reddit AMA under the guise ErosPram. She goes into detail answering questions about the voices in her head and how her life is affected and shaped by these voices. I imagine ATS will find one particular voice/person in her head most interesting...Demon.

Demon, as the name suggests. Is the horrible voice in her head. There are a couple more, Little and Blank, who seem to be nice to her, to the point where even if she could get rid of the voices, she would NOT get rid of them.

Luckily, the Lad Bible posted a link to the FULL AMA page, which I am going through now. However, I thought this whole thing was an interesting insight into the life of someone who has schizophrenia. I mean that in the nicest way possible. I am not here glorifying her life, I am simply sharing her story in the hope we get a better insight into it and how it affects people.

Here is the full AMA:

Full AMA

ErosPram was asked to draw a picture of Demon, the nasty one. I have posted that picture below. I would post more from both sources, however I am not too sure the content is suitable for ATS threads. So I will let the mods and more seasoned ATS'ers decide on that one in the comments.


Demon:




What are your initial thoughts on what Demon looks like?


A final thought from me. For someone who doesn't have Schizophrenia, I will never truly understand what it is like to have fully blown people in my head, just using my body. I can only help the woman continues to deal with her situation in the best way possible. By the sounds of it, her loving boyfriend is helping a lot, so I hope even after a year since posting this, they are still together and continuing to progress happily and peacefully.

So, what do you take from all this?

a reply to: brace22

Are you tryin' to lead us to think "Demon" looks like human imagined aliens or somethin'? It is only HER head who has come up with that; badly drawn childish sketch that actually does not necessarily even look like the alien caricature.

Schizophrenia is not a blanket condition. There are similar symptoms, yet each mental experience is unique to the individual. I agree with Freud and Jung and the psycho analyst brigade in that respect. Same with all other mentally alternative experiences. Just because a person has a mentally alternative experience does not mean they have to be screwed and labelled for life because of it. Arghhhhh, the prison bar restraints of other human perceptions. It is endless torture to me this narrowness of perception, like cold bars of metal before my eyes.

I'm not sure what the point of your thread is or even if it has one particularly. Why don't you read up on psychotic episodes? There are many sites online where people have written accounts of their psychoses (lol, not a few on ATS ). I have read hundreds of them. It is very educating and straight from the horse's mouth. That is the kind of breakfast I enjoy, haha!

No such thing as demons but schizophrenia can take things and warp them, people pick up on pop culture a lot when suffering from it, be it aliens or demons.
NEVER feed a persons delusions it cause more harm and can put back their recovery many months, I have seen it and the harm it can do.
Just don't do it.
She knows they are not real and appear to be doing quite well.

A question posed to her here.

What is your opinion of people who would call thiis "demonic possession?"


I think they are dumb. This isn't a real Demon. I called him that when I was little and the name stuck. I'm not possessed, I see things other people can't see. There is something wrong with my brain to where I can't differentiate between reality and fantasy. I have a fantasy that merges with my reality. I don't choose this, it just happens.

Bright young lady I hope she continues to do well.

a reply to: Revolution9

I was not trying to point out at all that this "person has a form of psychoses so let us all look". In other words, I most definitely am not trying to label her or categorise her as something else because of it. I am so sorry if that is this impression this thread gave off. The earthly point of this thread was to talk about schizophrenia and how it affects people. I.E, we all have minds and talk to ourselves in our head, but here she has conversations, interactions and so forth with her voices because of schizophrenia. I am not labelling her. I want to get a better understanding of it as I obviously don't have enough understanding to relate to her thought processes etc. Again, this is not a "HEY LOOK OVER HERE" thread.


As for the picture of Demon, the term alien never actually crossed my mind! I find the link between her mind and the paper interesting. For me, I struggle to put on paper (In drawings anyways) what I think of. However I personally found Demon to be very detailed etc. As you said, it was in her head that Demon was formed. I was just struck by how detailed Demon is.

Of course, everybody comes up with stuff in their head. And some people are incredible at transferring that thought into a piece of reality, such as a car designer for example.

Wouldn't that be AUA?

Ask us everything?

a reply to: RogueWave

Come on man, really?


Not trying to pick a fight. But there may be people on here who find that a little upsetting as all.

a reply to: brace22

What?

Well, I am not PC.

a reply to: brace22

I remember one dude who has schizophrenia and while talking to him his eyes would wander and follow what he was seeing (dead crawling babies) and you could see in his eyes as they got closer the fear. I used to ask him are they back? he would nod and point at them around the room.
Once he said "yes one is on your shoulder" I must admit I looked shuddered and the hairs stood up on my neck.
He learnt to ignore them and I saw him a couple of months ago and he has just gotten engaged and is doing great.

a reply to: boymonkey74


See I wouldn't know how to react to that? How would you. I guess my first instinct would be to make sure they are coping with the episode okay. (Is episode the right way to say it?)

Great that he is engaged, congrats to him and all the best for the future

a reply to: RogueWave

No that's fair enough. I'm not slamming you man. I am not trying to be PC either.

Just sometimes you see people make comments with no malicious intentions, but get stuck in huge arguments over things. Just trying to avoid that

a reply to: brace22

The first step is always attempting to get them to understand that they are ill and that can take years for some.
Some who I looked after will never get any type of normality in their lives normally the ones whom have been in the system for decades.
I knew one fella who I loved who was 60 and been in asylums since the age of 12 they didn't look after them well in those days and he was just too far gone to have any normal life.
I was the only person ever who he told what his voices said to him, nothing good btw.
He had an episode (yeah good word ) in the middle of tescos I will never forget, I had to get my ID badge and show it loads of people like a cop saying "don't worry I'm trained to deal with this nothing to see here" even the security guards looked # scared.
Thinking back it is such a shame..If I had a magic wand .

a reply to: boymonkey74


Oh man that is horrible :/ I can only imagine that finding out you are ill in some form, on top of what is sometimes already an incredibly hard situation to deal with, can be very, very hard. Thus, as you said, taking away any possibility of a "Normal" life.

Kudos for you though for being there for your friend and I imagine many others. If more people had an understanding and training like that, then maybe the world would be a better place.

a reply to: brace22

We have all just got to fight the stigma against the mentally unwell. The stigma stops people seeking help and they get worse.
1 in 3 of us will suffer from mental illness but no one ever talks about it.

a reply to: boymonkey74


The stigma is definitely something that needs to be broken.

I find it very hard sometimes to talk about mental health issues without someone piping up saying how I don't understand.

No, I don't completely understand, but let's try and work together to understand so that we do not create a void between the 1 in 3!

a reply to: brace22

Thats why threads like this help break down the myths and the stigma about mental health.

The thing is we can all do things to help our mental health, talking relaxing and learning how to know when you are stressed (one I need to do more).
One thing that helps me and I do not care if it sounds wimpy or such is to have a good cry.
I cried last Saturday while watching the remake of King Kong with one of my service users, as soon as that dam monkey go to the bottom of the skyscrapper I was blubbing and didn't stop until the film ended I felt great afterwards.
My service user was looking at me funny and said "you you you cry?" I just cried more explaining about the dam monkey and he gave me a hug.
Then I cried more.
Or laughter yoga .




Laughing and crying we need to do more of it .

a reply to: boymonkey74


Well I hope this thread, even if it gets barely no response, helps with the situation.

I don't cry much. Not because its hard to make me cry. I just seem to accidently avoid situations that make me cry. Maybe I have a boring life. I laugh a lot, and I know laughing makes me feel better about stuff






P.S I really liked the King Kong re-make! Was the first ultra long movie I saw in the cinema. I remember not feeling my cheeks for a while!

a reply to: boymonkey74

Plato wrote a dialogue called Phaedrus, its about a Charioteer and its pulled by two winged horse , "First the charioteer of the human soul drives a pair, and secondly one of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character. Therefore in our case the driving is necessarily difficult and troublesome."

The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature. The Charioteer directs the entire chariot/soul, trying to stop the horses from going different ways, and to proceed towards enlightenment.

Its our basic instincts versus the ideals we are taught, schizophrenia in the way i see it, is someone who lets the animal, instincts side take over completely, if our dogs could talk id bet you they tell you about, the voice said run, the voice said, f*** you.. Does the person need help, of course..

a reply to: brace22

Laughter and Crying is probably one of the key aspects which makes us human.

a reply to: Hyperia

100% agree.

But I must admit I have not cried for what must be well over 12 months now.

a reply to: boymonkey74

But how do you explain unexplained hauntings some people here in ATS experience? Did these people see demons or something else?