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Synesthesia, schizophrenia, and other medical conditions



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Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:35 pm
zaminami says...



Please help!

I don't know how to describe synesthesia and schizophrenia very well and like i don't really understand because all of the articles are super research-y and scientist-y argh
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Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:44 pm
sheysse says...



Specifically what form of synesthesia do you mean to describe?
  





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Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:06 pm
zaminami says...



Seeing tastes, hearing tastes/colors/shapes, and seeing sounds. @Sheyren.
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Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:06 pm
Rosendorn says...



Is this for multiple characters or a single character?
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Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:18 pm
zaminami says...



okay now i have more time so i can explain now @Rosendorn:

Synesthesia: This is for one character. He is in a fanfiction and this is a bit of a headcanon for me, but he's lived for almost 200 years and lives with demons and stuff so maybe that could have a factor...? I'm not sure, but most of the story is from his perspective so it's a bit strange. I've never written like that before and I'm also trying to write outside of the box...?

Schizophrenia: This is for two separate characters:

Character One: This person is from the same fanfiction but has "lived" for over 400 years instead. (she was born in 1606). Hers isn't super serious, but she murdered 8 people before she committed suicide and went into her afterlife. (I'm not making it all because of her mental condition, however...) Then, during her afterlife, she became Jack the Ripper (for more information, click on my planning forum thingamabob). However, she doesn't listen to them after the Ripper incident. She doesn't see hallucinations and only has the voices, and the story isn't from her PoV. This is more for, as Ciel (the person from synesthesia) develops powers, he can "hear minds"??? Dunno how to explain it, since he doesn't read them. It's more like he inserts his perspective into another person's mind.

Character Two: This person is from a completely different story; it's original. I was planning on her slowly developing the schizophrenia, but hers becomes a lot more violent than Character One's. (Hallucinations, etc.) The story is from her point of view, so I guess that I'm working out of the box for that one too.

Idk.
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Mon Jul 23, 2018 7:08 pm
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TheSilverFox says...



Having done a little research on schizophrenia (yes wikipedia, hush), I'd like to say there are a couple things here that concern me? Schizophrenia does often feature voices and hallucinations, sure, but those don't nearly describe all the symptoms and experiences of people with schizophrenia. Nevermind that those hallucinations can be in any sense of the body, whether sight, sound, touch (have you ever had that feeling where spiders are crawling on your skin? Imagine that, but stronger and more involuntary), smell, or taste. But yeah, schizophrenics may have disordered and jumbled thoughts, have trouble showing/feeling emotions, exhibit antisocial behavior, have a harder time with memory and learning, and are much more likely to have IBS and OCD. The number and extent of the symptoms depends on each person, which is why I can't really describe schizophrenia that well. At its simplest, I could call it the failure to properly interpret reality.

Also, while schizophrenia can come about from trauma and stress, it tends to be genetic and/or the product of environmental factors at a young age (even maternal stress in pregnancy). Also, schizophrenia is not particularly associated with violence. As a matter of fact, schizophrenics are far more likely to suffer from violence than they are to inflict it. Since schizophrenia is often correlated with anxiety disorders, depression, mood disorders, eating disorders, and substance abuse (over half of the people with schizophrenia suffer from this last one), any violence shows up from the combination of these, especially substance abuse. Which is to say, you probably need to do more research and start thinking about the specifics of your characters' schizophrenia, because I'm a bit worried by what I see.

There's not much I can say about synesthesia? It seems to be a term referring to 80+ conditions where senses are connected, producing impressions or associations between them that aren't easily, if at all, forgotten. A person may interpret a letter as having a certain color, texture, and/or smell, for instance. I will mention that most people who have it don't realize there's anything odd going on; it's possibly related to greater memory and creative ability; and nope, it isn't a handicap, despite how it's commonly depicted. So that's something to keep in mind? You should definitely look at individual types of synesthesia if you want to learn more, though. Because, like I said, synesthesia is a pretty broad term.

Hope this helped!
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Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:49 pm
zaminami says...



Thanks @TheSilverFox!

Like I said, the first character didn't only kill people be a use the voices told her to, there were other factors. However, that did help a lot!

For the second character, I don't know if I'll make her violent or not. I mean, she kind of has to be sometimes, but she exorcises demons for a living. I did see that her mental condition would happen over time (I'm on mobile and I don't want to spell it) and I'm not planning on a traumatizing event later in her life...

^ that up there is mostly for reference for other people :)
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Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:38 pm
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StellaThomas says...



Hi @izanami!

I debated whether to comment here or not as I deal with schizophrenia nearly every day. Did you know that 1% of the population have it?

I always think that we talk a lot about "destigmatising" mental illness and yet somehow, this never applies to schizophrenia, which to me is probably the most impactful, most stigmatising, most isolating of them all. It's a far cry from what we see on instagram when people talk about "raising awareness of mental illness".

It is also, however, a far cry from how we see it portrayed in movies and TV.

To make a diagnosis of schizophrenia, we use the ICD-10 criteria or the DSM-V depending on what country you live in. While this is an article with a lot of technical language, it describes well some of the symptoms we look at in schizophrenia.

Misconception 1: people with schizophrenia see things - they can, but it's unusual. We associate visual hallucinations more with "organic" causes - alcohol withdrawal, brain tumours etc. Olfactory hallucinations are often associated with seizures. What people with schizophrenia have (We try to not use the term 'schizophrenics') is most often auditory hallucinations. Importantly these are not voices in your head, but voices you hear as if outside your head, but they're not real. Most people will hear multiple voices, they will often give a running commentary about what the person is doing or arguing amongst themselves (usually two but sometimes more). Distressing? You betcha.

Misconception 2 - voices tell people to do terrible things these are called command hallucinations. Most of the time people don't have these. If they do that's when you need to be worried. Even if the command is "take a shower", if the person does it that means they're following commands. But if these end tragically, it's more often in suicide than in murder or violence against others. Which is terrible. Keep in mind also that the person most often hurt in these situations is the person's mother or otherwise their closest family member. People with schizophrenia do not usually go on killing rampages that we see on tv. This is because of two of the main symptoms of the disease which are:

Thought Disorder. Your own thoughts don't make sense any more. How awful. It's hard to explain unless you've seen someone with it but you can tell by the way their sentences don't make sense. For those of us who have never been psychotic it's hard to tell what's going on inside their head, only what they tell us. Maybe look for some first hand accounts of thought disorder online.

Negative Symptoms: often prodromal (very early) schizophrenia manifests the same way depression does - low motivation, low energy. People don't engage with the world around them. They don't wash or change their clothes. They're not depressed, their mood is okay. They just can't do anything. This is the biggest risk to people with schizophrenia, it can be hard to look after yourself, feed yourself, clean yourself. And we haven't found a medication that treats it satisfactorily. Some antipsychotics help a little.

Remember that a delusion is a fixed false belief that is out of keeping with the person's culture. They are often persecutory in nature. The cultural bit is important if you're writing fiction. For instance, if someone is paranoid about witches in 2018 New York, that's strange. But if it's 17th century Salem, that's normal. If you're convinced the Russians are coming for you... actually currently that's too much of a political hot topic right now. But you get my drift.

Schizophrenia usually manifests in men in their late teens and early twenties and in women it can be a little later. Some people do remarkably well on medication and you would never even know they had it. Some people don't, and remain chronically unwell.

What is known is that, at all ages, people with schizophrenia have a higher all cause mortality rate. This is due to social isolation and deprivation, poverty, poor self care, their vulnerability to being exploited, suicide, violent deaths and the side effects of their medications.

What isn't known is the cause. There is a familial link but we haven't found it. Difficulties in pregnancy has a strong predictive value. But we have no single cause.

I am passionate about people understanding schizophrenia better, and you can't learn that from me. The only people that can really teach you are people who have the disease and know what it's like to be unwell.
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Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:15 am
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sheysse says...



I might as well hop in here with my personal knowledge of synesthesia. A disclaimer: I am a synesthete, but do not experience these specific forms of synesthesia. I have, however, researched them at length, so I may be able to help you? We'll find out, I guess.

First up, you mentioned seeing tastes. There's no researched form of synesthesia involving this, but the closest known form is Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia. People with LGS experience tastes upon hearing words.

You then mention hearing tastes, colors, and shapes. Chromesthesia triggers visualization of specific colors when specific sounds are heard. Auditory-Tactile Synesthetes feel physical sensations when they hear certain sounds. Once again, LGS can also be applied here.

Seeing sounds kinda goes with Chromesthesia, as well.

So in short, there aren't researched forms of synesthesia that for your exact criteria, but as @TheSilverFox mentioned, there are about 80 forms in total, and most are unresearched. So hypothetically you could create your own.

Key elements to remember are that synesthetes experience these like we experience taste, touch, sight, etc. There is no on-off switch, simply triggers. They also feel these as naturally as we do, and don't usually give them much thought, just like we don't think twice when we taste a fruit. And it usually isn't the defining characteristic of a person.

Lastly, note that most forms of synesthesia are harmless, exceptions being Misophonia (trigger sounds are associated with severe negative emotions) and maybe Mirror-Touch Synesthesia (feeling physical sensations you witness someone else feel). So unless the synesthesia can have serious negative effects, it would probably only be mentioned in passing, not as a major plot point.

Hopefully that helps! Tag me if you have any more questions.
  





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Tue Jul 24, 2018 12:38 pm
zaminami says...



Wow, thanks guys! That actually helps a lot!
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Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:19 pm
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Carlito says...



To hear a first-hand account of what it's like to have schizophrenia, I'd recommend checking out Cecilia McGough. This TED Talk has a pretty good overview of her story. She was also interviewed for Special Books by Special Kids (how I discovered her) and that video is also a pretty good overview of her story where she also shares what she wishes people knew about schizophrenia. She is also very active on Facebook and she posts a lot of videos about her day to day life and she's very transparent about her journey and what it's like to live with schizophrenia. She goes live most Fridays and invites people to ask her anything and she'll answer.

She has started a nonprofit called Students with Schizophrenia to support college students with schizophrenia. Her mission is to raise awareness about schizophrenia and reduce the stigma surrounding schizophrenia. Her motto is "I am not a monster".
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