ELI5, Schizophrenic Voices. Are they “legitimate” voices in your head, or more like an extra intrusive normal voice similar to you saying to yourself in your head, “I need to buy bread today”.
In: 9302
Your brain is not just one large organ, it is a collection of various parts that communicate with each other.
Just like your brain takes the two separate images from your eyes, stitches it together. and filters out the unimportant stuff “e.g., nose”, it does the same with the way the different parts of your brain communicate with each other.
It’s like the parts of your brain are all members of a committee, and there is a secretary taking down notes and consolidating all points of discussion into one single memo that everyone can understand, which it then hands out to everyone to use.
Schizophrenic Voices is when that system breaks down.
Imagine that the “secretary” of the brain is not there, and neither are their notes. Now instead of one single voice, your brain is instead trying to put together what all the members are trying to say.
Problem is not all the parts of the brain speak the same way, or the same language, or even speak at the same time. Some use audios to communicate, others use images, some use a combination of both, while others don’t use any of those.
Worst of all, despite working together for years, your brain doesn’t know who these membersare. So, when one part of the brain tries to “communicate”, it seems like a foreign message like you are hearing voices. Truth is you **are** hearing voices, but it’s just your own, and your brain can’t realise that.
**Example:**
**Non-Schizophrenic**: Your parents always te;l you; you were never good enough. Sometimes it would get so bad you would have dark thoughts about them dying.
So, the secretary of your brain converts those thoughts into a psychological condition such as depression, feelings of inadequacy, and guilt.
**Schizophrenic**: Your parents always tell you; you were never good enough. Sometimes it would get so bad you would have dark thoughts about them dying.
Then one day, while studying you hear your dad saying, “Don’t bother you’re never going to pass.”, but when you look up and around, he isn’t there.
You try studying again and this time you hear your mom says, “Someone has to study this much is obviously a moron.” as clear as if she was standing next to you.
Again, you look around and no-one is there. This happens more and more frequently.
When you’re in the room with them, you start having outbursts like “What did you say?!” despite no-one saying a word.
One day, you walk into the kitchen and see your parents dead on the floor with blood pouring out of them and have a nervous breakdown, only for those same parents to walk through the door and ask you what’s happening.
Edit 1: “If people know what condition they have, why is it difficult to tell the difference between what is real?”
I have Tinnitus. Logically, I know that the ringing in my ears is not real. That it’s probably a combination of ear canal damage and neurological flippery. That doesn’t stop it from getting so bad that sometimes I want to rip my ears off.
Edit 2: No I don’t have the Schiz, but my brother does. And there is something I’ve learnt, if a bit controversial. He’s not crazy. Those voices are real. Those images are real. Those frightening patterns he sees in day-to-day life, are real. I will never try to convince him otherwise. The real issue to deal with is that he understands they only exist in his head.
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