I’m having a hard time understanding when one turns into the other and becomes a “condition”.
I’m NOT trying to use info obtained to diagnose myself, but I’d like to understand the difference from a non-textbook-jargon-filled way lol.
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Schizophrenia means you’re hallucinating. You’re not having a dialogue with yourself, you’re not “vocalising” your own thoughts. You are hearing noises — not always _voices_ — that appear real to you and appear to be coming from an external source.
And if they are voices, they can be A. very distracting, and B. kind of mean at times.
I’ll also note that hallucinations due to schizophrenia are not limited to audible ones. You can have visual hallucinations, tactile hallucinations, basically any sense you have.
(Edited to remove typos)
Inner monologue is when you “remind yourself” of tasks you have to do for example. It’s like talking to yourself, but in your head, not actually talking. Usually there’s no argument, just you keeping a to-do list and/or sorting through a problem step-by-step mentally.
“Voices” feels like literally other people arguing with you, in your head.
Schizophrenia produces auditory hallucinations. Usually people “imagine” their inner dialog. It is clear to them that even though these *thoughts* have an auditory quality, such is transparently notional.
People with schizophrenia actually hear some of these thoughts as voices. The disorder projects this inner monologue at the neurology which usually processes and interprets auditory signals from the ears. Their ears are fine. But the mind cannot discern hallucinations from real sounds because, from a neurological perspective, both apparently emerge from the same place
As you may surmise, this effect is catastrophically destructive to the sufferer’s own sense of safety, since these “voices” are inescapable.
With therapy, some schizophrenics become able to discern which sounds are hallucinations and will consciously filter them. But it’s exhausting.
The mechanism that actually causes the disruptive mis-signalling is still poorly understood.
Inner monologue is like when you read a book, you hear the words in your mind, it’s your conscious mind interacting with itself.
Schizophrenia can have a wide range of how it affects people, a family member couldn’t get his meds for a while and described it “I know God isn’t really talking to me, but it FEELS as real as this conversation”
An inner monologue comes from your conscious mind. You are fully cognizant that you are initiating everything “said”.
When you’re hearing voices or have schizophrenia, the words are not coming from your conscious mind.
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