Does anyone know how schizophrenics are told to react when they have hallucinations?
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So far I have (the driver is the schizophrenic):
“You’re not real,” the driver said.
Madoc frowned. “What?”
“I must acknowledge you for what you are— a hallucination.”
“I think... it’s probably best you assume this is for real,” Madoc said. “This gun isn’t a hallucination.”
That will make a big difference in how they respond to the stranger. If they are being kidnapped and miss taking their meds as a result, it would also affect the situation in a different way.
Unfortunately I don't know enough about the condition to say much more than that.
As noted earlier if the person is on their risperdal or whatever then they would have weaker delusions and should not be having hallucinations at all.
JB Skaggs
So I said, why is it people sometimes believe they've met people they haven't? That's delusions, he said. I think the difference is that you may THINK you saw Queen Elizabeth in your basement, AFTERWARDS, but at the time, you didn't have that image in front of you.
I'm not sure how much I'd want to be limited by this, though. Talking with imaginary people sounds like a fun literary device, and it worked great in A Beautiful Mind.
Basically what you have put together is not believable. A real schizophrenic would have known the person is real and would have reacted in one of several fairly predictable ways, none of which would have been what your story suggests. I can tell you more if you can answer some additional questions about the character. How old is the schizophrenic? Are they in the midst of an active psychotic episode or are they just prone to residual hallucinations? First episode or one of many (in other words, how naive are they about their disorder)? Do they have mood symptoms as well as pure thought symptoms? How well is their disorder controlled?
In general people with schizophrenia are told that hallucinations will reduce in severity if they perform a task which competes for brain processing power, such as reading aloud, listening to music, performing a manual task (which is why in the days before medications therapists recommended gardening or basket weaving) or engaging in a conversation with a caregiver.
The list of Schneiderian symptoms may help you a little bit.
http://www.division42.org/MembersArea/IPfiles/Winter05/classics/schizophrenia.php
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited March 17, 2005).]
How old is the schizophrenic? 29.
Are they in the midst of an active psychotic episode? No.
Or are they just prone to residual hallucinations? No.
First episode or one of many (in other words, how naive are they about their disorder)? They gone through therapy, medication.
Do they have mood symptoms as well as pure thought symptoms? Probablly.
How well is their disorder controlled? Controlled now.
Hopefully this doesn't sound hokey, but the character is one of a number of "clones" of the protagonist. The protagonist doesn't have schizophrenia but some of the clones do. This particular clone took drugs in his teens, and that triggered the condition.
First of all, no two schizophrenics are alike. There is a large umbrealla of symptoms that can lead you to the classification of schizophrenia and they can be as diverse as hallucinations and catotonia, which are rather mutually exclusive. Hallucinations are merely the favored of authors, especially authors who have obviously not done their homework.
Schizophrenics can be perfectly normal if their disorder is being controled. Here's the basic stat: 1/3 of schizos get better on their won; 1/3 with drugs; and 1/3 are SOL. Some of them have "episodes" in between which they can be as normal as you and me.
Here's the thing, if this character is in between episodes he will not think that his kidnapper is a hallucination. Actually, I am tempted to say that if he was in the middle of an episode he wouldn't think so either.
There are two types of hallucinations: auditory and visual. Most hallucinations are auditory. The reason: they are simple. When they are visual, they are simple visual images. Now, don't get me wrong, they can REALLY mess a person up....this is not a fun disorder or even something to joke about as happens so often in fiction, but hallucinations simply aren't that detailed.
And yet, a schizophrenic *can* know what's happening to them. It really depends upon how severe their particular schizophrenia is. This is not a one size fits all disorder which is part of the reason that drugs have thus far been so ineffective against it. There are few generalizations that can be made. The ones who do not know they are hallucinating don't tend to nkow much of anything else either.
I rememberin psychology class watching a video with a schiozphrenic woman. They were showing her story and in between episodes, asking her questions. She was a college student who wanted to be a lit professor and maybe write a book. In between episodes two things were true: She was amazingly normal but also incredibly scared. You could just see it. This was back to back to another video in which the person was so far gone that he couldn't make an coherent sentece put two words together that really belonged there.
My suggestion, honestly: find another gimick. I mean, I can see why you're doing this from what little you've revealed of your plot and it's interesting, but frankly there are even easier disorders if you want to make it mental. Bipolar comes to mind. Well, it's not easier to live with necessarily but it's easier to write about. The symptoms are fairly straight forward and the people given the label fit a much more predictable pattern.
Why not schizophrenia? Because short of falling back on stereotypes you're going to have difficulty even showing the disorder in your story. And then if you do, and do it realistically (after doing some good research) the readers might not even be able to identify the schizophrenia due to so many years of seeing the stereotypes. (What a cruel joke, really.)
I guess the bottom line about the plot is that the antagonist has delusions of granduer. His mental condition also gave him an awareness to sence things beyond the range of human awareness. This led to a discovery of becoming "superhuman" and leading others down this road.
The antagonist believes he's God. And due to his ability to imaprt certain abilities to others, he has ardent followers who believe his delusions also.
But one of his followers begins to realize that the antagonist has a mental condition. He has never met the antagonist personally, but this realization of course has impact on the plot...
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited March 18, 2005).]
Considering delusions of grandeur, these can occur in schizophrenia but more often in bipolar mood disorders, delusional disorders, substance intoxication and some personality disorders, as well as in malingering (i.e. faking). Of these the longest lived grandiosity would be associated with personality disorders and the most transient would be associated with episodes of cocaine intoxication.
Most common substances which induce such delusions would be stimulants such as cocaine, amphetamines (crystal meth, dexadrine, mixed amphetamines). Of the personality disorders the most common association would be with narcissistic personality.
There are also shared delusions which can occur with small groups or cults, such as the Heaven's Gate cult or Jim Jones' Peoples Temple. These are more a result of learned reenforcement of delusional memes than individual psychopathology. I would think this direction might be most amenable to ease of writing. We see it all the time in real life in everything from football crowds to politics to advertising for hygiene products.
Good luck on your story. I think it has definite potential. Good library resources might be 'Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology' by Thomas F. Oltmanns or 'A Casebook in Abnormal Psychology' by Halgin and Whitbourne.
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited March 18, 2005).]