pleasantbluebirdcycle

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

Writing a Schizophrenic Character: Everything But Hallucinations

Plain text: Writing a Schizophrenic character: Everything But Hallucinations

Hey! Mod Bert here. 

So: you’ve decided to write a character with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (there are other disorders on the schizophrenia spectrum but I will be focusing on these for today)

You’ve done it, you have their hallucinations and maybe even delusions picked out. Maybe they are one of many who experience auditory hallucinations or maybe they also have visual hallucinations or a combination. Maybe they have olfactory hallucinations as well. They may have persecutory delusions or delusions of reference or something like Cotard’s delusion or clinical lycanthropy. Awesome, you’ve done it!

What, I hear you say? What do you mean that’s only 2 of the 5 components needed to be diagnosed with schizophrenia? What do you mean, you don’t need to hallucinate at all to be schizophrenic?

What Goes Into a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

Plain Text: What goes into a diagnosis of schizophrenia

Not a lot of people realize there’s more to schizophrenia and schizoaffective than just hallucinations or delusions. There are 5 diagnostic criterias that are needed for schizophrenia, and only 2 of the 5 are needed for a month, with larger symptoms happening for six months or more. Let’s get into it.

Delusions

Hallucinations

Disorganized speech or thinking*

Disorganized or unusual motor behavior (catatonia)*

Negative symptoms (avolition, anhedonia, flat affect)*

I’m going to focus on disorganized speech/thinking, catatonia, and negative symptoms.

Disorganized Speech/Thinking

Plain Text: Disorganized Speech/Thinking

Schizophrenia and related disorders are often called “thought disorders” for a reason. Speech and thinking can be extremely affected, and for people like me this can be one of the first and most striking examples of an episode coming. Some people will always have disorganized symptoms that will flare during episodes. A myth is that schizophrenia can be indistinguishable with medicine: most people will have some level of symptoms even during moments of peace or “remission”. More on remission later. 

So, disorganized speech. Some examples are: word salad (schizoaphasia), thought blocking, poverty of speech (alogia), pressurized speech, clanging, and echolalia.

Word salad: a combination of words that do not make sense together. Often called schizoaphasia for its similarity to jargon in Wernicke’s aphasia, this is instead a disconnection with the brain and not due to damage to the language part of the brain.

(Example: the salad would be yellow in the fat cow).

Thought blocking: A severe loss of thought, often paired with connecting two trains of thought that are not connected

(Example: I went to the………Do you like grapes?)

Poverty of speech: A lack of organic responses to speech or organically speaking, it can be severe enough that a person only responds to questions or in one word responses. Can also happen in severe depression.

(Example: Person A: Did you do anything fun today?

Person B: Yes.

Person A: Oh, what did you do?

Person B: Store

Person A: How was it?

Person B: Fun)

Pressurized speech: A sort of frenzied way of speaking associated with psychosis or mania.

Clanging: Connecting phrases together because of what they sound like instead of meaning

(Example: I went bent tent rent).

Echolalia: Repeating word’s and phrases. Commonly also associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

(Example: Person A: I went to the store.

Person B: To the store.)

These are not the only examples but they are some ones I thought I'd highlight, either because they’re well known or I have experience with them, or because they’re famously thought of with other disorders as well and I wanted to point out how things overlap.

Personal experience: I had severe alogia for the duration of my last and worst episode. People thought I was mad at them because of the clipped way I spoke and the lack of really speaking. It got me in a lot of trouble. I didn’t realize what I was saying was different or weird (I have the least insight when it comes to my speaking patterns affected by my schizoaffective, meaning I can’t hear any difference and all of this is from repeated conversations with my mom, who was my caretaker for a bit and knows the most about my speech and what it means). The best solution was talking with people and being honest and educating myself and others. I don’t know about others, but I couldn’t have used AAC at that time.

Catatonia

Plain text: Catatonia

Fun fact: catatonia means unusual motor behaviors! Any unusual motor behaviors mean catatonia. This includes what we think of when we think of catatonia in schizophrenia (inability to move) as well as the opposite (being unable to stop moving) as well as strange movements and ways of holding and moving the body! Catatonia in the DSM-5 includes 3 or more of these 12 behaviors:

-Agitation unrelated to external stimuli

-Catalepsy

-Echolalia

-Echopraxia

-Grimacing

-Mannerism

-Mutism

-Negativism

-Posturing

-Stereotypy

-Stupor

-waxy flexibility

I have some experiences with catatonia-like symptoms but since they were never identified as such I’ll skip those for now. I will say that catatonia is a symptom that can happen in many disorders besides schizophrenia as well.

Negative Symptoms! Yay!

Plain text: negative symptoms! Yay!

So a positive symptom (Hallucinations or delusions) are symptoms that add something to reality or a person. Negative symptoms are symptoms that take away. There are 5 A’s:

-Alogia (Again, poverty of speech, our favorite)

-Avolition (Lack of energy and motivation)

-Affect (Blunted affect, or a flat way of speaking)

-Anhedonia (Lack of pleasure in things that used to bring you pleasure, often thought of with depression)

-Asociality (Lack of interest in social events and relationships)

There are also often cognitive changes including thinking and memory, information recall, understanding, and acquisition, and so forth. 

Schizophrenia and schizoaffective often (but not always) happen with what’s called a prodromal period. This period can be months to years (mine was a little less than a year) and mainly consists of negative symptoms. Slowly, positive symptoms are added. There are thought to be stages to schizophrenia including prodrome, active phases, and remission.

I’ll talk about that a little for a second because I’m currently in remission and no one knows what that means. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type in January 2021. As of February 2024, I no longer qualified to be rediagnosed because my symptoms were strongly under control and no longer severe enough to qualify for a diagnosis. They also didn’t distress me or impact my daily life severely. Day to day now I still have mild symptoms and take my antipsychotics (trying to go off them have made it clear that I still have some symptoms I choose to keep medicating) but I haven’t had a delusion in 2 years and been hospitalized in 3. There’s always a possibility of another episode but I work with my team to keep myself one step ahead if that happens.

What I want from a character with schizophrenia

Plain Text: What I want from a character with schizophrenia

Alright the writing advice part. What do I want from a character with schizophrenia or schizoaffective (which is schizophrenia plus either depression or bipolar). 

-Characters with caregivers.

-Characters using coping strategies (recording hallucinations to tell if theyre hallucinations, taking medication, having service animals that greet people so they know if they’re a hallucination, using aids for the cognitive symptoms like sticky notes and organizational tools)

-Characters who know other characters with their disorder, either online or in support group or through running in similar circles

-Characters having autonomy

-Characters who aren’t the killer or horror victim. I know it’s cool to have the schizophrenic protagonist in horror, and I love horror, but I don’t want to read about the horror being symptoms the whole time

-Characters who are in magical scenarios, who are in fantasy and sci-fi. The schizophrenic princess and the schizoaffective robot technician aboard the spaceship.

-Medication and hospitalization treated casually. Sometimes we need higher care. That’s morally neutral

-Characters with negative symptoms and speech symptoms.

-Characters with catatonia! 

-Characters with other disorders as well

-characters with side effects from medicine treated casually

-Characters with cognitive symptoms

Thank you for reading this incredibly long thing! Happy writing!

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

I want to learn a few ancient Chinese ways of fortune telling. The Shang people carved words into tortoise shells or animal bones and burned them to tell the future by the cracks. I don't want to use animal products so I'll see if bamboo pieces or tree barks will do.

I also want to learn telling the future by arranging sticks, which according to legend was invented by King Wen of Zhou. He used archillea stems but I figure bamboo skewers for barbeque will work the same.

There are many other ways that developed later in history, but I want to learn these two first because I want to get closer to the old world that predates the first unified dynasty.

Divination has always been an important part of Confucianism. King Wen, the archetype of a Confucian sage ruler, is arguably the most famous diviner in Chinese history. I don't want people to forget the mystic part of Confucianism.

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

[ID: The character 'Di' in oracle bone script. End ID.]

I'm being gate-keepy, probably, but I really dislike the word Shangdi being used by Christians as one of the Chinese translations of God, which has become the only meaning of the word for many Chinese people. The earliest appearance of the word Shangdi was on oracle bones in Shang Dynasty, over 3000 years ago. Shangdi (most often just called Di; Shang means it's from the upper realm) was the most powerful god of the Shang, but it was never the only god. The Shang royalties worshipped their ancestors as gods, and some scholars believe they considered Di as their ancestor as well. They also worshipped gods of nature. After the collapse of the Shang Dynasty, Shangdi remained present in Chinese mythology although changed its presentation over the millennia. Chinese folk religions and Daoism still use the term Shangdi for one or several deities, but most Chinese people only think of the Christian God when encountering the word, even though the majority of them aren't Christians. I just don't feel it should be like this, idk.

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

devoting my time is my favorite offering, the one thing I can never get back

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

I'm considering to pursue a master's degree in pre-Qin Chinese history because I want to become closer to her and do more for her, the Shang god I worship. I do enjoy learning and researching pre-Qin history. But I don't know if I can handle it because of my mental illness.

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

Occultists, witches and spiritualists really need to stop peddling the lie that spirituality, witchcraft, paganism, etc. isn’t a psychological phenomenon as well as a mystical one. Your psychology will in fact, fundamentally inform your experiences with spirituality.

And we also need to stop pretending that spirituality and witchcraft are somehow contrary to mental illness. Or that having a mental illness means you can’t do witchcraft.

I’ll be completely honest with you guys and say that certain people with certain afflictions are more predisposed to different “mystical” experiences than others. I don’t think it’s a great coincidence that I am so great at visualization given that I was raised in a severely neglectful household. It doesn’t surprise me that many pagans are lonely people. This doesn’t mean to say that spirituality is “filling” a hole within anyone (although if it is, that’s great for you) but more so that, well, this path is unpopular for a reason. Alternative subcultures are alternative for a reason, and outcasts and rejects usually find a home there for a reason.

This also doesn’t mean to say that people who engage in witchcraft and spiritualism are inherently mentally ill. There is still a difference between hallucinations and spiritual encounters. And there was never any rule that said that both of these things cannot happen to a single person. For the safety of yourself and others we should be aware of the warning signs of dissociation and hallucination, but that doesn’t make anyone “wrong” for experiencing those things. And experiencing those things doesn’t mean you cannot explore spirituality or do witchcraft.

I hate it when “spiritualists” who are actually just anti-vax conservatives push the narrative that people with mental health issues cannot participate in spirituality. I also despise the notion that mental health issues are inherently a sign of an energetic imbalance. We’re all walking around with a special concoction of brain soup in our heads, it doesn’t surprise me that Ares devotees tend to have BPD, that many Aphrodite devotees struggle with self harm, that many people who work with angels have paranoia or generalized anxiety.

There was never any rule that said that you cannot use your deities or magic to help you cope with your mental health. I know some people will say “the Gods aren’t here to be your friend or hold your hand through life” but I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that’s true. I see no reason why a God like Ares couldn’t help his devotee with BPD come down after a bout of rage, I see no reason why Dionysus couldn’t help his devotee with their alcoholism or substance abuse, I see no reason why Aphrodite couldn’t help a devotee with relapse or negative self talk.

Witchcraft and paganism were historically used as a tool for survival, to bring people ease, to help people feel safe and secure, blessed and protected. That applied to all people, including those with mental health issues.

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

For any nonhumans struggling with species dysphoria, I want to help you all as much as I can. I've been experiencing it all week. It can be quite exhausting and put you in a lot of distress, in my case. X(

Here are some tips I'd recommend to help:

1. Mimic the diet of your kintype/theriotype. You are a shark? Eat seafood. A dragon? Maybe try to burn some food a little (or turn it black like my own preference if you want). You kin a character from [Insert source]? Try recreating foods/dishes from their world or dimension.

2. Listen to relatable music. I'd recommend making a playlist of any songs that feel species affirming/euphoric, or even echo that dysphoria further, therefore turning it relatable. (Few of my favorites are Bones by Imagine Dragons, Control by Halsey, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land by MARINA, Momento Mori by Fish in a Birdcage, among other songs that feel therian coded to me).

3. Do vocals. Howling, barking, screeching, or roaring are very relieving if you are in the correct space to do them! If you are in a quite space or do not want to out yourself to anyone, try purring, growling, hissing, or other unnoticeable sounds. You have an object kintype? Mimic the sounds of the object, like beeping, clicking, etc. (I personally make microwave sounds just because it is fun). Recite voice lines of your kintype from the source they are in. Mimic their voice and volume to match.

4. Move and physically act like your kintype/theriotype. Quadrobics, mimic the flapping of wings, walk bidepedally, whatever you do, turn your mannerisms and motion to reflect your kintype/theriotype.

5. Dress like your kintype/theriotype. Is your kintype a character? Cosplay them, or mimic their clothing style, clothing color, hairstyle, etc. If they have tattoos, scars, or patterns on their body, copy them on your physical form with paint or pens. (PLEASE USE NON TOXIC MATERIALS. STUFF SAFE FOR YOUR HUMAN SKIN.) Are you a species of animal(s)? Dress in your species' colors, or, once again, paint or color yourself like it/them. Are you perhaps any other form of creature or object? You can use the same tips as the others, and another idea that works for all is that you can buy costume pieces of your kintype/theriotype. Masks, headbands, just normal clothing in general, the options really are infinite.

6. Express your dysphoria through artwork. I love doing art when I am heavily species dysphoric. Drawing, crafting masks, origami, painting, collages, all are forms of art. If you are skilled in music, then you could even create some songs of your own!

7. Go out and explore nature. This one is mainly targeted towards therians, whose types are grounded on the life on earth rather than other dimensions or universes, but just like the other methods, it can be universally used by any types of nonhumans. Collecting things is my favorite way of exploring nature. Collect rocks, shells, sticks, leaves, bugs, plants, anything that makes you feel more comfortable in your own (unfortunate) physical body. Stay grounded in the world around you and you may find the dysphoria slips away. Hiking and going on short walks can also help, building a den, smelling the scents of the outdoors. All great ideas that I personally recommend.

8. Write about your feelings. Whether you are good at expressing yourself through poetry, you keep a diary/journal, or you can project onto OCs for new backstory lore like I do, writing can truly help with any dysphoria. Not only that, but it is sometimes refreshing to come back later and read about what you were feeling before. It can serve as a great reminder that you are a powerful being and you will always overcome the feelings if you try.

9. Research about your kintype/theriotype. It does not matter if you are an animal, concept, or object from earth, a being from fantasy, or a character from the greatest book or show, you learn something new every day. So why not learn about yourself? Read books or watch animal documentaries of your theriotype(s), same thing for you otherkins and your fantasy species. Fictionkins can look up facts about themself as a character, their book, show, game, etc.

10. Talk and interact with other alterhumans/nonhumans. Remember, we are a community, and while you are experiencing horrible episodes of species dysphoria, there are many other beings going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. So why not talk to them about it? Share your experiences, help eachother cope, you may even connect with more individuals that way, building more relationships with others and meeting new beings.

11. Past life meditation. If you are a nonhuman who has a past life/lives, you may find comfort in meditation, where you can truly tap into what you once were, and still are in this life as well. Look to the forgotten, and turn in to remembered. Open up your past and live over again.

12. Listen to sounds. Nature sounds, voices of other characters you know from your world, vocals or sound effects of your kintype. These are all good options to turn to if you want to feel at ease with yourself.

13. Let your emotions out. Sometimes this is all you really need to do when species dysphoria hits hard. Cry, bite things, claw at pillows, LET IT OUT. There is absolutely no problem in being yourself and expressing your heavy emotions in your own, unique, nonhuman way. You may find you feel much better after.

That's all I've got, but I hope whoever/whatever reads this far has an amazing day/night. You are an amazing being, thank you for embracing yourself and living authentically. <3

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

my man

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once again wishing that ppl would just leave psychotic folks alone when we say things instead of turning it into jokes and memes and screenshotting it to make fun of it.

this person thinks they’re the reincarnation of a cartoon character? this person thinks they’re an alien or a ghost or an angel? this person thinks they’re a god? And they mention these experiences online or in messages, in order to be transparent about the situation, or just to share what’s going on in their life?

Don’t screenshot it! Leave it alone!

There is no need to point and laugh at someone’s beliefs or so-called “delusions” or the way they experience reality, even if you don’t understand it or agree with it.

Even if it’s something silly and weird and obviously not real to you, just shut the fuck up about it. If it’s something that can bring about genuine actual harm, there’s very little you can do on the internet about it anyway.

I don’t care if you think they should get offline or not tell the internet about it; online spaces are often the only way for us to talk about it and be listened to, and we deserve a space in which to share these things and not be bullied and abused for it.

If you think that talking about their experience will “feed into the delusion” or “make it worse” please just consider the idea that it’s not any of your business.

Paranoia is a common feature of psychosis, and can be made ten times worse by the idea that people could be sharing one’s most vulnerable moments in order to make fun or pass judgement.

Just leave people alone.

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

"Mental illness isnt an excuse to do xy " - what if I told you that the descriptive label that your psychologist gave you because of your specific deviation from the norms of how youre supposed to think/feel/act that society places onto you based on your age/socioeconomic status/assigned gender/... doesnt CAUSE anything .

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

the logic of pathologizing specific desires claims to stop moralization, but all it does is qualify them using absurdly circular logic.

"people who do drugs/kill themselves/hurt themselves have Done Something Wrong. but thinking that they are Bad People is cruel [true!], so they must have had a disease that made them do a Bad Thing even though they're Not Bad." or, more broadly "Healthy People want to do Good Things + Stay Healthy while Unhealthy People want to do Bad Things + Stay Sick. therefore, someone is who wants to do Bad Things is sick with a disorder that is tricking them into thinking they want to do Bad Things instead of the Good Things that their Real Self (which is being obscured by disease) wants."

do you see how this classifies anyone who desires something "unhealthy" as diseased + denies them full personhood until they embrace an identity composed of only "healthy" desires (with all "unhealthy" desires being an invasive Other)? why do we see this as this necessary? would someone become a Bad Person if the desire to do drugs or kill themselves was coming from Them + not a disease? why, if you genuinely believe that these things are not immoral? or do you believe they are ONLY morally acceptable because they come from a disease (so the person "can't help it")? if you feel like you need this model to understand your own experience, why? do you feel like it relieves a shame or guilt surrounding your experiences? why?

i need everyone to understand that, regardless of whatever personal attachment you feel to this model, the circular concept of "people who are too sick to know what's good for them (which is obvious because they are making choices which only sick ppl make)" is part of a logic that justifies all manner of degrading, violent + carceral responses to mad ppl/drug users/unhoused ppl. for every "recovered" person who embraces this model, there is a "disordered" person who resents it + that person will forever be denied the resources + social absolution "recovery" offers until they embrace it

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

A Guide: Encouraging Separation in Plurality

Hello! I'm Ardyn, and I decided to make this guide because after talking to many systems, I've come to realize that moving from a near medianhood to a full multiplicity may encourage better function for certain systems. For us any identity blurriness brings a lot of pain that has been aided by further separation and amnesiac barriers. Before you put an awful judgement on this, remember that healing is different for everyone, and breaking down barriers isn't best for everyone. This is up to the system, there is no guilt on wanting to do what is best for your system.

RADQUEERS DONT TOUCH

This guide will hold many different exercises and ideas that have been taken from tulpamancy and my own experiences.

first I'd say get situated with identity grounding and also following the "The Body is a Car" exercise within these sources

Identity Grounding

Guide to Switching

Building up Distinction

Separate Journals/Diaries

A seperate journal or diary that nobody can write in but that headmate is a good way to help a headmate build up their identity. They will be able to write down their own experiences and their own feelings, and this seperate space gives reinforces the idea that they are ultimately apart from you.

Separate Accounts with a Separate Feed

Something that pushed for the blur was having similar feeds, seeing my interest would push me to the front and cause issues for Vincent. He ended up making his own account on reddit where he is able to join subreddits that appeal to solely his interest, and it would help keep him at front instead of pull someone else.

Distinct Hobbies

encourage your headmates to pick up hobbies that are not something you may be interested in, hobbies give way to individuality as now they may seek others who share that hobby or spaces online that appeals to that hobby.

Different Clothing and Ownership

Assign different clothing and other items to headmates, let them pick out their own jacket and may they be the only ones to wear that jacket. Let them have their own perfume, let them have their own bag, let them have their own keychain for the car keys. This won't just give you that barrier, but also can be used as a form of identity grounding during a blur. When in blur, you will be able to tell whose fronting based on what clothing makes you feel more yourself.

Different Friends

This option may be more difficult, but it works very efficiently. Let your headmates have their own friend, I mean it. Giving them someone outside the system that they themselves can solely talk to is absolutely perfect in giving that split. Interacting and communication outside the body and encouraging unmasking will do wonders.

Drop Part Language

If you really want to encourage separation, you will have to drop the idea that you are all pieces of another. This is however a preference, speak to your headmates about it. Speak to them about terms they may prefer, maybe customized role names, let them be themselves. Push to yourself too that these are different people, not parts of you. But like I said, if parts language isn't an issue for you, then you might not have to change after all :P but I recommend it for this all to work.

Identity Separating Exercises

Now as you have pushed the formation of these headmates, now it's your goal to start separating them more and more through these exercises

Remember: Fake it until you make it

Being consistent in these exercises will be great, but you also have to make sure you believe that they are working. Plurality is very much a brain game, you have power over yourself and the more you believe these separations the more they will be. Some of these exercises are purely for pushing the belief, I recommend having a collection of proof on your plurality to refer to whenever you get doubtful.

I also recommend joining a tulpamancy community such as a discord or reddit, even if you don't practice tulpamancy, these people have so much trust in themselves and the process that it starts to rub off on you.

Separation Meditation

If you are able to visualize and even after doing all the above you still feel like your headmate hasn't fully left you, this exercise may be useful. In this meditation, you are to visualize the headmate in front of you. Then repeat "___ is a separate person from me" repeatedly for however long you like once a day.

Discussions

Speak to your headmates, ask questions about their lives

Here is a good source on that

The best route to take is to discuss opinions and specifically focus on what you disagree on, this will reinforce in your mind that this person is not you, this person does not agree with you, this person has their own opinion. Focus on those ideas until they really settle, and maybe also record these disagreements in your proof collection.

Affirmations

If you are a bit too busy for these things, constant affirmation throughout the day are both simple and helpful. Here is a good list

"__ is a seperate person from me"

"the system has entirely different and seperate people"

"___ is real and a seperate person"

"the system is noticeably distinct"

at first it may feel silly, but like I said, fake it until you make it. These will reinforce ideas.

Building Up Amnesiac Barriers

This may be more controversial, but for us these barriers help a ton. I would like to say that we already had blackout amnesia to begin with, but these exercises made them "worse". There are many reasons why a system may want to have higher amnesiac barriers, ours being privacy and independence, try to avoid judgement on this decision. The Switching Guide above also has an exercise that will push lost time.

"Cancel Recall"

When a memory from another headmate tries to seep into your thought process, immediately cover that memory and say to yourself "This memory isn't mine to remember". Perhaps visualize a door closing on it or a lock appearing on that memory. Mentally assign that memory to the correct headmate and move on

Affirmation

Affirmations that may help these barriers can be used situationally, just whenever you try and remember a time another headmate fronted think "No, I don't remember"

Headspace Tools

If you have a headspace, try using creation. Imagine cutting memory ties off with everyone else that can only temporarily be connected when agreed upon by both parties. Maybe also set up a headspace memory lock system.

Using Remnants left behind

When I say this I mean use something such as text messages a headmate left behind and when scrolling through them, focus and think "This wasn't me, I don't remember typing this".

Memory Redirection

Most times it's harder to push a memory away than just redirect it. When redirecting memory, for example you start to remember something another headmate did in meatspace, recite "that wasn't me, what did I do during this time" and attempt to recall your time within the headspace instead.

FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT, REMEMBER THAT

what do you guys think? any changes we should make? we would love to hear how this guide impacted your system!

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

kill kill needle kill needle

why. gone. forever?

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spider posting

[pleasantbluebirdcycle]

I want to kill. Please I need to kill