Hey guys, I'm currently writing a short with a girl suffering from schizophrenia. I'm wondering, do people suffer visual 'human' hallucinations or just audible hallucinations? Thanks
Visual Hallucinations: Differential Diagnosis and Treatment I suggest you do some serious investigation of the illness if you want realism and story tweaking ideas as well. Get a good handle on the disease, it'll only take a little research time to look up schizophrenia.
I have this great book which covers a whole range of disorders and mental illnesses with the focus on writing: The Writer's Guide to Psycgology: How to Write Accurately about Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior by Carolyn Kaufman. It's a very interesting book and not insanely expansive. The best part is, however, that the other likes to help people and answers questions! She has helped me a lot with more details about a specific disorder I am considering writing about
No i agree and I have been researching for around 3 months now about Schizophrenia, I have been focusing more on the endurance of other family members, friends, but I am now honing in on the illness and the person together. I thought it'd be good to get opinions from this site as well as other areas. Thank you for the link, I appreciate it!
Visual hallucinations can occur, Sure. And yes you can hallucinate about other human beings. There are different types, and sub categories of Schizophrenia, which have some unique and some overlapping symptoms. For example there's a type which is known as catatonic Schizophrenia in which patients may go into periods of catatonic stupor, assuming rigid, awkward poses.
I'm assuming you mean the standard 'schizophrenia' we see all the time in films, in which case I know one schizophrenic girl. Visual hallucinations can occur, under extreme or extenuating circumstances, usually in league with the far more frequent aural hallucinations. That's just one person, though - others will differ.
I'm schizoaffective meaning I have schizophrenia and depression. Most of my hallucinations are visual, usually something disembodied but I have seen humans before.
My personal experience with someone with schizophrenia was that he was easy, real easy to snap his temper and he would go off on people who were his friends. He was in a difficult position. He was unemployed and his meds were expensive. There is a segment of Oprah as she interviews a young girl, of about 7-8 yrs, with an extreme form of schizophrenia. It was sad. No one should suffer it, but this was a little girl.
I am not schizophrenic, but I've studied it a bit for my psych degree and I am mentally ill myself, so have experienced hallucinations and have known schizophrenics who have experienced them. I roomed with a schizophrenic my first time in a mental hospital and she occasionally threw objects across the room because she "saw a monster there." I think that visual hallucinations mostly are more vague and dreamlike than they are portrayed in the media or imagined by many people. They might be shadows (mine were), mirage-type images, a figure moving in the distance and disappearing, walls warping or closing in (I had these also). I have never heard of anyone having a hallucination that a solid, real looking person walked into a room one day, spoke to the person in a normal fashion and maintained an otherwise real seeming relationship with the person (a la Russel Crowe's imaginary friends in Beautiful Mind). Not that it's impossible, or can't make an interesting story -- I've just never heard of it at all and can't say it's realistic. I have a relative who is schizophrenic and has never had visual hallucinations (to my knowledge), but does experience paranoid delusions (believes someone's trying to poison her, etc.) I love stories about anyone with mental illness and would love to see your work when it's ready. Best of luck & I hope I helped, feel free to ask any additional questions.
