Voices

[Hyena Dandy]

It was irresponsible of both of you.

It's also advice I've gotten from two different mental health professionals on how to deal with someone who may be suffering from hallucinations. I know what Schizophrenia is. I dated one person with schizophrenia, I'm fairly close to another.

You're the one who said this person is delusional, I explained that they don't seem to be, and you're saying that I'm the one who's confused? Because I can tell the difference?

I don't know what your experience is. Maybe you've been advised differently by different professionals. But the fact that there was agreement from two people whose job it is to know these things, (two people who have different approaches, as well, so they don't usually agree,) that saying the supernatural might exist will not keep someone from seeking help means that, at the very LEAST, there is some disagreement.

So no, I'm not being irresponsible. By responding in a way I was told to respond by people whose freaking JOB it is to know this, I'm not at all being irresponsible.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

I'm sorry, but is anyone in this conversation actually a mental health professional? I know I'm not. It seems parsing the ethics of laymen having threads of conversation relating to mental health seems a bit beyond the pale.

Honestly, it's sufficient to tell someone they should probably see a medical practitioner to start ruling things out.

Outside "mental disorder" there are so many physical ailments that can manifest in wacky ways. There are things that can kill you that will make you mentally sharper. There are things that will save your life that will cloud the mind (usually medications on that one.)

Supernatural for or against is picking on something someone said and making that the issue when it clearly is not.

Just get it checked out.

[Gravekeeper]

I know what Schizophrenia is. I dated one person with schizophrenia, I'm fairly close to another.

If you know what it is and thus should be familiar with the challenges involved in getting a person with it to seek medical help, why are you doing this? Or do you just happen to know two people with schizophrenia and were not at all involved at the onset of their illness?

I mean I am seriously struggling here. Undiagnosed schizophrenia can be notoriously difficult to get a person to seek or accept help for. By virtue of the very nature of what it is. The person may not accept that anything is wrong. They may exhibit fear of persecution or negative outcome if they seek help. They may be holding onto or highly susceptible to delusions or false beliefs that prevent them from seeking help and those beliefs or delusions may not show on the surface ( Especially not in a lone forum post ) Their own delusions or hallucinations may even be actively telling them not too. There are so many hurdles and it is a race against time because schizophrenia never gets better over time when left untreated.

Its a situation that MUST be handled carefully with empathy and acceptance but also with mindfulness so you don't make the situation worse rather than better. I doubt Gilhelmi is returning after this fiasco so lets go back to square one here.

Gilhelmi is lucid and seems reasonable. But that's not unusual if indeed they were on the schizophrenia spectrum. However, he/she did seem to hold a belief that nothing was wrong, that seeking medical advice would lead to a negative outcome and then clearly began talking about persecution. They also stated that they were essentially looking for input in order to help them refine their argument for why they SHOULDN'T seek help. If you know about schizophrenia as you so protest, you would know that these are all trouble signs. On the upside, Gilhelmi was not committed to any supernatural possibility but had obviously at least considered it.

Now, in my initial response to them I focused on the hurdles involved but also on acceptance and empathy for the condition ( Because it is a rough rough condition to deal with. ) and tried to urge seeking medical advice. I also explained that based on a single forum post it's very hard to truly assess everything here because we only have the information provided. That was as much for Gilhelmi as it was for you and everyone else that would follow in the thread.

Now, lets examine your response in this thread. First, you undermined what I was trying to do ( help him/her ) by putting supernatural back on the table. Which, again, is just an irresponsible thing to do when trying to get someone that may have schizophrenia to seek medical help. When we are not in a position in their lives to directly intervene. Gilhelmi had considered the possibility and thus may have been open to the suggestion.

Again, he/she was basically here to gather input and help refine their argument against seeking medical advice. Also, again, schizophrenia does not get better with time. It gets worse. Neither you nor I is any position to figure out whether or not Gilhelmi is currently suffering from any additional symptoms such as delusions or false beliefs based on a single forum post. Nor if he/she would begin to suffer from them in the future as it gets worse. At which point they could draw upon this thread for an emerging delusion or false belief.

That is how much thought I put into all of this and my response because I knew we were dealing with a potentially very delicate situation. Daskinor and NeoCat likewise put thought and knowledge into their responses in this thread.

Conversely, Kuari would not give up his/her own belief in the supernatural in the thread even if it meant potentially leading to harm for Gilhelmi. This was selfish and irresponsible and made the focus Kuari's belief instead of getting help for Gilhelmi.

You, to be bluntly honest, have not been doing much better. You've been responding to things I said to Kuari like I said them to you and pulling things I never even said out of thin air to argue with while even confusing the very flow of the conversation just to have something new to be mad at. You have been running off of emotion. While I have repeatedly tried to explain to you what the problem is.

Now you are doing the exact thing I warned against in my original post ( armchair diagnosing based on a single forum post ) and trying to use your own conclusion to defend yourself. While giving completely irrelevant personal anecdotes to support your position. You saying that you know two people IRL that totally agree with you is completely meaningless. Anyone can say that. Both you and Kuari have fallen back on this sort of thing to try and bolster your position.

The bottom line here is that this thread was suppose to be about helping Gilhelmi.

You derailed us onto something else. I tried to stop it. s_stabler tried to stop it. But it was too late. Thanks to Kuari half the thread turned into a completely different, unhelpful and possibly even damaging debate. Where Kuari couldn't even pretend to let go of his/her own beliefs long enough to help someone else.

So again, yes, it was irresponsible of you and selfish of Kuari. Now please stop squirming around and twisting my words to defend yourself. This was suppose to be about helping Gilhelmi. Kuari and to a lesser extent yourself have disrupted that completely. Now we are left with this mess. If we're lucky maybe Gilhelmi will return.

But after this fiasco, I'd be steering clear of this thread too.

[HYHYBT]

You want people to lie?

[Hyena Dandy]

If you know what it is and thus should be familiar with the challenges involved in getting a person with it to seek medical help, why are you doing this? Or do you just happen to know two people with schizophrenia and were not at all involved at the onset of their illness?

I am familiar with the challenges involved. I am also familiar with what has been recommended to me, by professionals, as a way of trying to get people to get help.

You saying that you know two people IRL that totally agree with you is completely meaningless. Anyone can say that. Both you and Kuari have fallen back on this sort of thing to try and bolster your position.

A position that we know what to do in a situation like this? Yes. The fact that Kuari has been in contact with his/her daughter's doctor, and that I've been told this is an acceptable response by people whose job it is to know the acceptable response for a situation like this is relevant.

You made it about me and Kuari by accusing us of negligence. You changed the topic. You started it, not us.

[Gravekeeper]

You want people to lie?

I want people to think about helping someone else instead of about themselves. If someone is suicidal would you agree yeah, your life sucks you should jump even if you thought it was the truth? No, of course you wouldn't. That's not helpful in any way.

Mental illness fucking sucks. Dealing with it sucks. Working through it sucks. Facing the stigma of it fucking sucks. I've lost 2 years of my life to mine and that's just what I can remember clearly. Never mind the years prior to that when it went undiagnosed. Its a topic that requires empathy, tact and knowledge to navigate successfully if you're trying to help. Some people tried to help me. Just as many if not more just dismissed the problem as something else entirely or insisted it was something else. When you're on the inside of it you can't see the outside looking in. The people around you will know something is wrong long before you do and depending on the illness in question you may be unable or unwilling to seek help. You may insist everything is fine because you think it is even though its not. You may not even remember insisting everything is fine after the fact. I don't.

Its not like a physical ailment where you and the person afflicted can agree yeah, your leg is totally broken, better get that checked out.

[Gravekeeper]

You made it about me and Kuari by accusing us of negligence. You changed the topic. You started it, not us.

Oh bullshit. If that is seriously all you can come back with after I tried to sincerely explain the problem at great length ( again ) then we frankly have nothing more to talk about. Go back to fuming about whatever it is you think I'm saying seeing as you keep pulling it out of thin air to begin with. But leave me out of it. If your pride is more important to you than caution so be it.

I hope at the very least Gilhelmi is somewhere getting a laugh out of us if nothing else.

[Kuari]

Something I have learned over the years dealing with my own mental illness and that of my child's - you cannot force them to seek treatment, no matter how scientifically sound your argument is.

I was offended by the statement that the supernatural in no way can play into hearing voices. And that I apparently espoused this idea instead of seeking treatment. If that were the case my child would still be running around untreated. Obviously that is NOT the case here.

My opinion is that it is up to Gilhelmi to seek treatment, not force him/her to seek treatment. Yes, there may be medical reasons behind the voices, but that is not for any of us to decide. If they are not at risk to hurt themselves or others who are any of us to determine the correct course of action. Gilhelmi probably never expected this to blow up the way it did and that could be the reason why they have not commented.

[Peppergirl]

With apologies to the OP, despite a warning from a mod the thread has gotten too heated and personal, so we're closing it.

I do wish you the best of luck and urge you to seek appropriate medical advice with regard to this issue.