A few years ago NPR did a story called “The Sights and Sounds of Schizophrenia” which tells about a training program created by Janssen Pharmaceutica, a pharmaceutical company that specializes in treatment for Schizophrenia.
I watched the 5 minute video just one time 5 years ago and it literally changed me. It was such a powerful and moving experience that I cannot forget it and it altered my perception of mental illness forever.
I’ve tried to tell people about it over the years, but it’s just something you have to see, so finally I searched and searched until I found it again so I could put it on the blog.
The textbook description of schizophrenia is a listing of symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior. But what does schizophrenia really feel like? NPR’s Joanne Silberner reports on a virtual reality experience that simulates common symptoms of the mental illness.
Silberner, who experienced the simulation, says it works this way: “For five to 10 minutes, someone wanting to know what it feels like to have untreated schizophrenia puts on goggles and headphones, and sees and hears a range of hallucinations. You can choose your virtual reality — what happens on a trip to the doctor’s office, or on a ride on a city bus.” In the program she experienced, a caseworker takes the schizophrenia patient to a grocery store with a pharmacy in the back, to refill a prescription.
To create the virtual reality project, technical director Stephen Streibig consulted a group of people with schizophrenia, including Daniel Frey, 26. Frey describes what he and Silberner experienced in the program: “When you first walk into the pharmacy, you’re walking through the aisles and there are people staring at you, just staring at you from every aisle. And there’s one instance where there is a woman sort of protecting her children from you when you walk through the aisle.”
Even though schizophrenia patient Frey consulted on the project, he found the simulation too disturbing to sit all the way through. When Silberner tells him she was terrified by the experience, Frey responds, “Yeah, you ought to be! Imagine not being able to take off the goggles, the helmet.”
I also found this other video that is even better, in a creepy sort of way:
If you found this as informative as I did please help spread the word. I think the more people that see this, the greater the tolerance we’ll have for those less fortunate than ourselves.
John, on a cursory scan of those websites, focusing mainly on the “causes of” sections, the almost all start with “it is not known…” or something similar. And then they go on to say that their “brain structure is different” but then proceed to say that the differences are found in non schizophrenics, and not all schizophrenics have the differences. As I said many of the people diagnosed with Schizophrenia do have mental problems, but many of them do not have the same problems, but get lumped in together as schizophrenics. Basically I think Schizophrenia will go the same rout as Psychotic, which is to say, it’s still on the books, but only describes a wide and vague class of related disorders. The problem is that because we so far have only been diagnosing these diseases on the extremely subjective points of views of the patients and opinions of the psychiatrists, we have no objective way to test for this apparent disease. Once again I must stress I am not saying that the people who are diagnosed have no mental disorders, but I do worry that people are being misdiagnosed with a disease that has, so far, no physical proof of it’s existence.
WOOOW!!! really weird… but the quality of the video ruins it a little…
are the voices heard outside as other sounds or are they heard like in the head of the schizophrenic person???
Karl,
The voices are heard as if they are coming from different places all around you. It actually sounds like there are people with you, talking to you and making you paranoid.
My wife used to work for a mental health care facility and she told me that one of their clients who was schizophrenic related a story that he used to go to the exact same restaraunt for lunch every single day. He had to stick to routines so he could determine what was real and what was not…
Anyway, he would sit down at a table and sometimes some other person would sit down with him and start bugging him. He knew these people were not real because no one just sits down at your table, but they looked and sounded as real as the people who worked there.
It would be very, very scary to live this kind of existence.
John
What exactly are you saying Sam?
That schizophrenics are imagining it, or that there are several different illnesses involved?
Lee,
I have no clue why you would ask if I am saying that people are imagining their disease, and frankly am going to have to refuse to rise to that bait.
If I may interject before anyone gets too upset here… :-)
My interpretation of Sam’s comments is merely that he is making the point that schizophrenia is one of those rare diseases where one cannot point to actual empirical evidence of the illness. For example, with measles we can see the bumps, but with this disease we cannot detect any physical irregularity. It is truly a “mental” illness.
For this reason, I believe Sam’s assertion is that medical professionals need to be extremely careful about the diagnosis because the disease and treatment may be different in each case, unlike measles where everyone needs the same medicine.
Although I see how Lee’s direct questions could be interpreted as “baiting”, I think it’s also fair to assume he was legitimately searching for clarity on Sam’s position. Hopefully my interpretation of everyone’s statements is correct and this may clarify the matter?
John
i just watched this video and really knew nothing about this illness but watching it made me relize how scary it would be just to enjoy, like a walk in the park.
I think you sum up my point fairly well, and would add that we dearly need to do physical research int this, and all mental illness, to determine whether it is a causal or correlational connection between symptoms and physical evidence. Is Schizophrenia an actual disease? Or is it a class of symptoms? Like many physical diseases can cause a fever and a headache, perhaps many physical brain/nervous disorders can cause schizophrenic symptoms, and if this is the case, providing the same treatment in all or most cases may not be a good idea. So my basic concern is of a rush to diagnose schizophrenia, and then medicate it may be harmful before we know the root cause or causes. It may be we are doing more long term harm than good. But I fully understand that what is being done now is the best option in a bad situation.
I happen to have been diagnosed with ‘drug-induced paranoid schizophrenia with borderline parkansins, catotania and selective muteism’, some of the worst symptoms you can get with that disorder both positive and negative- I was 17, this was 4 years ago. While, again, I like the idea- and it’s good that he chose a pharmacy, in my opinion; things always seem more for your benefit in public not exactly……….so loud(?).
Kinda hard to explain. (which is why i was very vague before).
Sam, is it possible that you are thinking it is not a brain disease but a brain disorder- maybe thats what you were thinking originally? It certainly is classified as a mental illness, as is Parkinson’s as well as Alzheimer’s and Bipolar Disorder.
I could never begin to understand or comprehend life with this illness. My brother has paranoid schizophrenia, the respect i have for him and anyone else battling this illness is massive. I’ve seen first hand how soul destroying it is to the effected person while the episodes are at there worst. For these very unfortunate people to still have the strength to fight this after years of predictable torment amazes me. although my brothers not living in my area any more he is a source of constant inspiration to me, as is anyone in his situation. Im sorry if i sound patronizing it was not my intention!
Lukus,
I don’t think you sound patronizing at all. You raise a very good point. It takes incredible bravery to go through life facing this kind of challenge day after day. Personally, I don’t think I could handle it. I’d probably rather end my life than suffer like this.
So I understand what you mean when you say you are inspired by their ability to keep going.
John