I have close family with schizoaffective disorder, which is very close to schizophrenia, and have a couple of acquaintances with schizophrenia.
One of them is a chap that has chosen to take the “John Forbes Nash Jr” approach, and eschew medication. In his case, it has been effective. He’s a bit odd, to talk to, but otherwise, does fine. He's married, with a couple of beautiful kids, and has a good career.
I do find it annoying, though, that he pressures others to do the same. My family member desperately needs their meds, and can’t function, without. I think it has to do with how the condition manifests.
Another acquaintance also desperately needs their meds. A few years ago, they spent a few months, where they tried going off them, carefully, and assisted by doctors, personal research, discipline, diet, and exercise. Also, they had our full support (friends and family). We all wanted it to work.
It didn’t work. We watched them slowly disintegrate, until they damn near committed suicide, and were forced to go back.
Each case is different, but they hold in common, a total devastation of normal life.
Hi Robert - I have no comments on the human mind, but wanted to say that I enjoyed your work on Warp and I'm glad to hear you're finding a path that's working for you. I've had two relatives with schizophrenia and the difference between the one who found a way to make things work and the one who didn't was very striking (and sad for the one who didn't).
I'm surprised you can remember me. We once sat near each other on a bus for SOSP, and that's the extent we interacted in person, so it warms my heart to hear someone like you remembers someone like me.
In case you're looking for the technical, the book doesn't say such, but one innovation laid out for me was my work on lsmtk, a new compaction algorithm for LSM trees. I'm not sure if I'm off my rocker here or not, but I documented it when I released the crate: https://crates.io/crates/lsmtk. I know you're busy, but in case you revisit this thread and want a neat trick, I thought I'd bring it up.
Lastly (and most important as I'm prone to doing), I appreciate you sharing something personal like that. Hearing that others who have tried to make it work can often do so keeps me going on my worst days.
Also from 1988. Nice writings. Btw, still in meds but same symptoms. My psych doesn
't allow me to not have those pills. I am on leave at work so not so happy about work life. But I am based in Spain so YMMV.
I like the systems mindset in the book. I think it's great to introspect and try to debug your own self.
Starting from pages 31-33, I found some interesting things. This book is the product of an internal fight. It's lucid in places, and those are the most interesting. In other chapters... my takeaway is that you can't always come out on top when fighting yourself, but you still have to try.
I was really rooting for the protagonist, there:
>Instead of treating the events
like a delusion and having to fight them, I chose to work through them—choosing to believe that somehow I was shown something.
>By treating it as real, working through it as a real problem, I was admittedly taking a gamble. I could totally succumb to my delusions and get stuck in the worlds of the Yoshu and the Mechanicals.
>It would be easy. What I found instead was opportunity
The parts of the book I liked the most are those that break free from Yoshu. The rest breaks my heart.
I will check out your book as I had what I now believe to be trauma schizophrenic response (auditory and visually), and was diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia in my late teens. I found that dealing with the trauma and dealing with what allows my brain to struggle helped solve things. Now in my mid 30's I am so used to dealing with it without medication it isn't an issue any more but I do have to do a few things every day to make sure I do not get to a place where things are possible.
I found computing and the internet to be the support network and escape network I needed but I could very easily see with a different personality how it could be the source of the issue. I work in engineering now, but i always focus on community projects such as supporting those with mental health challenges or those in prison which allows me to also stay focused on what my problems will always be.
I appreciate you saying something. As you'll read in the book, I've got a project going to primarily help myself, but to date it's been 100% open-source.
I haven't been able to be consistent enough to both pay the bills and volunteer and work on the open source, so I focus on the former.
Would you mind saying more about what you do every day? For me, I anchor myself for at least a set time; when I sit during that time, nothing can touch me and I can deconstruct symptoms to recover any deviation from baseline.
Great book. Its first part could become a sci-fi novel, and that's probably how many of the great novels were written. Its second part makes me think that you have a high spiritual foundation, despite your hardcore scientific attitude. Otherwise how did you spontaneously jump to the essence of meditation at that level?
This probably explains the disturbing breakthrough that you call psychosis. If you had a sudden insight into the weird life of microbes, you'd quickly put it into reasonable terms because those insights are below your level. However, if the contents of the insights exceed your level, you'll be overwhelmed and may even suffer serious neural damage.
> Who is it that identifies something as missing? Can it itself go missing?
Your true spirit, most likely. You might reject this idea at the moment, but that's okay.
I'd also firmly reject everything that comes from that Yoshua. The vision you've described isn't really novel, and it's not a heaven, but hell, deceptively decorated with technology. It's a possible future for humanity. Helping others to get unglued from such visions would be a noble deed.
Thanks for sharing that, Robert, and good luck!
I have close family with schizoaffective disorder, which is very close to schizophrenia, and have a couple of acquaintances with schizophrenia.
One of them is a chap that has chosen to take the “John Forbes Nash Jr” approach, and eschew medication. In his case, it has been effective. He’s a bit odd, to talk to, but otherwise, does fine. He's married, with a couple of beautiful kids, and has a good career.
I do find it annoying, though, that he pressures others to do the same. My family member desperately needs their meds, and can’t function, without. I think it has to do with how the condition manifests.
Another acquaintance also desperately needs their meds. A few years ago, they spent a few months, where they tried going off them, carefully, and assisted by doctors, personal research, discipline, diet, and exercise. Also, they had our full support (friends and family). We all wanted it to work.
It didn’t work. We watched them slowly disintegrate, until they damn near committed suicide, and were forced to go back.
Each case is different, but they hold in common, a total devastation of normal life.
Hi Robert - I have no comments on the human mind, but wanted to say that I enjoyed your work on Warp and I'm glad to hear you're finding a path that's working for you. I've had two relatives with schizophrenia and the difference between the one who found a way to make things work and the one who didn't was very striking (and sad for the one who didn't).
Hi Dave,
I'm surprised you can remember me. We once sat near each other on a bus for SOSP, and that's the extent we interacted in person, so it warms my heart to hear someone like you remembers someone like me.
In case you're looking for the technical, the book doesn't say such, but one innovation laid out for me was my work on lsmtk, a new compaction algorithm for LSM trees. I'm not sure if I'm off my rocker here or not, but I documented it when I released the crate: https://crates.io/crates/lsmtk. I know you're busy, but in case you revisit this thread and want a neat trick, I thought I'd bring it up.
Lastly (and most important as I'm prone to doing), I appreciate you sharing something personal like that. Hearing that others who have tried to make it work can often do so keeps me going on my worst days.
Also from 1988. Nice writings. Btw, still in meds but same symptoms. My psych doesn 't allow me to not have those pills. I am on leave at work so not so happy about work life. But I am based in Spain so YMMV.
Thanks, is there a .mobi version?
I have had some meditation induced psychotic symptoms. Terrifying experience, but also got me much more carious about the nature o mind.
Hello!
I spent a decade hearing voices, in and out of suicidal depression and manic psychosis.
In 2012 I started a process of exploration and growth to heal without medications.
13 years later mission accomplished.
Dr. Paris Williams book Rethinking Madness was a huge help, and recently become a friend and mentor.
Curious to check out your book and approach and to compare notes sometime.
Thank you for the book recommendation! I will see if it's for me.
Well, I've reached the end of the book.
I like the systems mindset in the book. I think it's great to introspect and try to debug your own self.
Starting from pages 31-33, I found some interesting things. This book is the product of an internal fight. It's lucid in places, and those are the most interesting. In other chapters... my takeaway is that you can't always come out on top when fighting yourself, but you still have to try.
I was really rooting for the protagonist, there:
>Instead of treating the events like a delusion and having to fight them, I chose to work through them—choosing to believe that somehow I was shown something.
>By treating it as real, working through it as a real problem, I was admittedly taking a gamble. I could totally succumb to my delusions and get stuck in the worlds of the Yoshu and the Mechanicals.
>It would be easy. What I found instead was opportunity
The parts of the book I liked the most are those that break free from Yoshu. The rest breaks my heart.
I'm sorry to hear you were heartbroken.
I assure you I've seen people who are worse than me turn out much better than me and I hold hope that I'm on a good trajectory.
I will check out your book as I had what I now believe to be trauma schizophrenic response (auditory and visually), and was diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia in my late teens. I found that dealing with the trauma and dealing with what allows my brain to struggle helped solve things. Now in my mid 30's I am so used to dealing with it without medication it isn't an issue any more but I do have to do a few things every day to make sure I do not get to a place where things are possible.
I found computing and the internet to be the support network and escape network I needed but I could very easily see with a different personality how it could be the source of the issue. I work in engineering now, but i always focus on community projects such as supporting those with mental health challenges or those in prison which allows me to also stay focused on what my problems will always be.
I appreciate you saying something. As you'll read in the book, I've got a project going to primarily help myself, but to date it's been 100% open-source.
I haven't been able to be consistent enough to both pay the bills and volunteer and work on the open source, so I focus on the former.
Would you mind saying more about what you do every day? For me, I anchor myself for at least a set time; when I sit during that time, nothing can touch me and I can deconstruct symptoms to recover any deviation from baseline.
good writing!!
Great book. Its first part could become a sci-fi novel, and that's probably how many of the great novels were written. Its second part makes me think that you have a high spiritual foundation, despite your hardcore scientific attitude. Otherwise how did you spontaneously jump to the essence of meditation at that level?
This probably explains the disturbing breakthrough that you call psychosis. If you had a sudden insight into the weird life of microbes, you'd quickly put it into reasonable terms because those insights are below your level. However, if the contents of the insights exceed your level, you'll be overwhelmed and may even suffer serious neural damage.
> Who is it that identifies something as missing? Can it itself go missing?
Your true spirit, most likely. You might reject this idea at the moment, but that's okay.
I'd also firmly reject everything that comes from that Yoshua. The vision you've described isn't really novel, and it's not a heaven, but hell, deceptively decorated with technology. It's a possible future for humanity. Helping others to get unglued from such visions would be a noble deed.