Meenie7's invisible friend

The BBQ Pit
481

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
Then you are really needed in so many Pit threads where people say much worse things to each other without this level of outcry, and without this many pages of dickering and sniping back and forth. But I don’t see you everywhere, fighting the injustice. And honestly, I don’t think anything that’s been said to meenie has been terrifically nasty, beyond the pale, and worthy of a dogpile. “You’re either crazy or lying” is a bit simplistic, blunt, and definitely not nice or diplomatic, but about sums it up. I’ve seen much worse said here with less justification.
[/QUOTE]

Again, I didn’t really care about the “crazy or lying” part until he tried to take the moral high ground later on. And, again, I wasn’t trying to defend meenie.

You’re right, in that there are better fights to fight. I didn’t expect it to drag on this far, but post #415 really solidified for me that he was way out of line & just trolling for a reaction. It worked, I’m sorry to say. I was still pissed about it when I responded to your post.

482

[QUOTE=Labrador Deceiver]
Again, I didn’t really care about the “crazy or lying” part until he tried to take the moral high ground later on. And, again, I wasn’t trying to defend meenie.

You’re right, in that there are better fights to fight. I didn’t expect it to drag on this far, but post #415 really solidified for me that he was way out of line & just trolling for a reaction. It worked, I’m sorry to say. I was still pissed about it when I responded to your post.
[/QUOTE]

Fair enough, since I’m not here to defend Diogenes personally, just to state that his POV is shared by others. I feel that I have said enough in this thread too.

483

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
First, I haven’t been that aggressive towwards meenie herself and saying I’ve spent “6 days belittling her” is just dishonest.
[/quote]
Let’s recap, shall we? These are direct quotes from your posts:
7/22/08: There are only two options: Lying or crazy. There are no other possibilities.
7/23/08: Maybe you should have called the invisible cops.
7/24/08: Did you tell them about the hallucinations? It sounds like there’s definitely something neurological going on, and it could be life threatening.
7/25/08: Oh yeah, I’m convinced.
7/26/08: Is it going to do any harm for to make sure she doesn’t have neurogical going on? What’s mor likely, that there’s a medical explanation or that she’s actually talking to a ghost?
7/27/08: (Board outage…no posts.)
7/28/08 (today): How about making an appointment with a neurologist? Any progress with that?

So it’s actually been seven days (including the outage day) and you’ve been active in this thread that entire time. Jesus Christ, man. Don’t you ever go outside?

Ah, there we go. It’s good to know that you’re not completely talking out of your ass. Glad to hear you’re not authorized to diagnose mental illness, because your apparent belief that delusional behavior = schizophrenia is flat-out wrong, according to Wikipedia:

Out of curiosity, do any of your patients characterize their hallucinations as a pleasant experience? Just wondering.

Anything’s possible, of course. But I noticed that meenie7’s blackouts & fainting spells took place SIX YEARS AGO (presumably before she met “Marcus”) and her CAT Scan turned up negative. BTW, how many schizophrenics in your care have brain tumors? Have you ever treated a person with a brain tumor? Because you’ve been harping on that one for several days now.

Clearly. :rolleyes:

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Incidentally, here are some of the symptoms of a brain tumor: headaches, vomiting, intracranial pressure, epileptic seizures, papilledema, cognitive and behavioral impairment, personality changes, hemiparesis, hypesthesia, aphasia, ataxia, visual field impairment, facial paralysis, phantom odors and tastes, double vision, tremor, somnolence, and coma. These symptoms are not unique to brain tumors, but the big red flag appears to be sudden epileptic seizures in a person with no history of epilepsy. Early stage tumors are usually asymptomatic.

Funny, I don’t see blackouts, fainting spells, or even hallucinations on that list. Kind of a surprise, really.

485

[QUOTE=KGS]
Let’s recap, shall we? These are direct quotes from your posts:
7/22/08: There are only two options: Lying or crazy. There are no other possibilities.
[/quote]

I said if you look at what I said directly TO her.

Not said to meenie, and not said about her.

Not remotely insulting, and for the record, said directly in response to her statement that she’d had blackouts and fainting spells.

Said about the dice test, which sounded dubious to me.

How is this insulting?

How is this insulting?

The number of days is irrelevant. The point is that you were wrong in asserting that I’ve been berating or belittling her. That was a lie on your part.

I never said that, you fucking half wit. All I said was it might be. I also said that I thought it probably was NOT schizophrenia, and this whole angle about credentials is still a complete strawman on your part, since I attempted no diagnosis and claimed no special knowledge.

I don’t work with them anymore and they weren’t my “patients,” but yes, at times they did say the experiences were pleasant, but they were never exclusive;y[ pleasant, and they were more often unpleasant than pleasant.

Yeah, she said it was negative six years ago. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have missed something, or that something couldn’t have gotten worse. She didn’t tell them about her other symptoms then and she’s still having hallucinations. It’s time to do another test.

What kind of idiotic, non-sequitur bullshit is this? If someone is having these kinds of symptoms, what the fuck is wrong with suggesting that they should rule out a brain tumor? That’s all I’m saying moron.

Now go play with your fucking Ouija board and your crystals, Gandalf. The adults are having a conversation here.

486

[QUOTE=KGS]
Incidentally, here are some of the symptoms of a brain tumor: headaches, vomiting, intracranial pressure, epileptic seizures, papilledema, cognitive and behavioral impairment, personality changes, hemiparesis, hypesthesia, aphasia, ataxia, visual field impairment, facial paralysis, phantom odors and tastes, double vision, tremor, somnolence, and coma. These symptoms are not unique to brain tumors, but the big red flag appears to be sudden epileptic seizures in a person with no history of epilepsy. Early stage tumors are usually asymptomatic.

Funny, I don’t see blackouts, fainting spells, or even hallucinations on that list. Kind of a surprise, really.
[/QUOTE]

An irrelevant post, but thanks anyway. It’s not an excuse to suggest that she should not se a neurologist. one thing is for sure. It’s not a fucking ghost.

487

I don’t have a dog in the fight. I don’t believe in ghosts, so I think this is therefore a delusion due to some psychological or neurological issue, a message board lie, or a case of someone pulling the wool of a young woman’s eyes in the most elaborate multi-year prank I’ve heard of that didn’t involve money.

But I do want to say something serious to Meenie7. I have two cousins who are schizophrenics. I don’t claim to be an expert in the disease, but I do know their symptoms – in retrospect – clearly began in their late teens/early twenties, and they did so in ways that merely seemed ‘eccentric’ to outside observers.

One of them, my female cousin, believed fervently that a rock singer was sending her messages in his albums. She was a fan of this singer and at first this obsession seemed harmless. It didn’t take over her life … at first. Both channelled their ‘imaginations’ into creative pursuits; a good thing, certainly. We encouraged these outlets. But as years went on, the delusions grew worse. This is thirty years later and one of them is now leading a medicated but reasonable life after years of being a danger to himself and others; the other (the rock singer fan) is out on the streets somewhere, alas.

My cousins didn’t start out walking around their buildings with guns, or rambling incoherently raging about implanted chips and being watched by spy satellites and being repeatedly molested by every member of our family and being the grandchild of Tsar Nicholas/daughter of Martha Stewart and being targetted by the 9/11 terrorists. That’s what they became, later in life, because they were untreated and refused to accept help while some of their faculties were still intact. Their illnesses refused to let them consider that the fantasies were merely delusions.

My point is not to terrify you. My point is to say that the thing about delusions, or really almost all mental illnesses, is that they are by their very nature self-perpetuating. Some are like emotionally abusive, jealous lovers – they’re clingy and desperate to maintain their grasp on you. They’ll tell you anything to maintain the status quo and keep you from breaking free.

Depression works that way; clinically depressed people are often rendered too paralyzed and hopeless to seek help. Schizophrenia does the same thing, but its own whispers are even more deafening: Look how everyone is against us, it tells you. No one understands but you and I. We’re a team. You’re perfectly fine, it’s everyone else who’s hateful and hurtful. They’re out to destroy what makes you you. I’m the only one who really cares, I’m the only one who’s out for your best interests. I’ll protect you the way they can’t.

So when ‘Marcus’ tells you something comforting – as you wrote in your last message – please, please consider that this may be the insidious, poisonous siren song of something that really really wants to convince you not to seek help and thereby end its existence. Put it this way: if ‘Marcus’ were really a ghost, then your going to a shrink or neurologist shouldn’t bother him; he should know that he’s not going anywhere just because you’re checking out your health status. If he really cared about you, he’d want you to make sure you’re okay.

But if he’s a delusion, it won’t let you go without pulling out every trick in the book to convince you ‘Marcus’ is real, and thus to ensure you avoid seeking help. Because that threatens ‘his’ existence.

Don’t let such a phantom win, Meenie7. Please rule out the possibilities that are mentioned here.

Whatever happens I wish you health and peace.

488

I missed the bit about fainting spells, six years ago or not. I have to agree with Dio here, ruling out any medical condition should be a priority now even if there wasn’t a whiff of physical implications in the last while. I’m not a doctor, but I had a friend who had spurts of really vivid hallucinations with occasional fainting once-in-a-blue-moon after some incident he was never clear on that affected him “emotionally and physically” (the only thing I could get out of him about it, though I’m not convinced he wouldn’t have gotten it anyway), the hallucinations were really pleasant (but more “stuck in a Xanadu” way than “single entity in the material world” like yours), but overall his life improved in a noticeable way after being given medication and other treatments (he had trouble connecting with others before that). Sorry meenie, but being happy and having a friend will not help you if you’re dead (that’s probably a gross exaggeration, or rather a worst case scenario, but I need to get my point across). A medical examination can only do you good, and who knows, if Marcus IS real you can still see him. I understand if this feeling of maybe losing a friend is scary, but I can almost assure you if it is linked to something mental, you’ll make up for it with many, many friends that could offer much the same relief Marcus does - well, except it will be in boring old meatspace. :wink:

Great… I’ll take my “shameless shift of position midway through a debate” badge now TYVM.

I still have to take issue with this part of my new party line though, I just want to say my position firmly stands at " itis vastly unlikely it is a ghost, in fact I’ll get naked and run onto Live CNN newscast while praising Hitler if it turns out real, but I still maintain mental room for the sliver of a possibility." Which is pretty much where it was before, though my priorities for ruling it out have slightly altered.

489

[QUOTE=KGS]
Incidentally, here are some of the symptoms of a brain tumor: headaches, vomiting, intracranial pressure, epileptic seizures, papilledema, cognitive and behavioral impairment, personality changes, hemiparesis, hypesthesia, aphasia, ataxia, visual field impairment, facial paralysis, phantom odors and tastes, double vision, tremor, somnolence, and coma. These symptoms are not unique to brain tumors, but the big red flag appears to be sudden epileptic seizures in a person with no history of epilepsy. Early stage tumors are usually asymptomatic.

Funny, I don’t see blackouts, fainting spells, or even hallucinations on that list. Kind of a surprise, really.
[/QUOTE]

I’m glad someone finally got around to answering my question.

meenie’s experience of having a ghost friend for 8 years is odd, sure, but I can think of other things it could be besides psychosis. However, the post she made in 2004 about all the ghosts she has seen over the years really made my hair stand on end, because that, to me, says total altered perception of reality.

But still – still – she is apparently completely functional otherwise and this has been going on for years. I keep tripping over that. How has she made it 8 years since her first psychotic break without diagnosis or treatment?

When my uncle first REALLY lost his shit, he was 19 years old, and it was immediately apparent that something was completely wrong. He was noticeably odd before his first break, but he was passable for normal. When he broke, he stopped eating because he believed people were trying to poison his food, and then he nearly hacked to death in a room where he saw a fire and no fire existed. And then he actually according to my mother put a tinfoil hat on his head to block the microwave beams aliens were raining down from space and ran outside screaming at them. He didn’t care who the fuck was around, he certainly didn’t try to conceal his illness from anyone out of fear of how they would react because he didn’t believe he was crazy.

It was a total nightmare for him, and for all family members involved, and it has continued to be a total fucking nightmare for the entire 47 years of his life. In fact, it just gets worse. The only respite we have as his family members is the knowledge that no matter what we do, we will never be the most fucked up person in the family (I assure you, it’s no easy feat.) And you (general you) can come back and tell me what an insensitive asshole I am for having a sense of humor about mental illness after you experience the honor of trying to explain to a severely mentally disturbed individual, who you love and have always loved, that his 30 year old little brother is dead. I can promise you that whatever reaction you’re expecting in the midst of your blackest grief, it’s not the one you get. The reaction you get is the one that hurts the most, I promise. Ha, ha.

Where is anything like this happening in meenie’s story?

490

[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th]
But still – still – she is apparently completely functional otherwise and this has been going on for years. I keep tripping over that. How has she made it 8 years since her first psychotic break without diagnosis or treatment?
[/quote]

Couple of points come to mind here:

  1. We only know what she’s telling us about how her life is. Maybe she’s not completely functional, or only thinks she is.
  2. Sounds like she has a lot of enabler friends, some of whom would not even like the idea of her going to a neurologist just to get checked out, would in fact be “aggravated” by it. That seemed really weird and troubling to me when she posted it, because going to the doctor would be the first things my friends would suggest if I told them I was talking to a ghost.
  3. The possibility remains that she is lying, either completely or in part. I know, I know, so rude of me to say, but if the pieces of the story just don’t fit, you have to consider this. And lying here doesn’t necessarily mean trolling or being deliberately provocative to the community of the SDMB. She may have made up this Marcus story when she was 20, told her very credulous and enabling friends, and had it turn into a story she told so many times she started to believe it herself, and now, for her, it’s true. Or something like that.
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[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
2. Sounds like she has a lot of enabler friends, some of whom would not even like the idea of her going to a neurologist just to get checked out, would in fact be “aggravated” by it. That seemed really weird and troubling to me when she posted it, because going to the doctor would be the first things my friends would suggest if I told them I was talking to a ghost.

[/QUOTE]

Just to clarify, I was being vague there, but I wasn’t referring to my friends. I was referring to one of my close relatives in particular, who would not stop me from going to the doctor or try to stop me, but would flip out with worry about it before I even knew there was something wrong. (There is no way to keep them from knowing I’m going, suffice to say.) It’s hard to think about having to deal with someone who will be in tears over just the idea that I might be sick.

492

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Is it wrong to be totally unconcerned about meenie’s mental health? I mean, it’d be kinda cool if she had a tumour whose rapid growth made her head swell up to the size of a basketball.

I mean, I pray for her speedy recovery, blah-blah-blah lip-service lip-service, but basketball-head… cool.
[/QUOTE]

In my mind’s Movie of the Week (a joint Lifetime-SciFi Channel production) meenie7 lies in a gurney swarmed by ER personnel, frantically trying to save her life. Even behind the oxygen mask, her face radiates a beatific glow. From the chaos of the room, we dissolve to a soft-focus cut scene of a handsome young man in what appears to be generic 18th century finery, beckoning meenie7 ever closer.

The mundane din of the hospital fades to a murmur—then only the plaintive, fading monotone of the heart monitor—and at last meenie7 and her ghost lover lock in a Vaseline-lensed embrace, spinning madly in a deafening crescendo of violins.

493

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
If you make an extraordinary claim, like “ghosts are real,” and you want that claim to be received with anything but disbelief and outright dismissal…
[/QUOTE]

Fortunately that didn’t happen. She didn’t “want the claim to be received” in any way, she wasn’t making a claim at all.

494

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
In my mind’s Movie of the Week (a joint Lifetime-SciFi Channel production) meenie7 lies in a gurney swarmed by ER personnel, frantically trying to save her life. Even behind the oxygen mask, her face radiates a beatific glow. From the chaos of the room, we dissolve to a soft-focus cut scene of a handsome young man in what appears to be generic 18th century finery, beckoning meenie7 ever closer.

The mundane din of the hospital fades to a murmur—then only the plaintive, fading monotone of the heart monitor—and at last meenie7 and her ghost lover lock in a Vaseline-lensed embrace, spinning madly in a deafening crescendo of violins.
[/QUOTE]

Blech. Even if I’d been dead for 200 years and bored, I don’t think I could sit through that movie.

495

[QUOTE=muttrox]
Fortunately that didn’t happen. She didn’t “want the claim to be received” in any way, she wasn’t making a claim at all.
[/QUOTE]

Yes she was. She was claiming she has personally seen and communicated with ghosts.

496

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Yes she was. She was claiming she has personally seen and communicated with ghosts.
[/QUOTE]

No, she was *relating *that she has personally seen and communicated with ghosts. It’s unfortunate you can’t see the distinction.

497

[QUOTE=muttrox]
No, she was *relating *that she has personally seen and communicated with ghosts. It’s unfortunate you can’t see the distinction.
[/QUOTE]

:confused:

How can you give an honest account without also making a claim?

498

[QUOTE=muttrox]
No, she was *relating *that she has personally seen and communicated with ghosts. It’s unfortunate you can’t see the distinction.
[/QUOTE]

Because there isn’t one.

499

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Because there isn’t one.
[/QUOTE]

Personally, I’d’ve said “the distinction between ‘claiming’ and ‘relating’ escapes me”, but that’s just my veneer of politeness talking.
It does escape me, by the way.

500

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Blech. Even if I’d been dead for 200 years and bored, I don’t think I could sit through that movie.
[/QUOTE]

See, this is why focus groups are so important. Would it change your mind if I introduced a pottery wheel and the Righteous Brothers?