# Schizophrenia is not split personality! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 13, 2003, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217 "2003-01-13T00:29:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![coosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@coosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coosa)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217/41 "2003-01-15T08:30:09Z")
> [@](#): > > than threating someone with medication. I’m sorry, **Swimming Riddles** , it’s not fair to pick on your typo, but I read this first as “_threatening_ someone with medication” and it cracked me up. Carry on, don’t mind me; I’m always a little giddy after seeing my therapist. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217/42 "2003-01-15T11:38:19Z")
**Zoe** , that’s why I am so open about my struggles with clinical depression. Consider it my personal battle in the war against ignorance. I’ve also compared depression to diabetes or heart disease, and I’ve also told a congressman about my struggle to get treatment for it and that it is treatable. I’ve got an essay I wrote on depression for my church which I can send you, if you like. I’m told it’s helped a few Christians get a more accurate view of depression. CJ ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217/43 "2003-01-15T14:27:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > —It actually is split personality.— Given the rigor with which this was stated, let me refute it equally rigorously: It actually is not split personality. Now, would you care to come up with something more thoughtful than “is too!”?🙂 > [@](#): > > I think that, psychologically, the disorderness comes from an inability to make a distinction between errant thoughts and ones own thoughts. That’s rather misleading. Having myself suffered from (though really the worst of it was having to hear teeny bopper music every morning for months. Damn crappy-ass music. Why couldn’t the schizophrenic in me have found a nice Oldies station?:)) it in the past, there’s no thought whatsoever to the idea that it might not be real: that the radio I was hearing or the voices someone else was hearing or the doorway/building a third person was seeing … they’re not real? Nonsense! They’re completely real! Once I figured out what it was, it merely was a question of “Can I A) make the people say things that are _so_ not in the song, or B) can anyone else hear it?” Beside which, what exactly is an errant thought? > [@](#): > > You come to disassociate from the errant thoughts that are actually yours… and because of this failure to recogize that they are your own, they get radically off track and disassociated from the rest of your personality: part of your own internal monolouge becomes “voices” or images. This makes no sense and does not agree with anything I’ve either experienced or read about schizophrenia. However, given that I only shortly ago woke up, perhaps my brain has yet to follow suit. Could you put this more plainly? > [@](#): > > It’s almost like when you are dreaming, and you half realize you can control it: but this realization is itself a dream, and events don’t seem to unfold as you command them to. This, on the other hand, does make sense, and … well, I certainly am not going to say something on behalf of everyone who ever suffered from schizophrenia or auditory/visual hallucinations, but A) this was never the case for me and B) I’ve never heard of it being the case for anyone else either. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217/44 "2003-01-15T15:03:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoe \* > \*\* Also, because clinical depression often involves mood swings, people (intentionally, I think) kept labeling me as bi-polar. Wrong! (I don’t get the highs.) \*\* While we’re on the subject of mental illness misconceptions… I just want to mention something here as well (not accusing you of this btw) … many people have a lot of misconceptions about bi-polar disorder. A lot of people think that it means you go from depressed to very happy. Not all bi-polar people get “euphoric highs”. Some have the depression/euphoria cycle, others have depression/manic dysphoria and some have a little of both. Me, for example… most of the time my manic side involves not being able to sleep, getting involved in ninety-eleven projects at once and never finishing any of them, talking too fast and too much, etc. It rarely coinsides with feeling especially good or happy. That is for the general cycle stuff. Sometimes, however, I can “snap” into a manic episode. This is when I suddenly throw chairs across the room, run out into traffic, or start screaming at people for very little reason, or beating my head against the wall. Fortunately, I’m on very good medication and these things only happen now if I miss my medication for a few days. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217/45 "2003-01-15T17:59:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OpalCat \* > \*\*While we’re on the subject of mental illness misconceptions… > > I just want to mention something here as well (not accusing you of this btw) … many people have a lot of misconceptions about bi-polar disorder. A lot of people think that it means you go from depressed to very happy. Not all bi-polar people get “euphoric highs”. Some have the depression/euphoria cycle, others have depression/manic dysphoria and some have a little of both. > > \*\* Not to perpetuate the hijack, but not all bi-polars have the depression either. Or I should say the extreme depression. I used to fluxuate between depressed and normal mostly- then It was normal/angry. Never depressed. Now I get the euphoric swing quite often. More euphoria than depression. I think it is strange that my swings have changed so much over time. alice\_in\_wonderland said: > [@](#): > > Schizoid Personality Disorder is just what it sounds like - a personality disorder. Typically, a person with SPD would be described as “Odd” by friends and relatives. They display “strange” behaviour; however, it is not typically pathological. A person with a diagnosis of SPD has normal brain function. They would typically not be treated by a mental health professional at al. I wonder if it is possible if I am borderline Schizoid. I have had problems in the past with friends and family and my mother was talking to a Hospital Psychologist at her place of employment and she said I sounded like a borderline schizoprhenic. I fit most of the critera: [http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx30.htm](http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx30.htm) > [@](#): > > neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family > almost always chooses solitary activities > has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person > takes pleasure in few, if any, activities > lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives > appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others > shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity None of these are in the extreme, and I am starting to get myself to enjoy more activities that aren’t solitary. Since I started getting involved in fitness my libido has gone up, but before then my desire for sexual relations was- well nil. I would probably think of it once or twice every couple months, though I had no real motivation to go out and try to get some. I used to have trouble making eye contact with the clerk at the gas station, and would just grunt or nod when he said hello. I was incapable of making new friends and I still find myself hesitant to go out with the people I work with. It is some hidden paranoia deep within me perhaps, but I am wary of them hurting me in some way. ---
**Author:** ![Thylacine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thylacine/32/1143_2.png) [@Thylacine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thylacine)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217/46 "2003-01-15T22:44:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SwimmingRiddles \* > \*\*I wrote a research paper entitled “Disassosiative Identity Disorder as an Iatrogenic Disease” in which I did a damn good job of making the argument that DID/MPD is radically over-diagnosed, when people are in fact suffering from schizophrenia. \*\* This may be a _what side of the puddle you live on_ thing because here in Oz it is suspected that Schizophrenia is over diagnosed as DID is not considered valid by many psychiatrists. The thing is, those with Dissociative Disorders do not improve on the medications yet can get better with therapy. I have no web cites to hand (one site I know seems to be down) but folks with DID often carry many diagnoses before DID is thought of, especially Schizophrenia. You make it sound like the medications are harmless. Anti-psychotics are not pleasant medications at all and can create many problems. To take those risks in a population that are not in fact having psychosis is obscene. As I said, DID may be diagnosed much more easily there than here, here it is a diagnoses that is grudgingly applied when nothing else fits. Largely due to the economic concerns you mentioned. Just because it is cheaper to put people in a chemical straightjacket doesn’t mean it is the correct response to an unrelated illness. Oh, folks with DID will shut up if doped up enough and won’t be switching all over. Give anyone enough anti-psychotics and watch all signs of personality disappear. OTOH, people with Schizophrenia often also need more than drugs. It is never easy to live outside the norm, there is grieving and trauma to be got through. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schizophrenia-is-not-split-personality/148217.md?page=2)