OT DID & idolect

R A Brown wrote:
> Tristan McLeay wrote:
>> Not if by "schizophrenics" you mean "people who have schizophrenia",
>> for such people have defects in the perception or expression of
>> reality. Things like hallucinations, paranoia, disorganised speech,
>> catatonia, a flat affect and the like. The "split" in "schizophrenia"
>> refers to the separation between the schizophrenic's reality and the
>> one the recent of us perceive/interact with.
>>
>> You probably mean "people who have dissociative identity disorder"
>> (formerly "multiple personality disorder"). I have no idea.
>
>
> You're are quite correct. Thanks for the clear explanation. I think in
> popular usage there is much confusion over these terms, and I was
> certainly guilty of this.
>
> I assume from your description of schizophrenia above that there are
> different degrees of schizophrenia. Certainly towards the end of his
> life my father was given to hallucination, which seem to get
> progressively worse; there was indeed a split between his reality and
> that which others perceived. But there was certainly no identity disorder.
My description above was only very superficial. Your father very likely
did *not* suffer from schizophrenia, because other criteria are
involved. Schizophrenia is diagnosed only if a particular set of
patterns involving defects in the perception or expression of reality
are met. In general, men who have schizophrenia are first diagnosed in
their early twenties (women tend to first show it in their late
twenties/early thirties, I think, maybe later as well).

For instance, the hallucinations involved in schizophrenia are almost
always auditory, occasionally olfactory or tactile but very rarely, if
ever, visual. Further, the content of the auditory hallucinations tend
to be very disturbing: Perhaps just saying your name but in a scary
way, perhaps discussing your doom. Our Abnormal Psych lecturer at Uni
once described someone who believed there were Germans in bushes who she
could hear talking (in German, although she didn't know German so it
could just have been gibberish that to her sounded like it was what
German would sound like). (OTOH, I really can't imagine an auditory
hallucination *not* being distrubing, no matter what it's content.
Particularly when, like most people with schizophrenia, you think it
*is* a real person, talking somewhere very close to you but you can
never see them.)

And yes, there are multiple types of schizophrenia: Catatonic;
Disorganised (thought disorders (which usually are shown as difficult or
incomprehensible speech) + a flat affect); Paranoid (paranoia +
hallucinations); Residual (having "negative symptoms" but not really
"positive" ones); and Undifferentiated (clearly having schizophrenia,
but not really classifiable as any of the above). Residual Schizophrenia
is, IIRC, usually what its name suggests: a phase when someone who has
had another form of schizophrenia doesn't clearly currently match the
criteria, but is still clearly abnormal.

The diff between positive and negative symptoms is that positive ones
are ones experienced in schizophrenia that normal people don't have
(e.g. hallucinations), and negative ones are ones *not* experienced in
schizophrenia that normal people *do* have (e.g. a flat affect).

One interesting thing is that for some inexplicable reason, Catatonic
Schizophrenia is not often seen in more developed societies. It used to
be common in the West, but as our society has developed it's become
rare; whereas it's still seen in less developed societies.

Hope this was interesting---it's still not complete and not necessarily
completely accurate (in spite of my intentions and beliefs), but it's as
good as I can do today without going and doing proper looking arounds :)

> I wondered if people with DID do exhibit differences in idiolect in
> their different personae. As this is off-topic, maybe I should first do
> some Googling on the matter and not add a YAOTT (yet another off-topic
> thread) to the list.   ;)
Too late!

Actually, come to think of it, I have a vague recollection of a mention
of someone who had an American accent in one personality, and an
Australian one in another---but maybe I'm trying to remember too hard
and I'm just making it up. A proper search is probably a better idea
than trusting this.

--
Tristan.

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