Quote:
Originally posted by Nightwing:
Well put Aelia and very true. But are the hallucinatory or delusionary episodes distressing because of the stigma society puts on mental illness. This is a gradual process and if there was no stigma people would be more open to explore these images. I'm not saying it's for everyone but I think there are a lot of severe cases that could have been avoided with the right understanding.
|
Good points, but usually, no. They are distressing because of what the voices say, or what they see. It is very common, for example, for the voice to talk about harm being done to someone the sufferer loves, or encouraging them to harm themselves. Paranoid delusions often involve very frightening beliefs that people are following/watching/trying to harm the person. So while I definitely agree that in all mental illness or similar phenomonen (e.g. someone who is psychic) a significant proportion of the distress experienced is because they perceive themselves as different and open to ridicule or ostracism or worse, most people suffereing schizophrenia can attribute a much larger proportion of their distress to the actual content of their psychotic episodes.