r/schizophrenia & Spirit Talking

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Since writing is a hobby of mine and I have lots to say about my illness, some friends recommended that I open an account on Reddit. Since I have experienced a “medically” successful story (i.e. my recovery), I wanted to share this story, my “testimony” as I call it, in order to give hope and suggestions to my fellow schizophrenics. I also allowed myself to post a few messages to express myself as long as they seemed relevant to me and to the channel/community I chose.

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In this experience, I found some posts to which I had things to reply, but a lot of them only contributed to my discovery of aspects of the illness that I wasn’t familiar with. Therefore, this Reddit experience was for me also an opportunity to learn a few things.

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Among the recurring aspects, I noticed many posts written by schizophrenics that presented their authors as being overwhelmed with symptoms. Some of these posts were about meds (side effects, benefits, disappointments and questions), some people (regardless the moderators’ rules) were asking the community (which seemed to be used mostly by non-professionals) for a diagnosis, suspecting that they themselves have schizophrenia. Many seemed to be on the verge of committing suicide. Some of the users seemed to not know of or have access to resources around them where they could obtain medical support.

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Reddit is on the Net and, as the channel was Anglophone, its company encompasses people of all sorts of locations around the world. I noticed many were from all over North America, some in Europe, a few in the Middle-East, Australia, etc.

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Today I know that some schizophrenics hallucinate, have delusions, are sad and generally unhappy, some are in distress, some hate meds, some are stable, I don’t see many posts about nutrition, physical fitness, impressive success or recovery stories, I don’t see many highly intellectual posts that would point to professionals in the field among the users.

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Talking to spirits as a topic is considered a trigger (along with drug use and other factors) and the idea that the “voices” might be spirits does not seem to be very present as a topic or belief. I find this very confusing as this “symptom” is central among mine. My first interview with a psychiatrist, which led me to being diagnosed with schizophrenia and hospitalized for 3 months, was soaked with “Spirit Talking” as a topic and I don’t see why it is so taboo in Reddit’s schizophrenia channel.

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Furthermore, I am disappointed that a channel that has the word schizophrenia in its name, would deny the right to discuss “Spirit Talking”. There are cultures around the world, that include the existence of spirits in their religio-cultural worldviews.

Although I did not invent Spirit-Talking, I definitely did discover it for myself. Please feel free to read and comment my posts and comments in my Reddit profile that you will find in the following link:

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https://www.reddit.com/user/PsychospiritWorld

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