When The Glass Shatters: What Happens When The Delusion Breaks

When The Glass Shatters: What Happens When The Delusion Breaks

TW: Substance Use, Abuse/Bullying, Surveillance, Religious Delusions, Suicidal Ideation, Skin Picking Mention

The drop felt like release from an oxygen high. I felt Dissociated, dizzy, staring at my phone in a daze. For over 10 years I’d had this Delusion, and in one minute it had been definitively proven false.

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I Don’t Fight Schizophrenia; I Am Schizophrenic
Rose Parker Rose Parker

I Don’t Fight Schizophrenia; I Am Schizophrenic

Trigger Warning: Suicide, Eating Disorder, Abuse Mention

How do you “fight” Schizophrenia? You see this terminology used sometimes, mainly by non-profits and non-Psychotic loved ones of Schizophrenics, and it always rubs me the wrong way for a variety of reasons (British Columbia Schizophrenia Society--Example). How do you fight something so integral to your own Neurology, and not lose? I tried to fight my body for a long time, and lost. Let me take you back in a little, and show you why I don’t “fight” my Schizophrenia anymore…

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Atypical Antipsychotics & Weight Gain: My Experience
psychiatry, medication, family, lived-experience, DID Rose Parker psychiatry, medication, family, lived-experience, DID Rose Parker

Atypical Antipsychotics & Weight Gain: My Experience

Trigger Warning: Discussion of Weight, Eating Disorders, Suicidal/Self-Harm Ideation, and Abuse

“Whose body even is this?” I remember the horror dripping through me as I looked at the angry purple stretch marks lining my protruding stomach. My mother had referred to my arms as “ham-hocks” and I could no longer get comfortable easily from the way my skin folded.

I had gained weight— lot of it, and very quickly

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What’s It Like To Have Schizophrenia: Reflections
Rose Parker Rose Parker

What’s It Like To Have Schizophrenia: Reflections

Trigger Warning: Unreality

Schizophrenia is like walking through a funhouse mirror. Through. The world is twisted and bent, nothing looks the way it is “supposed” too. You have to guess as to what people mean and what they’re really saying, and often you have to guess if you are seeing what you’re really seeing. The distorted reality around you makes you question yourself, and there’s always some upset in the pit of your stomach as you don’t know if anything is really happening as you see it. But you live your life as best you can, because surely everyone lives like this, and you’re the only one who can’t handle it….

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Schizophrenia, Family Estrangement, And The Holidays
holidays, christmas, family Rose Parker holidays, christmas, family Rose Parker

Schizophrenia, Family Estrangement, And The Holidays

It’s a dreadful time of year, for me at least. I’d had have to say the last time the holidays were really at all enjoyable I’d have to have been 9 years old, and I’m 24 now. As my family has fallen apart and I have had to distance myself from my “loved ones”, the season has lost its charm and become a time of grief and volatility. While the Holidays are not pleasant for many people, my Schizophrenia has played a specific role in my family’s disintegration, and that adds an extra layer of bitterness.

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Are People Who Hear Voices Really Dangerous?
Rose Parker Rose Parker

Are People Who Hear Voices Really Dangerous?

In the public and often clinical eye, there is a profound wariness to the symptom of Voice-hearing, especially the symptom of Command Voices. For the uninitiated, Command Voices are when a person perceives a hallucinatory Voice or Voices that instruct them to commit some sort of act, stereotypically negative. The iconic Common Voices scenarios has a cowering and frightened Psychotic person (generally a young man) who feel overpowered by malevolent Voices who he feels control him. Seduced by these dark the figures, the Psychotic man then goes and commits some heinous act, going from mental patient to scourge of society. Is this image really accurate? Let’s take a look at what the research into Command Voices says, along with what actual Psychotic people report

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On The Philosophy of Delusions
Rose Parker Rose Parker

On The Philosophy of Delusions

Is a delusion a belief? It seems like a simple enough enough question to answer on face value; yes of course I believe my delusions, but is actually a quite hefty question. What constitutes a belief? Do delusions meet these standards, or do they represent some other cognitive process? How do we obtain beliefs, and do delusion follow this pattern? We will discuss these questions together promptly.

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