Schizophrenia - Who's reality is it anyway?

I'm sorry that you are going through this torment. I know a young man around your age, the son of a dear friend, who was also diagnosed as schizophrenic. During his "good" times, he is as sweet and engaging a person as anyone I know. During his "bad" times, I literally could walk past him on the street and not recognize him. Everything about him is different at those times, including the way he looks physically, and his life is a living hell. At those times, he wants nothing more than to die.

I'm not saying that's you, necessarily ... only that I may have some small inkling of what you're going through.

You're obviously intelligent and articulate. You've thought a lot about this. But in the end, I think the points that Duck made are correct. But regarding "reality", remember that there's an internal reality and an external reality. Don't confuse the two. Your external reality truly does need to match that of the rest of the world. Your internal reality, on the other hand, is what makes you, you.

The president and wars and stuff are part of the external reality of the world. You can't make them go away. But how they affect you, how you manage your life in response to them ... those embody your internal reality. You can't make the war go away but wishing, but you can help us all work toward a world where a war-like mindset is no longer accepted as the status quo.

Perhaps that's what you were saying. I don't know. At any rate, I wish you the best as you work out all this in your own mind.

 

There is an all, and there is a nothing. There are two clear cut realities, the all, which is few, and the nothing, which is many.

It's all relative. No-one can tell someone their view on reality is wrong, however you can go as far as saying "Your view does not conform to my view, therefore either one of us is wrong, or both of us are and the world isn't so straightforward."

This world is both ruled by leaders, and not. We do not choose our own reality, but we can choose what to make of it, and for the example of presidents and wars, you can choose not to let them be a part of your reality, to break away from that and share only in the realities of those who experience only love.

My post is completely correct. It is also completely false.

-Matt

 

i still disagree with this whole notion of two realities.

first i should probably define what exactly i mean when i say "reality". i'm just referring to the experience that we all have as "life". reality is the integration of our own perceptions and what the world "is" (maybe you meant reality distinction as being between those two things?). to me that is all one in the same because they are necessary for each other and don't operate independently, they are consistently and simultaneously a part of the human experience.

i don't consider the person seperate from reality because the person is reality, all people are reality. i don't see reality as something you can isolate or "have or not have", seperate from us. reality IS us, in my eyes, completely inseperable. there's nothing that can possibly exist outside of what's around us and what's inside of us (that includes what our brain is capable of), and if it did exist, then it would be reality.

no one can live in another reality, because that's like saying someone exists where nothing exists... that can't happen.

 

We all live in a physical world, not in a world of thought? Huh?

How, without "thought", can the "physical world" even be recognized or acknowledged?

You had to "think" of that response to the OP. Maybe you were trying to articulate something else that just came out totally wrong with that bizarre statement.

 

you are indeed correct.

 

who is that directed to?