Ask HN: How can you tell if you are insane?
However, I also truly believed that they had my cellphone and were intercepting outgoing calls to my wireless provider. I tried to use the home phone which, immediately began to call out when I tried to use it, even though I never completed dialing. I called my wireless provider to check data usage and it felt like the person was "off" taking long periods of time to answer and give normal pieces of info back to me like other phone numbers on the account and basic stuff. My passwords were all on my phone so I honestly believed someone was looking up the information and they were stalling for time. Battery was draining while phone was off and didn't seem to hold a charge well.
I also felt very ill about 2 days later and had stayed up resetting and wiping all my devices and router. I went to the 24 hour walk in clinic with symptoms of being very weak dizzy and other general things.
My family thinks I am crazy. At first I was angry but I realize there is no way for me to really objectively consider this. I really believe my system was compromised and I am starting to doubt my own sanity I guess. Is there a way to figure out if I am crazy? It could be brought on by lack of sleep and stress, I doubt/hope it isn't anything permanent. I am 26 male, don't think it is something as serious as Schiz. And I take adrall (40mg) daily, slightly more recently, but other than that do not take drugs or drink.
How can I evaluate my mental condition objectively?
94 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 87.1 ms ] threadI have a close family member, and close friend who both suffer from Schizophrenia. Although I'd hate to make any type of diagnosis over a medium like this, I feel you've been descriptive enough for me to make an educated guess.
Schizophrenia is a fairly complex disorder with varying levels of severity. What you described sounds very close to what a lot of people describe as their first 'episode', which commonly comes between the ages of 18-30. It includes what you've described, a long period of being awake, with intense thoughts, paranoia, and a inescapable need to 'do something' (such as wipe your devices).
One of the greatest challenges of dealing with this is finding treatment fast enough before the disease progresses. Often once it progresses, the person no longer is able to realize something is wrong. As you've described it, you still have that sinking feeling that something isn't right. Often at this stage general practitioners will not understand the disease enough to make a diagnosis, so it's important you see a trained psychiatrist as soon as possible.
For your question about evaluating your condition objectively, this is part of the core treatment of Schizophrenia and it's related disorders, so it would be best a doctor helps you with this. Adderral is a known to aggravate Schizophrenia as it interferes with Dopamine, I'd advise to cut down or stop taking it until you can speak to a doctor. There is also a very small chance you are experiencing a reaction to long term Adderall use it's self, experiencing a Amphetamine psychosis which has very symptoms to Schizophrenia but is temporary. Do not risk it though, for a lot of people if Schizophrenia advances, they are unable, or refuse to seek treatment.
I think being somewhat paranoid is positive, but I need to have a better way to assess the underlying concerns rationally and not from a paranoid/worst case view.
Thanks.
> what value would someone get
People do it for the lulz. I posted a snarkey advert saying I couldn't find anything outside of Wordpress tweaks on Craigslist and included a bit about security and people asking to hack Facebook. Said it would be cool if someone in security was interested, but doubted it due to their market value, was looking for a wed developer (like me) or a designer to collaborate with.
> got a message with a ridiculously long troll response about being a ms in CS who casually designs machine learning algorithms but does know the basics of building a computer from scratch. Take my word for it, total troll.
> got a message asking to hack Facebook fake arcade slots for points. Really needed "fake coins for this game". Was pushy.
> got a response asking what country I was in because "what they wanted might be better served by someone not in the us for a couple reasons..." Was pushy.
> was told I was a "script kiddie" even though I never claimed I was a hacker and said I was a simple web dev. Link to Metasploit video and other black hat resources
> several other messages
> had upgraded to El Capitan. That day I had 50gb of traffic on my network. Typically 2.5-5 or less.
> couldn't reach cloud flare network.
> during boot to recovery halfway through load my screen would blink and reset the load bar.
> phone was getting killed battery wise drained while off
> tcpdump outgoing requests to random servers. Not sure if I read results correctly but some did not seem like requests that made sense. I have icefloor on and ALF set up. Maybe legit, just seemed weird to go to random servers.
> console showed 4000 errors. Many are related to El Capitan and don't know how to interpret them. Several seemed sketchy but maybe this was me misinterpreting them. I saved some of the logs.
PLEASE contact your psychiatrist / psychiatrist's office about this RIGHT NOW -- call them and make an appointment or otherwise discuss treatment options over the phone, tell them you're concerned you may be experiencing amphetamine psychosis or something else -- they are trained to make this call and have seen it thousands of times before.
Time is of the essence, it's much more effective to seek treatment before a condition worsens. This can be a dangerous state to be in, and there are treatments that will help you get through this safely.
If there's nothing going on, they will help you confirm that. If not, they may save your life.
It's possible, if not likely, you may need to briefly visit a hospital for supervised treatment -- understand that's a perfectly common thing and the most safe, smart option.
It's also worth noting that there are effective non-stimulant treatment options for ADHD now if that is what you are being treated for. So getting treated for this won't mean you can't still be treated for that -- your psychiatrist will help you find an optimal plan.
If your psychiatrist is unavailable or you do not have one, contact your primary care physician's emergency line. If you have neither of those providers, you can contact me and I can find you the right number to contact for assistance for your state/region -- my username @ gmail.
Also happy to talk through anything with you as well, same email. Wish you the best!
After upgrading an iMac to OSX El Capitan the Photos.app decided to upload all photos on the iMac to iCloud. I consider it to be a bug since all photos on the mac originally came via iCloud from my iPhone. Seems unnecessary for Photos.app to upload every single file again, but it did.
Network bandwidth was saturated (high packet loss, almost useless) for a few days until Photos.app was done uploading.
This is a lot of Adderall. Consider lowering or stopping your dosages. See a primary care physician ASAP, or go to a hospital if you feel in danger, and talk to him/her about stopping your dosage and alternatives to Adderall.
Anybody's brain can react the way yours did to stress; many brains are less able to handle stress; stress comes in many forms, including PTSD, drugs, alcohol, anxiety, and even lack of sleep.
You shouldn't be taking Adderol without medical supervision and whoever is supervising you taking needs to be qualified to handle this.
Please realize Schizophrenia affects 1.1% of the American population, and that's just the general form, and that which is diagnosed. The real number is likely higher. It is neither an 'extreme diagnosis' nor is it that rare.
On margin, more people experience brief episodes of psychosis than who experience chronic psychotic illness, so again, you are just plain wrong.
the diagnosis of schizophrenia is a diagnosis of an extreme form of mental illness, regardless of its prevalence; cancer kills a lot of people, but it does so in an extreme form: the prevalence has nothing to do with the extremity.
Always the best advice.
It always starts out small like this though, and it's extremely common for a person after their first few episodes to still not believe they have Schizophrenia, so please don't trust yourself.
I should also be clear, we could be talking about Schizoaffective Disorder. Schizophrenia is sort of umbrella term. I find it's often used incorrectly. Lots of people who suffer still have prolonged periods of being completely normal and lucid, some even go into year long remissions. It's a complicated disease, and you've displayed the tell-tale first sign almost to a T.
Ziles88, while you are sincerely trying to be helpful, the DSM-5 criteria for Schizoaffective Disorder requires 2 continuous weeks of psychotic symptoms without mood symptoms, not 2 days accompanied by mood. The criteria were changed precisely because it was being diagnosed incorrectly.
but even better is to stick with actual symptoms and stay away from labels; the labels cover broad ranges of symptoms in a way that is useful to trained professionals who understand the nuances and limitations, but individuals don't show such ranges.
When I was 20, I abruptly left my parents and moved into an apartment. We were having personal conflicts, and had I stayed, there's a possibility, however remote, that I would have been told by family members to see shrinks and take drugs (they didn't have enough money to have me committed). It was the best decision I made. Within two years I was working in the technology sector and I've never looked back.
Mental illnesses are often just political problems in the family, and if you can break free and gain independence, you can avoid a vicious cycle which leads to family members running to psychiatric drugs to explain away and suppress political issues.
Anxiety, depression and lucid dreams or paranoid thoughts are often the result of being in the wrong environment. I've had symptoms which, if I disclosed them, might be considered paranoid or mentally ill; but when I've changed jobs or moved to better environments, all of the symptoms have disappeared. I believe it's the body's way of telling you something is wrong out there.
Reading books can be a good way to take your mind off of difficult issues.
I would also eliminate caffeine and sugary foods from your diet.
I suspect I should cut my adderall and caffeine intake, eat healthier, get a more regimented schedule and excercise. Call friends more and try to get out and about with the few people I know around here
This would involve you writing a list of stuff that you do and don't want to happen if people ever feel the need to provide treatment. It can include signs to look out for - that mean things aren't going well and that people should take action.
I'm not going to do any kind of diagnostic stuff but early intervention is important.
EDIT: obviously, you should see a doctor rather than relying on Internet advice.
EDIT: here's a sample plan
http://www.2gether.nhs.uk/advanced-care-planning
I recently had to move back to the rural area I am from and although I am quite social, have had limited interaction with people outside my family. There is a single store in my town, no stoplights etc rural as fuck. No one in my demo. I think I need to start getting out more but will keep this link in case.
Why are you taking 40mg adderall daily?
https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_posti...
Do you have a carbon monoxide detector?
Dizziness can be one of the symptoms. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Carbon-monoxide-poisoning/Pages...
The poster thought they were being spied on by law enforcement, and that a drone was entering their house and moving around the iPad they had set up to monitor the premises (!). They posted some of the clips to YouTube but none of the commenters saw anything suspicious.
It turned out to be a paranoid delusion caused by a combination of stress, sleep deprivation and Adderall, which is the exact situation in this thread. I would highly encourage the OP to read both the original post and the followup.
The CO one scared me, especially because a few fir alarms went off in my house a few days ago, but my father and I looked around and confirmed there was no fire despite them going off for ~1 hour. Myabe lighting the stove for the first time? Anyway, I think I just need to get more sleep and my parents have been cool about it. I think they are a bit worried, but seem to be resolved to just monitor me, which is good.
Most fire departments also have a non-emergency line that you can just call for advice, they may even send somebody by non-emergent to check your house out and you as well. Some EMS providers (in the US most fire departments have EMS on staff also) have the ability to check for carbon monoxide in your blood.
During my time as an EMT, I saw plenty of people go crazy for various reasons from schizophrenia to completely unrelated physical issues such as diabetes, migraines, epilepsy and rhabdomyolysis. I AM NOT A DOCTOR, but you should consider consulting one. It may not be that you are not "crazy", but you may have some other medical condition affecting your mental status.
Best of luck.
I would consider that unless like Elliot you're trying to reset society's debt to zero it's unlikely you're being targeted. What makes you worth targeting over anyone else?
I think you should speak to a medical professional (get multiple opinions if you don't trust them) and move on from there.
There's a lot we can learn from Mr Robot, for me the biggest lesson is you can't always trust what you see and feel. Find somebody who can help you with that.
For instance, I'm partially convinced this is just someone trolling hacker news whilst bored on a Sunday...
Regardless, that was the reference and I am definitely not that spun out, for sure. I will say this though, when he goes to meet wh1teR0se he says maybe they're the best because "they are more paranoid than the rest of us".
So, did I take too much adderall, flip out and whipe my whole system? Yep. Have I been leading a financial revolution under the exper tutelage of my dead father with a curious affinity for back to the future II? Not yet.
I would be definitely very nervous if someone hacked my devices.
Also 40mg of adderall seems like a lot, if you're on adderall xr.
The stimulation our brains get by beeing in nature is very important for us.
When you are outside and all the little, tiny millions of natural information tidbits that are coming from everywhere, they are important for our mental health in general. Outside, look at the waves, at the leafs of trees in the wind, bugs humming around and everything. Those pattern are important.
In the confines of our cities, which give us solace on other levels, and the simplistic abstractions of our GUIs, which we love, these natural stimulations are lacking.
May I suggest to you to go outside, hiking, kayaking, paragliding, stuff like that, regularly and often?
Take a walk to the nearest park every day, look at the trees for a while.
Do something physical - start a martial arts or so.
On a personal note: I hate it too. Working out is so dump, your brain is empty while doing so and that sucks. I know. I am not a "jock" by any means. I am bored by it, I understand.
But. From my point of view tere is a clear spiral down that beins with not having enough natural stimulation going on. For decades now, I suppose?
I also want to second the other poster: it is good that you reached out.
I second this advice.
A:"Go for a walk in the woods."
Q:"I've come up in a rash. What should I do?"
A:"Go for a walk in the woods."
Q:"I need to pee all the time. I'm very thirsty. And I sleep a lot."
A:"Go for a walk in the woods".
It's an inappropriate response to the situation. The question was not "What things can I do which will protect my mental health?" but "I think I have a mental health problem, what should I do?" ("See a professional" should be the answer)
https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3iycro/fl_i_am_...
It seems like it could be in parallel to your situation. I highly recommend having someone evaluating your dosage, as well as whether it's an adverse effect of the Adderall itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis
I've deleted the earlier version of this comment (in which I asked you to speculate on a motive for the email) as I think that it is more important to address the things that could cause these thoughts. It would be different if you didn't feel sick or weren't taking a high drug level.
I see a lot of similarities, especially because you mention physical illness (although the OP there didn't mention his headaches until prompted.) Try to solve them, as they're quite serious. Bear in mind that your judgment may be impaired at the moment, and that your family are concerned. Try to solve the external source of the issues if at all possible.
[1] Here is the thread I mean: https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_posti...
-It's well known that Americans are over medicated.
-It's highly plausible that the Adderall is the cause of the psychosis.
-Physicians in the US are paid a sales bonus for prescribing medication to their patients.
It's really sad that things have progressed to this stage but taking amphetamines every day is not a good idea no matter what way you want to paint it.
You're healthy enough to get help, friend, you can't be any crazier than the rest of us.
In the Reddit thread I linked elsewhere, someone thought they had "objective evidence" of intruders and drones in their house, because they were seizing on tiny details -- a tape dispenser not where they remembered it, an airplane flying overhead, bumps and clicks on an audio recording -- and assigning them the worst possible interpretation.
Likewise, the fact that the OP is seeing events like "the phone company's tech support was slow to respond to my questions" as part of the conspiracy is a huge red flag.
You can never be entirely objective about your mental condition. But you can try to find objective verification about what was going on, whether that validates or refutes your ideas about the events.
Hemingway thought the government was tapping his phones, etc. Everyone thought he was crazy. It came out after his death that he was right.
Just because it seems improbable to other people does not mean you are imagining it. But, also, the fact that you fell ill means you could have been misinterpreting things due to fever or other temporary mental impairment.
Whether you were coming up with unfounded ideas or were right, the best answer is to seek some kind of objective evidence concerning what actually happened. If you get objective evidence that refutes your interpretation, then you can feel okay about the possibility that it was machinations of a fevered mind. If you get evidence that something wonky was going on, you can deal with it.
Since you were sick, please consider the possibility that it is a little of column A and a little of column B. Perhaps someone did something, but you blew it out of proportion. The truth may lay somewhere between the extremes of "I was 100% right" and "I was 100% crazy and imagining things."
Best of luck.