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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

There was a girl living in a house of mine that stood empty for a year because I couldn't sell it. Before then she was living in an old caboose.

We talked quite a bit, she was a gifted artist on the one hand and totally out of touch with the world around her on the other.

She said she could talk to trees and was completely fascinated by eyes. Last I heard from her she was living in Spain, doing drugs living on the street again.

I don't think she was homeless out of need as much as that she simply chose not to be a part of this society of ours.

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I am not a doctor but from your description of her there's a good chance she had schizophrenia. Her statements are consistent with it, and problems keeping friendships and jobs leads to financial and social problems with then leads to homelessness which then leads to more problems, including drugs, and it snowballs from there.

If this was the case, the root affliction is not her fault, and she probably needed anti-psychotic medication on a regular basis, and government financial aid to keep her off the streets. Talk therapy is almost useless for that condition. Though giving her shelter and helping her to keep social connections is vital. So it sounds like you helped her out a lot.

I don't think it is possible to psycho-analyze someone based on so little data.

If everybody that talked to trees or other spirits had schizophrenia you'd have to include each and every religious person, to me their beliefs are just as weird as someone talking to trees.

It's not that simple.

Agreed, thus the wording of my first sentence. However the belief that you can talk to trees (delusion) combined with being fascinated with eyes (possible hallucination or sensory distortion) combined with no job or home all adds up to something highly consistent with schizophrenia. I've had a lot of direct personal experience with someone who has this condition, and have done a lot of reading and talking to doctors, so I have some basis for making this estimation.

Regarding religion. That's complicated. It may very well be the case that some people who make religious claims are in fact mentally ill. There are likely also other people who claim to follow a religion who are not mentally ill: they were either raised by their parents to believe that way, or, they chose it.

> combined with being fascinated with eyes (possible hallucination or sensory distortion)

In an artistic sense.

A sample of what she could do:

http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/eckart/dscf1836.jpg.html

Why do you feel the need to change her life? Did you even consider that she might actually enjoy a life that is so alien to your experience?

Sounds like schizophrenia to me. I subletted to a person with schizophrenia (a very nice korean guy, very religious), also. As I point out somewhere around here, it's a truly fascinating mental condition.

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