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Comment by kouru225 | Hacker News Reader

This Becker guy seems to have made a very specific argument that schizophrenia is connected to mania and it flew over the authors head. At least, that’s my guess here. What the author is talking about is mania, but he’s using the word schizophrenia.

“On the other hand we have schizophrenia, a relationality so unkept than anything and everything is packed full of meaning, connections are drawn between everything, and existence is pure pattern and relation.”

^ that’s mania. Mania exists on the opposite side of the spectrum of depression, which is why we usually call it “manic-depression” when someone has mood swings. I’m fine with creating new definitions and using whatever words you want to use, but by using the word schizophrenia, we lose a connection to mood swings that I think is more representative of our cultural reality right now. We’re not all manic. Some of us are depressed, and some of us shift between the two.

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That's actually a very good definition of schizophrenia, I don't understand your point. Mania does not necessarily mean connections and meaning, it's more related to mood and impulsivity.

If you’ve met someone who’s in the middle of a manic episode, it’s pretty clear that “energy” is just a surface level description of what’s happening to them. These people find meaning and value in everything around them, and appear to be energetic because that’s exciting to them but also because they need to work at a rapid speed in order to communicate all the things they see. They also have a habit of transitioning rapidly from one idea to another even when these ideas don’t seem connected.

This is why depression, a lack of meaning, is described as the other side of the coin of mania: because mania is an overload of meaning.

This is also not a good definition of schizophrenia at all. Schizophrenics are people who, in extreme cases, can experience full-blown hallucinations. Meaning and connections don’t create literal hallucinations.

Psychosis and hallucinations are a symptom of manic episodes, as are paranoid delusions.

If you want to argue that manic delusions and schizophrenic hallucinations are the exact same thing, then go ahead

manic psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia are indistinguishable

the only difference is, one can recover from manic psychosis

This is a bit like saying coughing is a symptom of the flu. It can be a symptom of the flu, but it can also be a symptom of something else... As best I understand it, schizophrenia may be an umbrella term, a bit like autism has been. We don't really know enough about the mechanisms to identify more specific diseases or conditions.

But, the core features for schizophrenia seem to be disturbed perception (hallucination), beliefs (delusion), and thought processes (abnormal reasoning, speech, and behavior). These can range from subtle or extreme over the life of the patient. The experience of these may lead to agitation, but mania often presents the other way around. The increasing energy seems to precede the other psychotic symptoms.

There are two other common conditions which also have many of the same symptoms, but not in the same pattern. Delirium is often a temporary condition when someone is sick or injured. Dementia is a terminal, degenerative condition. Sometimes a patient can have all of these: a lifetime of schizophrenia shifting into dementia in old age, punctuated with bouts of delirium due to infections etc. The differences may be recognizable and help with treatment plans, but the symptoms can all blur together. One way doctors try to distinguish them is by noting the timing of symptoms.

> some of us shift between the two.

I think ALL of us shift between the two. or rather I'd say that we all experience a combination of both over our lives

when people shift between opposite states way too fast, from a big and deep depression to a high excited manic state that's called bipolar disorder. but normal people can and indeed are (is what I'm saying) expected to experience both extreme but possibly shifiting between extremes over the course of many weeks or even months, rather than a few minutes like in bipolar patients

Bipolar patients commonly have months-long swing periods. Typical period is a few weeks.

Not correcting anything parent said, just adding information.

quite misinformed.

~1/3 of bipolar people fall into the category you are describing – rapid-cycling bipolar.

for the rest, the cycles are months long, whether manic, euthymic, or depressed, and often following seasonal patterns.

clinical bipolar disorder vs. the ups and downs of human life are quite different. it's difficult to understand unless you have seen a loved one suffer it, or have been afflicted with it yourself.

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