From my limited research I found precedent for all of my own symptoms, both positive and negative.
However there is an element that still bothers me and I would like to receive clarification on.
In the span of around four months, four related people started to hear voices and experience delusions, the usual positive symptoms. First it was my biological mother (in her mid fourties at the time), then my uncle on mother’s side (in his fourties) and then me, around 20 years old.
The uncle has three sons. The middle son (my cousine I guess??) suffers from mental issues too, but I lack data. So far as I know he did not show the usual positive symptoms.
All my relatives and me went insane after meeting and speaking to one person in particular, a young woman who rented my room when I studied abroad. She did “magicks” and probably continues. Of course I suspect it was something different now, years later. I met scores of “witches”, “warlocks” and schizophreniacs in my life previously, and I suffered absolutely no ill effects, until that time.
That is a lot of people who were affected in relatively short span of time, at most three months. All of them are close biological relatives. Is it enough to explain the insanity?
P. S.
I have hard data and witnessess to trace these events, so I myself am rational when I present this particular problem.
There’s been collective hysteria and symptoms in the past. The dancing sickness in medieval times, a laughing sickness where a villagegot sick with laughter, the witch craze where people got "symptoms " and would blame witches.
Called mass hysteria and people feed off each other’s symptoms. Usually happened in simple times with uneducated people susceptible to supernatural crazes.
Witch craze seems more similar to Rwandan massacre or successful propaganda in general. I hoped for modern examples.
Side note, quotes are there for a reason. No amount of telling that magic does not exist will remove “witchcraft” advertising from streets here. DearZombie’s assessment that simple societies are more susceptible to hysterias very much applies to this case.
Feeding off other’s delusions seems very accurate. We even shared characters to an extent. Definitely mutually recognized them.
I am religious, used to be an acolyte. So I do believe that supernatural exists too, that much is allowed.
However, when out of 30 standard symptoms of schizophrenia I check out 30 and out of 50 I do 45, something is wrong. And here I come on this forum reading complete strangers from another side of the world who described the content of my delusions almost word for word. My case is banale.
This issue is still very important to me. I got into an argument with my mother over it again, who still thinks it’s real. None of her arguments hold, except two.
Her coughing blood for years. Supposedly as part of a continuous exorcism ritual. Apparently she did visit doctor over it but obviously it was fruitless. Choked it up to consequences of tuberculosis, from what I understood. We are poor and crazy so if you squint you can explain it with some complications of that sort but it’s still strange and disgusting.
There are a lot of people involved, I am not sure how to count them. Strictly there are four total that share delusions, three of them related by blood. Others helped fuel this nonsense, but it could be explained with superstition, at least most of it. This land is furtile for mystifisticism.
She communicates with another person who shares her delusions via Web and phone. From what I hear they rarely actually match, predictably, but it still annoys me. Were she sane I could have had more real help than shallow advices and exorcist rituals. Ironically, both of them work and I can’t finish a simple textbook.
Ugh just suffering over this makes my hallucinations reappear. I was fine most of the day. I guess that in reality this is me trying to compensate for regret that I feel over wasting best years of my life and ruiningy career over self delusions.
I guess just being susceptible is enough to “catch” schizophrenia from someone else if delusions somehow mesh, and then the delusions just evolve on their own. Having exact precedent would give me closure however.