Just late night musings here, probably nothing of real scientific merit, but the more I learn about Tourette’s, read about people’s experiences, watch documentaries, etc. the more I am reminded of the auditory voices that many with sz deal with on a regular basis.
My idea of the connection is that while a sz brain might be wired incorrectly so as to cause a person’s feelings/impulses/whatever to constantly be communicated through sound so that you may literally hear an ongoing narration of (generally distortions of) feelings or just what’s going on around you, a Tourette’s brain is wired so that instead of audibly hearing them, they have to speak them. Imagine if instead of hearing the voices, you had to say every single thing they said all day every day. In other words, a similar “wiring” problem in the brain when it comes to experiencing life. That is of course where the similarities between the two groups end, as there haven’t been signs of those with Tourette’s having any other psychotic symptoms.
Again, just musing on my part. There’s really so very little research done on the disorder, way less than what’s being done on sz and even that doesn’t get as much attention as it should. All that’s known is that those with Tourette’s tend to have malformations in the frontal lobe, responsible for inhibition. But the things they say just sound so much like what those who suffer from auditory hallucinations say they hear. And neither have any ounce of control over what they hear/say.
Maybe I just like finding patterns too much. Who knows. I’ll have time to legitimately research stuff in the future, when I’m more well-educated. Bedtime for me now! Hope you all are doing well, as always
What is interesting to me in this connection is the obsessive-compulsive and the monothematic character of TS. This compares to my experiences of Inserted Thoughts, which were pretty monothematic as well, as opposed to my auditory hallucinations that could be about anything. In the SZ literature, a connection is often made between Thought Insertion on the one hand, and delusions of alien control on the other (where one experiences ones actions as controlled by another agent). Monothematic obsessive-compulsive actions are sometimes explained as a mechanism to stabilise and make predictable impulses in order to get some grip on an otherwise chaotic world. This is sometimes seen in autism as well, and in OCD of course. In autism, TS and OCD however, these are all enacted in speech or bodily action. Now some conceive of thought as a motor process as well, yet the link between the various disorders would be stronger if there was a non-controversial motor-process in SZ that shares these characteristics. My guess would be experiences of alien bodily control. Whereas I personally only experienced such a thing in TI, which is more passive it seems, I was wondering if anyone on the forum experienced delusions of bodily control? What would be interesting is whether the actions that are experienced as under control of another agent are monothematic as well. That is, are only actions of the same type experienced as being controlled by another agent, or are all kinds of actions experienced as such?
It certainly looks like they’re being controlled by something at times! I mean I know they aren’t and it’s a brain thing, but I remember watching a documentary with this guy and I was like “well jeez it sounds like demons are messing with him and hijacking his body,” joking, and literally the second after I say this the guy shouts out “SELL YOUR SOUL TO SATAN” and I was like sweet lord
