The tortured lives of “targetted individuals”

https://www.wired.com/story/mind-games-the-tortured-lives-of-targeted-individuals/

by spiderfarmer • 8 years ago

18 7 8 years ago

nkrisc• 8 years ago

If they've been implanted with microchips or other devices, it should be trivial to determine if that's true or not with modern medical imaging techniques. However I suspect they won't believe any evidence that doesn't align with their pre-determined conclusion.

Anything that shows what they say isn't true will be considered another layer of the targeting and campaign against them, furthering their conviction they're being targeted. Quite simply they're torturing themselves.

It's sad, but I wonder how do you help someone like that?

custos• 8 years ago

Without proving them "right" by "targeting them" for psychotropic drugs (anti-psychotics)... nothing really.

Unfortunately, thought disorders are pretty hard to for the patient to understand they need treatment for.

ashleyn• 8 years ago

Among those with mental challenges, "microchip implant" allegations were more popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Remebmer that Boomtown Rats song about the school shooter? I suspect it was because both IC technology was becoming widely known and medical imaging still didn't quite catch up to where you could get a CT and prove it easily. I actually don't see the "microchip implant" accusation as much anymore, probably for that exact reason.

What I do see now is the rise of "microwave auditory effect" accusations, where the government or some other clandestine organisation is using radio waves to create voices in their head. Obviously, these are a lot harder to disprove, requiring a wideband SDR and expertise in operating one to conclusively rule out, something far less common than modern medical imaging.

Additionally, it's dubious that the subject would believe you even if you put them in a faraday cage and showed them the blank waterfall view proving no radio transmissions are even occurring. Owing to the nature of schizophrenia, they'd move onto the second-most common allegation I've seen: "psychic attacks", an accusation that handwaves away all physical explanations for the percieved harassment with an ill-defined mysticism that cannot be fully explained.

I often wonder myself how I would handle schizophrenia, and if the heroic mental gynmastics it creates are merely a product of a large ego, unwilling to admit one can be wrong in their judgement...or are genuinely organic/structural in the brain.

IntronExon2• 8 years ago

A lack of insight is often a major symptom of schizophrenia; it’s definitely not about ego or mental gymnastics.

https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/medical/poor-insight-in-schi...

slededit• 8 years ago

I often wonder myself how I would handle schizophrenia, and if the heroic mental gynmastics it creates are merely a product of a large ego, unwilling to admit one can be wrong in their judgement...or are genuinely organic/structural in the brain.

I don't know how accurate the movie was, but the movie A Beautiful Mind explored the topic of thinking your way out of schizophrenia. Its well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

IntronExon2• 8 years ago

They’re not torturing themselves, they’re mentally ill, which is torturous. Their delusions are a symptom of a disease which is notoriously difficult to treat. It’s sad, but hard to fix especially when as you point out, they’re unlikely to accept help.

ebcode• 8 years ago

even the most advanced technology can’t make someone hear voices or experience a different reality.

That's the advanced technology that we know of, anyway. Surely the aliens among us have more advanced technology that are capable of these kinds of things.

I say this only partly in jest, but it is downright amazing where your mind can go when you're trying to reconcile an "out-of-band" subjective experience with how you expect the world to normally function.

The tortured lives of “targetted individuals”

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