A diagnosed schizophrenic has weighed in on the accuracy of a viral video which claims to 'simulate' a major aspect of the illness.
It's a mental health condition which majorly impacts how a person thinks, feels and behaves - and sometimes, it can completely distort their view of the world too.
People with schizophrenia - which is often described by doctors as a form of psychosis - deal with a myriad of different psychological symptoms on a daily basis.
"This means the person may not always be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality," the NHS explains.
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Symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions, muddled thoughts and speech, a lack of interest in everyday activities, feeling disconnected from your emotions and self-isolation.
The mental illness can also cause hallucinations, meaning that people may hear or see things that aren't actually there.
As this might be difficult to imagine for someone who doesn't have schizophrenia, a social media user produced a 'simulation' of what this experience is like.
A TikTok user who dubs himself Xorad shared a clip which he said gave people a 'look through his eyes', and he said it depicts what he sees when he is dealing with vivid hallucinations.
He visits a variety of locations in the clip - including woodland, the beach, the roadside and his front porch - while distortions constantly crop up on screen.
Swirly transparent clusters repeatedly appear in the footage, taking attention away from the scenic views in front of Xorad, and they occasionally start to resemble faces.
Other warped, clear squiggles also feature in the footage at multiple points, supposedly showing how a schizophrenic can often have a warped perspective when hallucinating.
All the while, several overlapping voices are nattering away at ranging volumes - switching from whispers, to mumbles to excited chatter intermittently.
Take a look at it for yourself here:
Social media users praised Xorad for sharing the simulation in the hopes of helping others understand what living with schizophrenia is like.
However, a lot of people were keen to find out just how accurate the simulation was - which is where our lovely friends over on Reddit come in.
In a thread discussing the clip, one person with diagnosed schizophrenia explained how precise they thought the footage was.
Explaining they live a life 'mostly without' visual hallucinations, the user said: "In my experience the auditory hallucinations are accurate, but maybe more exaggerated and non-contextual compared to mine.
"The dialogue I experienced was closer to full conversations taking place between different hallucinations, they all had their own personality and heavily drew from realism instead of what's heard here."
They went on to explain these voices referred to them 'in third person and scripted narratives about my life which weren't real'.
At one point, the Reddit user explained that their hallucinations adopted the voices of their peers - including doctors, nurses, fellow patients and family members.
"There was only one time I experienced visual hallucinations," they concluded. "I thought I saw a car being driven by someone I hadn't seen since I was little. It was only a hallucination.
"This simulation is close to my experience, close enough that l'd believe them if they said this was their experience with schizophrenia. Good news is, I no longer hallucinate and I'm healthier than ever!"
Another Redditor concurred, saying: "I have schizophrenia and this portrayal is pretty similar to mine. My visual hallucinations are more common: cartoonish faces with different expressions, flashes of lights..."
A third chimed in saying: "My visual hallucinations don’t look like that, the voices in the video are pretty accurate but different for me in different contexts."
"Yikes," a fourth commented. "I thought everyone saw those things."
While a fifth wrote: "I imagine the experience is probably nowhere near the same for everyone, but cool demonstration nonetheless."
Topics: Health, Mental Health, TikTok, Viral, Reddit
Olivia Burke