Well put, after a bit of reflection I mostly subscribe to the concept of several "approximate models" wherein "objective" truth lies somewhere inbetween.
My own hallucinations were auditory and in the instances where they weren't random noises they only said my name, often in "plausible voices" (i.e. voices of people I had talked to recently or were nearby) and as such I don't ascribe much meaning to them. I can however see how other psychotic symptoms I've had followed the "approximation"-pattern -- had an incident where for about a day I was convinced my left arm weren't actually my arm and was most likely grafted on by aliens. In hindsight, this probably manifested this way at least partially because of fear of being different due to my diagnosis.
As an anecdote, when I had been symptom-free for a couple of years, I decided to move to a bigger city for work. Because I didn't know anyone else living there, I fell back into old habits of isolation and my hallucinations came back. I ended up explaining to my employer and we came to the conclusion that I couldn't keep working there as remote work wasn't an option.
A few weeks after I had moved back home, the hallucinations stopped again. I quickly realized that my support network was the main thing keeping me "sane", and as such I started valuing them much more and ensuring they know that I'm here to support them too.
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia about 11 years ago.
The "double bookkeeping" mentioned in the article is a neat description of how I sometimes dealt with the hallucinations. Everything I experienced was real to me but I quickly realized that it was not "objectively real", for lack of a better term. I had the luck of having a GREAT support network, and I highly believe that its because of that I'm functioning today.
I'm currently symptom-free and have been for a few years (despite being a dumbass who cold-turkey'd my meds without my doctors knowledge). I want to try to help anyone who's feeling isolated due to "mental illness" (not a fan of that term either). Drop me an email: helpful at hax dot xyz
(apologies for rambling and/or strangely formatted text, writing this on phone whilst commuting)
My constant on-again/off-again side project is something similar but in C#. Spending a week building a preprocessor and then discarding it because I didn't need it was both infuriating and strangely pleasing at once. :)
I've been bouncing a similar idea with the GM of my (sporadic) tabletop game and would be interested to hear more about what others would want in such a service.
My own hallucinations were auditory and in the instances where they weren't random noises they only said my name, often in "plausible voices" (i.e. voices of people I had talked to recently or were nearby) and as such I don't ascribe much meaning to them. I can however see how other psychotic symptoms I've had followed the "approximation"-pattern -- had an incident where for about a day I was convinced my left arm weren't actually my arm and was most likely grafted on by aliens. In hindsight, this probably manifested this way at least partially because of fear of being different due to my diagnosis.