Recently Diagnosed, Is It A Spectrum?
Hi everybody! I'm new here.
I was recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was a bit of a shock, because I thought my symptoms wouldn't fall into that category. However, I did some research on the subject, and learned that schizophrenia comes in many forms. I'm interested to hear if there's anyone who might have had a similar experience with me.
One thing that made me surprised about the diagnosis is that I have never had hallucinations, like hearing sounds or seeing things that are not there (at least not to my knowledge). I have had psychotic delusions though, stuff like seeing an advertisement or a TV program & experiencing thoughts like "this is a message for me from the universe". I never quite entirely believe those thoughts, but it's like my mind just comes up with stuff like that by it's own and it can be pretty convincing at times. I'm very afraid of those thoughts, and I've always sought professional help when I experience them. So I seem to fall into the category of people who are aware that they are unwell. This also made me surprised about the diagnosis, because I always thought that people with schizophrenia generally don't realize that they are having delusions, and they believe them entirely and don't necessarily themselves seek professional help.
The delusions I have are sort of like very unwanted, yet sometimes very convincing thoughts and feelings about the universe, spirituality and destiny. I experience those more or less constantly, but in times of stress, they get really loud and it's like I lose control of my mind. It's like the mind gets stuck on those thoughts, and everything turns dark. The thoughts overrun everything else. At these times I often start experiencing the sort of delusions that books, TV shows or other random things are giving me messages about the nature of universe or my destiny. I don't want to get more specific about the delusions because I imagine in can be quite triggering to some people. It freaks me out so bad that I seek medical help every time it happens. Medication seems to end them very quickly. Nowadays I am on daily anti-psychotic medication.
The delusions have never been about being chased, stalked or monitored by other people like the government etc, which I imagine is quite a common form of delusion. For me it has always been spiritual, philosophical and metaphysical in nature.
These sort of delusions began some years ago after a lot of weed smoking and experimenting with psychedelics. (That was kinda dumb, but hey, I was young and naive!) Before that there was a ton of depression and anxiety, and what I now notice to be perhaps some withdrawal to my internal world of spiritual ruminations.
Something that I thought was also a bit different from what I imagined schizophrenia to be like, is that I don't have much, if any, negative cognitive effects. I was tested by a psychologist and I actually even showed a little bit better results than average. There was a little slowness in auditory information processing, but that's it.
I also don't tend to withdraw from social connections, at least not very much. Though there is a tendency to be sort of sucked into my own thoughts and be fascinated and obsessed with my internal life, which honestly sucks. My mind is so freaking loud and heavy.
So... Apparently schizophrenia has a spectrum, and looks different for everyone?
I'm sorry if something that I shared about the things I thought schizophrenia to be like are stigmatizing or offensive. I'm here to learn something new. It's an entirely new subject to me. Much love to everyone!