u/Soft_Plankton_Tree

By “vividness” I mean mostly the object texture and illumination, as well as how much it appeared to fit in the whole scene, if their shape was complete and built correctly, if it had sharp edges, clear coloration (according to what’s expect from reality). For me my visual hallucinations appeared to be a bit blurry, as if the objects were made of smoke in a few areas, and as I consequence, a few parts of the object were not formed properly, but sometimes they would get as real as it gets and even “surpass” reality in its vividness. I’m curious to know how it is for everyone.

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Every time I go back doing outpatient treatment I’m faced with people having psychotic episodes and I can’t help but notice how much our episodes are nothing alike. Just yesterday there was a man talking to hallucinations, he was very mad and causing a commotion. He would even alternate between talking to real people and to his hallucinations as if they were equally real. He was not diagnosed schizophrenic but he was clearly having a psychotic episode. The other times I was there was similar, patients arguing with hallucinations, being harmed by them, being unable to tell them apart from reality. This situation not only makes me feel bad for them, it makes me aware of how much my psychotic episodes are nothing like that. In 10 years of schizophrenia I never thought a hallucination was real, nor my family was able to realize I had hallucinations for years, cause I didn’t interact with them, they are mild too, and I have no true delusions, only ideas of reference. If I truly have schizophrenia is very mild. I brought these questions to my last doctor but they told me I’m in the schizophrenia spectrum and it doesn’t matter the severity of it.
But situations like that make me kind of doubt this diagnosis, or doubt myself, and I’m off meds for years so the medication doesn’t explain my milder symptoms.
Anyone else in a similar situation?

I already made a poll specifically about Risperidone but now I wanted to know about all anti psychotics in general. (According to the Risperidone poll so far, most put on between 50 and 100 lbs).
This is not to discourage anyone from taking their meds, it’s just a curiosity of mine, and a quick way to everyone share their life experiences.

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There’s a girl I’m interested in, I remember seeing her 7 years ago after my first hospitalisation and today I saw her again because I went back to doing outpatient treatment where she does. I thought about her all these years, she’s very pretty. I’m thinking about joining the art therapy sessions just to go talk to her. Does anyone has ever trying dating another schizophrenic, specially if they have a case with a different level of severity?

Doesn’t matter who I’m always under the impression that the doctor/psychologist is holding back laughter. But why would they be a psychiatrist if they find mental conditions funny? I just don’t know, it’s very weird, but the way they look at me I feel it’s a bit weird and specially the way they go about mentioning the voices it seems almost infantilising. Worse is that where I live is common your psychiatrist don’t access you alone but with other one or two med students in the same room (for “learning purposes”). You can ask them to leave but it sounds paranoid of you. I definitely feel judge every appointment, and I’ve been avoiding psychologists too, because of feeling judged as well, they are a bit patronising.

Hello all, I’m with two polls open on the nature of hallucinations. The first one is about wether bilinguals or polyglots necessarily hallucinate in all the languages they speak or if the phenomenon tends to favour their native language. The second one is about how common it is to hallucinate noises (such as explosions) or animal sounds, and how these two cases correlate. The polls are closing soon, so please if you feel like voting it will be much appreciated. And thanks for everyone who already voted.

I wasn’t, I was diagnosed with panic syndrome instead, although I always explained to the doctors that I don’t get random panic attacks anymore, and what bothers me is fear of having them again, and that I couldn’t leave my house. But I consider that I suffer from it and always refer to it that way. Curious about what everyone’s situation is

How is the differential diagnosis between negative symptoms of schizophrenia and symptoms of depression even made? Because all major symptoms of depression overlap with symptoms of schizophrenia itself. How to tell if the person is depressed or just dealing with negative symptoms? Wouldn’t that be almost a “guess”?

Sad day, I’m not happy at all, thinking I should’ve died long ago. Worse is that fake happiness some have to endure during their birthday. What gets me is hearing “I’m so proud of you.” Proud of what? That’s not where I wanted to be at my age. I’m so fucking defeated. Trying but getting no happiness from results. Everything I do, there’s a thought at the back of my head “congrats, but you did it too late. Should’ve done that already.” Is like those people that do the bare minimum and expect applauses for it, that’s how I feel.
No true happiness from accomplishments. Don’t really think my family is proud of me.
I’m sorry for the emotional dump right now, but it’s true. I feel nothing good out of my situation, and really this day saddens me.

Spent the whole day thrifting with my mom. Just now that I came back home that all my thoughts came back. I have even forgotten I’m schizophrenic when I was out thrifting. Not a trace of hallucinating, although I was a bit paranoid every time I saw someone with a phone on their hands. Anyway, I just feel that sometimes I obsess too much about my schizophrenia, to the point of making it my whole personality. I reduce myself to it. I obsess too much over it. But how not to? When I’m back home and the voices are back too. I just wish I would be able to spend a few days without thinking about it.

Like I was heavily bullied growing up because I was developing schizophrenia and acting odd (avoiding eye contact, couldn’t talk, etc). That was really bad cause it fuelled into my paranoia. It’s easier to think you’re being persecuted when you are, in fact, being picked on by others. So I want to know if anyone can relate to it at all

Just wanted to share that. I was a bit nervous I first but was able to play it cool. It’s a presentation about the undergrad research I’m doing. It was very nice and I’m looking forward to new stuff. I’m kind of sad sometimes cause I have a pretty bad academic history and was just feeling like I couldn’t do it. But this gave me more motivation to try and be better. I’ve decided to make my life better now. I hope everyone finds something that makes them feel the same even for just a moment

When I observe people and their actions, and the events in their lives, and the things they do and care about it all feels so alien. I don’t feel human sometimes, so much is the abysm between me and them. Between us and them, cause I know I’m not alone in this. I’m fairly young and most people my age are into relationships, partying, but also building their future in ways I’m deprived of. I’m even deprived of desire. I look like a loser, I’ve fought so many battles I’m sick of it, it’s hard to be motivated. People are also always treating mental health as kind of a joke, like “going go the asylum” is something horror movie worthy for them. I can never share my life experiences without scaring people so I don’t even try. How to even say to a normal person you hear voices, or went to the psych ward, or have to left everything you were building because you were in psychosis. And that’s just the surface level stuff. It’s beyond me how people can be normal and never experience certain things. Sometimes I wonder how is it like? And when I’m faced with someone making uncanny and ignorant remarks I’m forced to remember “oh….they don’t get it”. Sometimes I envy them and their ignorance. But most of the time I’m weirded out by them tbh.

Went to uni today and overheard a bunch of professors and associates mocking affirmative actions. They looked like the bunch you think they do. One of them is well known for his sadism against students, and comes from a well off family. It’s always the most privileged that chant against other people getting the support they need, but if you ask them, they’ll go on about how they suffered and overcame everything, when in fact their lives are easier than everyone else’s, that’s just the facts. This environment is one of the reasons I never tried to get accommodations for my disability, it’s very uncommon here and they always assume any support you seek is leeching off. I’m fed up with everyone here, I wish I would just graduate but I keep failing. All I have to say is how much I despise people who think they’re better but pretend they don’t, so they can treat you bad but say it’s your fault. That’s basically it. People take life as granted. It hurts to see all those mean spirited people that are what I wish I was: graduated, with a good job, and yet they can’t even recognise their privilege in life.

I’m feeling resentful towards my family because of their negligence of when I was developing schizophrenia as a minor. I even asked them for help and they dismissed it. I spent years without treatment, then after I was put in the psych ward (I was far away from them) they said they didn’t even notice there was something wrong with me which is a blatant lie. They were also mad at me and some thought I was faking it.
How do you don’t notice your child is mentally ill? Maybe anxiety but even then…schizophrenia is not subtle. I was behaving weirdly, having panic attacks. Then some time ago they were sorry about that, but still can’t explain how they missed all the signs, well it’s because they didn’t. They just thought it wasn’t as severe as schizophrenia. But still knew it was at least panic syndrome and left me without medical treatment. For their negligence I had to go to the hospital and fucked up my chance at university. They also never encouraged me to take meds, quite the opposite. They are more supportive of me now but I still have this bitterness towards them, I mask it but just can’t get over it. Does anyone else feels the same? Or have a similar story?

Im really feeling an urge to smoke. I never smoked in my life. I had this urge back when I was developing schizophrenia and now it’s happening again. I’m almost buying cigarettes, I don’t know how to get free from the urge. Does anyone has that? Did you start to smoke after schizophrenia?

Going against the grain cause I feel like the most common question would be about the weirdest ones, but I’m curious which ones were the most mundane. For me my tamest hallucination was seeing a scissor over my bed. And my most sane delusion was thinking that people were following me to harm me, which is paranoia but it’s still plausible if you live in a dangerous place.

Low effort post of the week, but I really think we’re playing the game according to their rules. When we use this expression, the discussion feels like shifting from “is it possible to diagnose oneself, without even being a health professional, and without performing any medical exams?” to “is it ethical that this person diagnosed themselves?” To add insult to the injury, some use the expression “self-diagnosed faker” as if it wasn’t already the same thing.
By using this expression we are already making the concession that it’s possible to do such a thing as “self-diagnose”. I think we should just move on to use a different expression such as “self-proclaimed”, because that’s what it really is. Certainly I’m oversimplifying the issue here, but it’s important how we phrase it.
Why should we extend them the grace of using their made up term, when we disagree with the premise of it? That’s it.

People are so damn stupid. They believe anything related to spirituality and make up a bunch of theories. Like believing random things have satanic messages, that “law of attraction” rules their life, that christians are being persecuted. Not to mention those people that say our mental disorder is caused by spiritual forces. Those are normal people for you.
When I hear people talking I question myself “Those are normal people. And I’m schizophrenic. Why?” Those people are so detached from reality. And it’s most people really. At least in my country it is, since most people are very religious but mix random religious beliefs with one another. (Not to mention fanaticism regarding politics and all the lies they spread).
And I get so annoyed, thinking about that because they can be so damn stupid and say such nonsense and still are not stripped out of their rights but apparently I had to, and I have to medicate myself to be “normal” when normal people are ridiculous