r/schizoaffective

I’m a special needs primary school teaching assistant and I’m on 7.5mg Olanzapine.

So I had a manic weed induced psychosis 2024. After the psychosis went away I completely changed, extreme anhedonia no emotion no personality no nothing just empty like a robot. Then in 2025 I had another episode. Since January it’s the same now as last time just completely empty. All I do is lay down all day, I miss listening to music, I miss being happy about food, hanging out with friends. I am undiagnosed but my question is, is it just gonna be a circle of having an episode and then being dead all the time ? That life is not worth living for me I miss the life I had before.

Leave a song. Either something you love or whatever you're listening to at the moment. I'll start in the comments.

EDIT: I just woke up, way too many people to thank. So... thank you, all.

About 2 weeks ago my doc reduced my dosage from 12.5 mg olanzapine to 10 mg. I went through the typical withdrawal symptoms that have happened every time I decrease med dosage and eventually they went away. I was back to my normal, non-psychotic self.

Within a week or so I started having very mild hallucinations - mostly just seeing small bug-like shadows darting around or seeing movement in my peripheral vision when nothing is there. I thought it was fine, maybe just a side effect of reducing the dose and that it would go away. Even if it didn’t go away, it wasn’t bothersome enough for me to up my dose again.

Then we get to today and it was almost like my brain was trying to tell me I was going psychotic again, even though I don’t think I really am. I had really bad racing thoughts as well as intrusive thoughts about cutting my arms with a pair of scissors, but I also felt this overwhelming sense of being so physically tired I couldn’t function. I just started staring off into space while my brain constantly yelled at me that something was really wrong, I just didn’t know what.

Has anyone else experienced this? I don’t have a name for it so I don’t even know what to google to see if this is normal or if I should be concerned. I took 2mg Xanax to calm me down, thinking it may be anxiety-related.

Any insight you guys have would be much appreciated. I honestly don’t even know how to explain the intense almost manic-like function of my brain while my body was nearly comatose. It was for sure strange.

I don’t want to be on meds for the rest of my life but I don’t have a choice if I want life to get better. It doesn’t make any sense that I have to take meds for something that isn’t even my fault. I don’t want to be controlled by meds. This is disgusting.

Im a 27F and my brother 33M was diagnosed about 8-9 years ago when I was in college. Since then, he's been back and forth when it comes to taking his medication, jobs, relationships, etc.

This past year was particularly tough for him bc he lost his job about 3 months after moving out of my parents house (lived there for 7 or so years). My parents are loving but are immigrants, so communication is hard and since hes been sick, one of his main delusions/paranoia/fear is that our parents and family are out to control him for negative purposes (ie. Put him in the hospital, steal his soul /energy, etc).

It came to a peak last month when he was violent with a family member (although we did talk about it, the stories were confusing and not aligned). He's increasingly experienced more delusions and erratic behavior.

Last week, I went with my second brother to express our concerns and offer anything that could help. Im the only one in the family 31M trusts, so Ive taken lead on organizing my family (all neurodivergent). When I asked, he said he just wants to find a job so he doesnt have to move back in with my parents when the lease runs out next month.

We told him that our goal is not to have him in the hospital but to support him being healthy, supported and not moving back to our parents.

He seems to refuse (idk why, it seems fear based ) :

1. Social security/disability payments

2. OUTPATIENT programs (this one really gets me bc i assume its better than inpatient, but idk )

3. Case worker help

I want to help pay for him to live while he gets better and finds what works for him but im worried that im focused on the wrong things. Its hard to work when your mental health is not there and im worried that I will be ruining my finances bc he hasn't been consistent with meds while finding a job is hard enough even for neurotypicals.

I have faith in him, I dont have faith in my pockets and I don't want to look back and think that I should've committed him.

Any advice?

I take antidepressants (currently desvenlafaxine and bupropion, along with AP paliperidone). But every so often I have a brief depressive episode. It usually only lasts a few days or a week. And I’ll be perfectly fine a few weeks or a couple of months in between. I don’t have too much mania, though I’m diagnosed manic type. It’s possible I’m a bit blind to the mania.

Anyway, these brief depressive episodes aren’t the end of the world I guess. I’m on disability so I’m more or less free to spend a week in bed. I just don’t like it. It’s so pleasant when life is going smoothly, my mood is buoyant and I’m not plagued with paranoia…and then out of nowhere, splat! I’ve lost all interest in everything and even just getting out of bed feels painful. Often I end up calling my doctor and increasing or changing meds. And she’s never suggested a mood stabilizer so maybe that’s not an option. But I’m curious if it is.

I hate being left alone
With my own thoughts and emotions
I cannot hold onto them
Could you hold them for me?
They will make you quake
They will make you question
They will make you hate.
I hate when I am not free
I hate being myself

So, I was diagnosed with schizoaffective in the past. I was taking 10mg of abilify for over 10 years. I recently went to 7.5mg with doctor's supervision. I noticed my brain felt more elastic but less durable against stress if that makes sense since lowering the dosage.

I haven't had any symptoms of the condition over 10 years. I do feel like I'm stressed a bit. (Currently looking for a job and on unemployment)

I do think I need to be medicated. I don't think at this point I can handle large amounts of stress after being on abilify so long. The stress hasn't impacted me on a personal level too much, apart from having a headache the other day.

Does anyone else who is stable feel like they couldn't get off an antipsychotic even if they wanted to after taking it long term? I know stress can be debilitating to anyone. I wonder how well I could function in a mostly stress free environment with a low dosage of abilify.

Thanks for any replies!

My girlfriend (we are in a long-distance relationship and live in two different countries) is currently in a psychiatric ward. She has schizoaffective disorder. I’m the one who encouraged her to call emergency services and get help when things got out of hand and I realized I couldn’t help enough on my own.

She is currently on 150 mg of clozapine. She had been taking it for a long time and told me she had been stable for quite a while, until her doctor decided to switch her from clozapine to another antipsychotic.

I’m trying my best to be supportive because I really love her. Right now, she keeps saying she is tired of all of this — the voices, the anxiety, everything. I understand hallucinations and delusions because I’ve experienced them myself, as I’m also diagnosed with schizophrenia.

My question is: how can I help her more?

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Trigger warning: self harm

I'm having delusions and it's causing me distress. I'm going to talk to my psychiatrist on the 28th about going into hospital so hopefully it will get better!

Since the delusions are causing me distress, I don't know how to deal with it except taking it out on myself. It stresses me out to the point I will self harm to deal with it.

Since I'm taking it out on myself, it feels so good. It feels like all my bad emotions have gone away. So my question is why does it feel so good?

I'm not trying to glamourize self harm. I just wanna know the psychology about it and know why.

Anybody have any experiences with it? How effective was it for you? Haven’t picked up my prescription yet was curious. Stopped taking Seroquel because it wasn’t working anymore.

I'm just now learning that most people don't have loud screaming and people in their head who berate them all night and make them want to kill themselves. Sometimes it will be my probation officer sometimes it's like 10 radios playing at the same time telling me to do some crazy shit. Sometimes it's the same thing on loop all night that makes me physically uncomfortable. I'm not sure what to do about this, I've been to many doctors involuntarily and honestly thought that was a normal thing everyone had so I never told them.

My best friend recommended creatine to me, and I'm going to talk my psychiatrist tomorrow about it, but I've read in some studies it has helped with some negative symptoms of schizoaffective/schizophrenia? I'm looking to have more motivation and less anhedonia.

Y'all ever get that feeling where you want people to hate you? But when they start hating you, you get worried that they might actually leave you? I have a voice that I hear in and out of my head that makes me push the people closest to me away: family, partner, friends, coworkers. The main reason I have this voice is cause it tells me to make people hate me so it'd be easier to kms. I've told many people in my life that I'm dealing with this problem, but I feel like it's slowly working. I don't want people to actually leave or hate me. I have no plan or intention on killing myself anytime soon either. Ive had this voice for a few months, and it rarely shuts off. The only time I can't hear it anymore is if I'm working at my job and I'm on autopilot since I'm constantly busy or if I'm sleeping. I can't continuously keep myself busy at home so I mainly sleep the days away now. Is there anyone else that has this? I need ways of silencing it. The main coping mechanisms I've been using are sleeping, keeping myself busy, and cutting myself. The only problem with the last coping skill I have is it's summer now and I can't just cut on my arms. My legs aren't the best to cut either. I like to be able to feel the stinging sensation and blood dripping down me. I mainly like it on my arms, it helps ground me. I only do cat scratches to ease the tension, I rarely do anything worse than that, but with my reputation of cutting and how bad it's gotten at times (I have nerve damage and have had stitches before), I can't even cut cat scratches without people threatening the hospital. What's the best thing I should do? How can I ground myself?

Here is what I've tried as a substitute for cutting:

Snapping a rubber band on my wrist really hard (4/10)

Drawing with a red felt marker on myself (6/10)

Pinch myself then letting red water or watered down red paint drip from that area I pinched (7/10)

Pain fidgets like "lil ouchies" (8/10)

Letting an ice cube sit on the area I want to cut (8/10)

Burn myself (7/10)

Bite myself (7/10)

Intentional paper cuts (3/10)

Cold/hot showers (3/10)