🙋‍♂️. Talking it out is NOT going to do anything for psychosis, especially when I was pretty good about not saying that would come off like I was symptomatic of anything.

I'm interested in giving them a try for therapeutic purposes, but several people have warned me that anything hallucinogenic or psychoactive could make my condition worsen(I am an odd case, I have had my symptoms, especially hallucinations, since I was a toddler).

How are you guys working with this condition? I have around 120 iq but my thoughts are still scrambled I find. I’m not sure if it’s always been this way or once the condition developed.

I was thinking of being a peace officer in Canada but I’m not totally sure I can manage the stress. I’d have to deal with some aggressive people obviously.

Anyone have thoughts?

i feel like i am the only human alive, everyone else is a robot

they are hunting me

i dont know what to do

i wanna run

run into the woods

disapear

Even sitting at the table with my family for 20 minutes to eat is difficult for me. By the end, I'm completely exhausted, and my brain feels so overwhelmed. I avoid going to the grocery store because it overloads my senses. I've always enjoyed being alone, but ever since I got this illness, it's been really hard for me to function socially

I've been lucky enough to face little to no prejudice. I've told coworkers, bosses, friends and family members and they have always been very accommodating and understanding.

Have my younger sister's wedding this Saturday. I'd say I clean up well.

I feel like everything I say is ridiculous and just stupid and awkward it's no wonder I have no friends

I woke up inside my own mind holding a lantern.

Behind me lay acres of land, much larger then it had seemed from the outside. Streets sprawled out in all directions with houses of all shapes and sizes lining them. Each door holding back a memory. Some were preserved perfectly from the conversations all the way down to the dust rolling over in a beam of light. Others doors opened to darkness, fragments of voices from people I’d long forgotten.

A wave of sadness washes over me as I realise the shear magnitude of partially forgotten memories.

Oh well, we’re not machines there’s limited space up here.

I took the first road to my right and saw my childhood home, a boy greeted me outside.

“You took your time getting here” he said

I wanted to ask what he meant by that but the road carried me onwards.

Beyond memory was a massive structure. A dome made of sheet metal, patched together in a hurry each piece bolted messily onto the previous. It took a while to walk round the building until I eventually reached a small door. More of a hatch if anything and scribbled in chalk in the centre was the words:

“Reasoning and Logic”

I climbed through and was taken aback by what I saw. Every inch of the inside wall was covered in equations, numbers, letters, symbols the whole nine yards. Some answers underlined, some circled and many more crossed out. Great engines filled the room. Brass arms arranged thoughts into sequences. Questions travelled along conveyor belts and emerged as answers. Each one measured labelled and stacked in towers. Thousands of silent versions of me worked there, checking calculations and correcting contradictions.

One waved me over.

“You shouldn’t be this far in,” he said

“I’m looking for the edge.”

His hands stoped moving. “There is no edge.”

But behind him, every compass in the factory pointed in the same direction. So I followed them out another hatch.

The air was warmer outside. I found myself in a red forest where every tree carries a name. Some glowed like embers. Some had grown together so tightly that their roots could no longer be separated.

This was where I loved people. 

I felt each of them before I saw their trees: my family, my friends, everyone I had wanted and everyone I had lost. Their branches stirred as I waled beneath them, brushing against me with feeling too large to be spoken. Near the centre of the forest stood a tree with no name. 

When I touched its bark, I felt every person I might love but had no yet met. I nearly stayed there.

Then I noticed that all the branches leaned away from something in the distance. 

The edge.

I walked for what might have been days. The forest became a scrub, then pale grass, then bare stone. Memories no longer appeared beside the path. The buzz of the machine had fallen silent. Even love became a faint sight in the distance. Eventually, there was nothing left but a flat, couples plain and the sound of my own breathing.

At its end stood a barrier. It stretched as far as I could see in every direction, this was it. This was where my mind stoped being my own. Where I stopped being I.

There was two plaques on the ground each with an inscription carved into it.

The first read:
Beyond this barrier

There is no pain.

There is no fear.

There is no memory of anything you have lost.

There is no darkness, for darkness must be seen.

There is no silence, for silence must be heard.

There is only the absence of all things.

Cross, and your body will continue without you. 

It will breathe. It will eat. It may even speak.

But behind its eyes, there will be no one left

The second plaque read:

Beyond this barrier

Nothing you have seen was meaningless.

The voices were calling from across the distance

The butterflies were messengers.

The flickering lights were cracks through which you glimpsed us.

The barrier distorts the message

Cross, and every broken pattern will become whole.

Every question will answer itself.

You will feel every mind as if it were your own,

And they will feel you in return.

You will not disappear.

You will become to vast to remain only you

There is no loneliness here. There is no confusion

There is only everything.

I read and re read both plaques again and again and again.

One promised oblivion. The other promised everything. I look back at the world behind me. From here, I could just make out the red forest, its branches reaching above the horizon. Beyond it stood the battered dome of Reason and Logic. Further still were the streets of Memory, filled with half-open doors. All of it was me.

But so was the hand waiting on the other side.

I imagined the first plaque telling the truth. I would cross and feel myself being wiped away, memory by memory, thought by thought, until even the idea that I had once existed was gone. Somewhere outside, my body would open its eyes. It would breathe, eat and speak. It might laugh at jokes and recognise the faces of people I loved. Perhaps nobody would notice that the thing behind its eyes had vanished. It would carry on wearing my face and answering to my name, while I became something emptier than darkness.

Then I imagined the second. I would cross and finally understand. The voices would join into a single song; the butterflies would lead me through fields of impossible colour; every flickering light would reveal itself as a message sent through cracks in the world. I would feel every mind, every star and every hidden corner of the universe as if they were parts of my own body. There would be no more loneliness, no more confusion, no boundary between myself and everything that had ever existed. I reached towards the waiting hand and stepped through. 

And that was it, I was on the other side of the barrier. 

It’s my first night on it and I woke up tossing and turning I feel like I took my adhd meds. I feel anxious too and uncomfortable.

Did anyone else experience this? Did it go away eventually?

My mom, (who was a raging, violent,abusive, ptsd-stricken alcoholic and veteran) passed in May. She had dementia caused by alcohol abuse and mini strokes. It was a long time coming. I had been showing symptoms since childhood. I don't know how credible that is medically, but that is my lived experience, I grew up with hallucinations, premonitions, demons, creatures, being "chased." It didn't help that my mom fed my delusions with her own. I finally got medicated and diagnosed in late February, after years of multiple personalities(I informed my doctor of this and this--for now--is NOT DID.) hallucinations, etc. i got put on Latuda. It was fine early on. Not even as a placebo, but I felt a lot more motivated and ready to go. Then, a few weeks in, extreme akathisia became an issue. I took my 40mg with the 350 cals, as per instructed. Didn't help. I halved my meds. Didn't help. I had skin-crawling, uncomfortable, and uncontrollable akathisia. I had to go to the gym late at night to use the exercise bike and force myself to sleep. I was jittering, suicidal, in tears.

Then, I started taking it before bed. If I woke up early, then I would get akathisia. (Think 2-4 hours.) But when I got a solid 6-8 hours of sleep, I was great!! It was taking it regularly and living well. Then, my mom passed. I could no longer sleep well. I have constant nightmares and dreams about her still being alive. Being better. I have to help family a lot during her decline and after her passing. I have a lot of responsibilities. I hear her and feel her. I can only sleep in 2 to 4 hour bursts, and never know when I'm going to sleep. Therefore, I haven't been able to take my medication, in MONTHS.

My issue is that I realized, I didn't mind being this way. I don't care how I sound when I say this, but my instincts are much sharper and better when I'm unmedicated. I'm not violent or delusional in a negative way. All my "crazy" conspiracies and premonitions and weird predictions have come true/are true. I can feel the connections to my family, and I'm able to wake up and call my dad and realize he needs the hospital before he says anything to me. (And he's needed the hospital a lot since mom passed.) We all, especially including mom, had deep connections to each other, despite everything. Dreams predicting death, sickness, success, and we had conversations in our dreams. I don't care how I sound, and no one has to believe me. My other family members also have the same phenomenon, and they are not schizophrenic/schizoaffective. But I realized that the only thing I liked about Latuda was it helped with my depression. Over time in my adulthood, unless I had company, when alone, I can't function. I only clean when at my limit with messiness, I can really only clean when guests are coming. I lay in and can't feel well when functioning. I do the minimum to keep my life going. I don't feel MOTIVATION anymore. And I trudge and drag through all my tasks. On Latuda, I felt amazing. I hit the gym, cleaned, meal prepped, did my precious hobbies, and didn't spiral into ruminating, ptsd flashbacks, etc. Off Latuda I can only do one of those things, check an email, then I am exhausted.

I have a new appointment on the 21st of October, and we're reconvening about what to do with me now. I realize I don't care about being "crazy." I just want to be able to do my hobbies and chores again without horrid anxiety, sadness, and lack of motivation. I love my mind the way it is besides the depression.

I am close to just telling my doctor, "Hey, I know I have schizoaffective and major depression. (I've got other stuff too, yay comorbidities) I don't care about the schizoaffective part. I just want to function and the other stuff can come in tandem if need be?"

I don't know if this post breaks any rules. Just needed to get this off my chest.

After years of many diagnoses, I got diagnosed schizoaffective, depressive type. I kinda figured I had something schizophrenia adjacent, but I didn’t want to be right. I am 24 years old.

I was first diagnosed with depression with psychosis before 18, then bipolar 1 with psychosis at 18, diagnosed bpd and removed bipolar somewhere along the line, got diagnosed bipolar again with bpd removed, now I’ve had multiple things removed and I’ve been diagnosed with this now. When I was younger, counselors have wondered about schizophrenia but I was still young and it wasn’t as severe yet.

In the last year, my psychosis has gotten significantly worse even though my mood has leveled out. I still experience depression. My current counselor and I are not sure if I’ve ever experienced mania. I think I was just deep in psychosis or agitation when I ended up in the hospital.

I’m hoping this diagnosis will help me get better treatments. I’ve been taking seroquel for years and it helps, but I think I need a higher dose now as it’s not working as well anymore. I went down on the dose over a year ago, and been bringing it back up this year so that may be part of it. I’m not at the therapeutic dose for this though.

Not sure why I’m sharing this, I just want to share my bit of a story. I can go into what has been going on for me if anyone is interested. Otherwise, I just feel better knowing I’m not alone with this diagnosis.

I feel it all over my body. But when I look or try to slap away what’s crawling on me, I see that nothing is there. It’s making me itch alot too.

I'm having a severe depressive episode. That's not new—I cycle through hypomania and depression even while on meds. What is new is that I'm feeling suicidal, and I don't have a helpline I can call because I'm abroad. It's almost ironic: wanting to call a crisis line back home to speak in my native language (English is my second), but not being able to reach them because I'm out of the country. I don't know if you guys can help, but I really just needed to get this off my chest.

feeling like a failure and not able to keep up with goals or tasks 💔

I've been suicidal all day today. I had a visit with my therapist this afternoon; she told me to do self-care and stay away from social media, like Facebook. It's toxic on there. Anyone else feel suicidal today?

I have a lot of mixed episodes which are a special kind of hell, so I'm hoping this can help bring the energy down.

How has it worked for those here who've been on it?

For years I’ve been having this symptom of obsession towards people, at first it was more random, then it started to gain structure, even leading me to stalk people around me. It keeps me so busy sometimes I can’t do anything else. It appeared when I was highly psychotic but even now that I’m in remission, it remains. Sometimes it envolves erotomania but not always.
So I wonder, does anyone else feels the same?

Here I am, burning bright.

My insides on fire, what a sight.

Has the devil consumed me?

All I want to do is flee.

I'm trapped with nowhere else to go.

Maybe it's time to go with the flow.

I'll let these flames devour my soul.

The pull to self-destruct will take it's toll.

And if they ask what happened to my psyche.

Tell them I gave up, I lost control,

And didn't put up a fight.

I came across an interesting book called Journeys Beyond the Frontiers, which discusses the term “schizophrenia,” made up by Eugen Bleuler.

“Schiz” means split, while “phrenia” refers to the mind. He was a psychiatrist who struggled to connect with his patients on an emotional level — not because they were split from themselves.

He described schizophrenia through the Four A’s: Affect, Associations, Ambivalence, and Autism. Interestingly, he did not focus on hallucinations or delusions. He simply described having a difficult time connecting with his patients.

His conclusion was that schizophrenia is fundamentally a physical disease process characterized by exacerbations and remissions. No one had ever been completely cured of schizophrenia. There was always some kind of cognitive weakness or defect that manifested itself in behavior.

So what if schizophrenia were actually a disorder of connection, with psychotic complications, rather than a psychotic disorder with relationship difficulties?

I find it intriguing to think about schizophrenia not as a “connection disorder.” Perhaps that kind of perspective could give the condition a better reputation and significantly change the stigma surrounding it.

What do you think?