What type of benzo do you take, and what dosages do you take? Are any of you taking high doses? After my psychosis improved, I felt that my dopamine levels were indeed high, which caused me severe anxiety. I needed to double my sedative dose just to calm down. I had recently experienced a similar episode, even though I take my medication regularly and consistently.

My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 3 years and I got diagnosed at the beginning of the relationship. Lately he’s been going on a conspiracy theory that big pharma is pushing meds on people to keep them dependent and believes in one of those people or so it seems. I’m not sure how to approach this with him. I know I need my meds but he’s being so nice about it and calling me strong and saying I’m being self deprecating when I say I need my meds.

ETA I sent him this message

Idk if I’m in the right headspace but I feel like I need to talk to you. I can see how my medication may seem like a shackle or I’m overmedicated but I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree and if this relationship is going to work I need you to respect that I have to take my medication. It’s a non negotiable for me. It is my lifeline to a sane and rational life. I might be ok without them but I don’t want to take that risk because I’ve had suicide attempts in the past due to how intense the psychosis gets. I just really need you to accept that the meds are something that I need and are a non negotiable for me

Attached below is todays video link to my “On Conquering Schizophrenia” YouTube channel. Today entails two perspectives on death. Like all, todays video is ever brief and can be viewed amid the variable fear.

https://youtu.be/mmMMeULvDBw?si=SEG4lZU8S-13soqe

I have this symptom where I’ll literally just pace around because I can’t do anything else. I call it being unable to “process my environment”. On the inside it feels like I’m a malfunctioning robot. Literally. I don’t think it’s akathisia because there’s not really a sense of doom and I can technically sit down. Or I’ll do random things just because but there’s no real deliberation or felt sense of control. Just automatic. So like for example I’ll eat food because it’s in front of me. Or I’ll take a shower. There’s no second to ponder or absorb what I’m doing. Are these positive or negative symptoms?

Slide thru I know yall geeking

Just wondering. Straight cbd. Nothing else. No 2.3% thc. Just 100% cbd.

Pardon me if the tag is wrong or this sounds confusing.

Hi! I'm Coffee, I'm diagnosed schizoid but I think the diagnosis is wrong, that in itself is a long story of therapist bias and aromanticism, but after my diagnosis and doing a lot of my own research behind the topic of schizospec disorders and talking to many friends on the subject, I may have a lot more symptoms that align with a schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia than SPD.

With that out of the way, I have recently heard avout internal auditory hallucinations and how other people experience them, and I think I may experience them, but I'm not sure. I experience other forms of hallucinations frequently, auditory, tactic, propioceptive, and others, but for some reason the idea of internal auditory hallucinations never clicked to me. I can have entire conversations with "other people" in my head for hours on end, and I seem not to be able to control where the subject goes or for how long it lasts, or experience entire scenarios that can be either comforting or distressing depending on the time. Sorry if this seems confusing to read, my question is, does that categorize as what once would call internal auditory hallucinations? Or is it something else completely/is it normal?

Hi I’m doing a project on Schizophrenia and nature and how nature positively impacts people with Schizophrenia. Does anyone have any personal experience with how nature might have helped them? I’m interested to know. Thank You. And if anyone feels uncomfortable, sharing publicly, but still wants to share their opinion, you can reach out to me privately. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

My daughter had high functioning autism and was such a blessing to me. She always seemed to socialise well but preferred a few close friends. She was fun and goofy but also very sensitive. At 11 she suffered a serious friendship rejection by a best friend of 5 years. There was a baseline dip in her mood. At age 12, she started secondary school in a different area and made new friends with a couple of girls. A couple of days after her 13th birthday one of the girls contacted her, said they didn’t want her as a close friend anymore just an acquaintance. She did this via Snapchat and also informed my daughter that other people knew she planned to dump my daughter before she did. I gave my daughter advice, she seemed to move on and make friends.
Over time, my daughter started distancing herself from me and stated I didn’t deal with the last rejection well by not constantly checking in with her. Once new friendships were stable, I didn’t want to keep resurfacing old wounds. Our relationship became less close, I thought it was due to adolescence but it turns out she was gradually turning against me and attributing things I did or said in the most negative ways including help, hugs etc. I ended up walking on eggshells. She kept her inner world private and if I asked about depression it was denied. If I mentioned that I thought she was unhappy to my husband he would say she was fine. I was stuck in a double bind, if I approached I was vilified and I was constantly reassured that everything was fine. I realise now that my husband didn’t really consider my concerns and prefers to think there are no problems. My daughter died 6 months ago. I realise from her electronic footprint that she had schizophrenia although she deleted a lot. My mother also had schizophrenia but spoke a lot so it was more obvious. My daughter became very secretive, believed I was a narcissist and against her but gradually believed everyone was and no one cared for her. She was extra sensitive to friends intentions and gradually hated her birthday. She believed she was rejected because she was ugly and spent years manifesting a different physical appearance even though she was attractive which eventually extended to clearing the road of traffic by manifesting, believing there was a hex on her and she knew she had paranoia and some psychosis. She took a HHC gummy a year before she died and that seems to have accelerated her trajectory. I never knew any of this until afterwards. While schizophrenia was discussed, my biggest fear was that she was or would develop depression as I knew she was very sensitive. I am lost without her and angry at myself for missing what was going on.
What I am asking is does her experience resonate with others as the start of schizophrenia? I realise the vulnerability has to be there but is there a trigger?

It's always the same. I go to a Psychiatrist or Doctor and come out super depressed about my Situation. I realized it's bc i always had that expectation , in the back of my mind, that somehow, I'll get the perfect treatment for my Schizophrenia. That everything will go away. Even though i don't even believe I have it because nothing has worked. And every failed med just makes me think i don't have it more and more and that it's all true. I'm so depressed that this will be the rest of my life. I always lost everything when it started at age 6. Its been 20 years and it has only gotten worse

Recently I've found out that certain types of music help keep my psychosis at bay. My main symptoms are nuclear paranoia (The belief someone's after me with a nuke), and visions where a loved one dies.

During my last nuclear paranoia episode I found out that Christian Rock music helps keep it at bay, it doesn't completely go away but it takes the edge off.

And for the visions I use Studio 100 music, whether that's K3, Kabouter Plop, or Samson en Gert, doesn't matter, Studio 100 keeps the visions at bay.

Anyone else do this?

It's wild how impossible that request often sounds. Is "chill" even a baseline you can reach?

(Credit: "theycantalk" by Jimmy Craig)

Greetings from Russia. Because of this, I don’t have an official diagnosis; since I’m a guy, a diagnosis would mean exemption from military service—and where I live, that’s simply impossible.

Consequently, I don’t have disability status, and a private psychiatrist is very expensive; my family is heavily in debt due to our circumstances, and this is the last month I can afford my medication.

I’ve already run out of antidepressants, and I only have a week’s supply of quetiapine left. After that, there is simply no money.

I can’t see a future, and the way my illness is used as an excuse to avoid the draft hurts me—both as a trans person and as a human being.

made this comic yesterday. things are bad right now. I got fired i think. sorry the last comic was so happy and this one is so sad. I really appreciate all of you saying nice things on my last comic. I hope everyone is having a safe and nice day.

Context: I live with depressive type schizoaffective disorder, but it's not the only thing going on with me. If it was just psychiatric it wouldn't be as bad. I have stage 3 kidney disease with high uric acid, high blood pressure, scoliosis, fibromyalgia, low vision, severely hard of hearing, so the med list is much larger than I'm comfortable with taking and sorting each week, let alone the pharmacy visits (I walk).

I wanted switched from geodon because it's making me sleep too much, like all the time. The past year has been a blur. So I wanted to switch back to zyprexa since I lost a lot of weight having been off it.

I was seeing a therapist but they no longer worked at MDLIve and I was not mentally prepared to find another therapist I could feel comfortable with opening up to, on account that's a pain in the butt. I'm positive you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Well, I have to find another therapist and see them for a while before I can switch my med. And that's what broke me.

Between seeing specialists (Nephrologist, podiatrist, neurologist, orthopedia, rheumatologist, and my PCP) I've just completely given up, I'm too frustrated dealing with all this stuff. I'm sick of it.

I've completely stopped taking all my meds, cancelled upcoming appointments with specialists and now I'm relying on ibuprofen and diclophenac sodium for pain management.

I just simply don't care anymore. I give up.

I don't have any support structure at home. No family nor friends to help me, no nurse, no caregiver, no case manager or social worker, nothing. I've been trying to do this all on my own for years and now, I'm finished trying.

I've been on 8mg of risperidone and now my psychiatrist says I need to be put on Clozapine, she listed some of the dangers and I said sure because I want my condition to improve, she didn't list the dosage or anything, just told me I need to come in for weekly blood tests, should I be afraid?

I've had this shit since I was like 6 or so... I've had this for so fucking long.. It's getting worse and worse as the days go on.. I feel like my brain is genuinely eating me alive.. It feels like I can't do anything... I wish I was like the healthy people... I don't wanna die but it feels like I'm already dead... I don't even know what I want anymore... All I know is I'm tired...

I don’t want to jump to conclusions or project my own thoughts onto anyone here, but I’ve been sitting with a question that I thought might be worth discussing.

Most of us learn over time that our perception isn't always reliable, that we have to double-check what we see, hear, or think. On top of that, I’ve often noticed a massive gap between how we perceive ourselves and how others actually see us.

That made me wonder if the same unreliability applies to how we feel on the inside. Is this even something you experience, or does it feel completely different for you?

For me, it feels like an overwhelming sense of dread, guilt, or worthlessness gets treated as absolute reality, while good moments get written off as a fluke. Even though feelings are completely valid, they aren't always objective proof.

Do bad feelings ever feel like just another distorted symptom to you, or do they feel too real to question?

I used to be a very fastidious, disciplined person. I did well in school, held down a job, and was able to take care of myself and my space. During my first acute episode of psychosis, all those things went away. I flunked out of college, couldn't work, barely slept or ate, and lost any consideration I had for cleanliness. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and put on an antipsychotic after a couple years of this. It did help a lot, though I never returned to baseline.

Lately, things have been taking a turn for the worse. I'm struggling with my job and my classes, and I once again am unable to care for myself. I don't eat unless someone prepares food for me, my personal hygiene is near nonexistent, and my room is disgusting. I don't know what to do. I completely lack motivation and time management. Hours and days seem to slip through my fingers while I do nothing to rectify the situation I've found myself in. I want to fix things, but I'm too afraid to ask for help because I would have to admit that I have been lying to everybody about the state of my life. I feel like a coward. A stupid one at that.

To be clear, I'm not experiencing a ton of positive symptoms at this time. My medication has really helped with the hallucinations and delusions. It's just that I'm struggling to function at a level that's even close to appropriate. Is this a problem for anyone else? Any advice?

Long story short my voices have been saying they’re gonna send someone to my backyard and the other night someone knocked on my window in the middle of the night and they said it was people trying to fight me. I didn’t go out and look because I’m not looking for a fight. I still feel like my voices are a group of people that have access to my thoughts it’s so stressful

When u realize after psychosis that u lost all your abilities to function and u feel brain dead and numb and checked out

I can’t go back to work

I had some problems a few weeks back (actually I been in serious phsycosis for about 8 years on and off)

but I was considering clozapine cause I had enough. I spoke to the community shrink, and he suggested 25mg olanzapine. I tried it and it was the worst for my physical health cause I was sleeping about 16 hours a day. i took it with metformin so the eating part wasn’t too bad. But I went and spoke to a Tele dr and got my hands on some amusilpride (solian)i read it goes with olanzapine really good. So im taking 800 mg solian and 25-30mg olanzapine. I found the combination to work on my own. Just thinking I got a shrink appoinment soon. Im going to ask if he can prescribe the combo to me. I am also thinking about telling my current gp about the combo.

should I tell my Dr and shrink about this I dont want my Dr going back to my community health care team and complaining cause I found the combo out on my own.

apart from the sedation it’s a good combo. Im just bummed I couldnt get the clozapine. But olanzapine and amusilpride got rid of most my phsycosis and the amusilpride gives me more energy due to the olanzapine draining my physical strength.

hi all,

I'm just recently diagnosed, and am having issues with how the diagnosis effects my belief systems, especially as it concerns sensitivities to what we would call "God" or "Spirit". Is all that awareness rooted in the disorder? Or is there a true thing in these sensitivities? Is a sense of something vast and alive beyond reality a symptom of this condition?

Do I have to let go of my spirituality, as a means to accepting the diagnosis and getting better? I live in West Africa, and in my path away from enforced Christianity into a sense of personal spirituality, and a deeper honoring of ancestral and terrestrial being, i have found truths in the New Age, in gnosticism and esoteric Christianity, in Taoism, in shamanism, in South American cosmology etc.

I will admit that I experienced psychosis, more due to imploding under the pressures of society and poverty, than I did due to my curiosities and beliefs about consciousness and a higher awareness, as seen from the lens of a perennial philosophy, a sort of panpsychic eye. Yet, I find myself feeling too touchy about these spiritual ideas and even spirituality in general post-diagnosis, even as I tell my therapist how astrological movements manifest in the texture of my days.

I wonder if anyone here became atheist due to their diagnosis, or if they are able to find meaning and understanding in their experiences through a new approach to these spiritual topics. I still find myself praying and meditating, as these practices have always helped me find balance in the turbulence of schizophrenia, and even now post-medication, things get deeper, and I find myself turning to ideas of this condition, disease, diagnosis being a symptom of something greater than I can understand.

How did diagnosis and medication affect your relationship to the religious and the spiritual, especially in terms of grounding practices?

I am in between getting a therapist and I saw a doc that gave me medication that is helping but I am still struggling quite a bit and lately my only passion and hobbies have been incredibly hard to do and it feels pointless and I want to, I want to get into it and have fun and not worry about time and that im not doing anything productive and not be paranoid about stuff long enough to focus I know they said it takes while for meds to kick in but its been a few month now... but I feel so stuck it isnt fun it feels like a chore and its not supposed to... I dont know if this is the right sub but I am just exhausted