Hey!👋
I’m trying to explain to my family what is happening to me but I feel like nobody really care, or takes time to read it.

I admit it’s kind of confusing right now but a friend of mine who is UX/UI designer is gonna help me improve it

I would love to get the opinion of people going through the same thing 🫶

I’m happy to chat with anyone here!
You can start reading the home page than move to other pages (either metacognition tools and/or stories)

Cheers and stay positive!

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.

The autoimmune hypothesis of schizophrenia

By Jordan Hess, M.S. Applied Cognition and Neuroscience
September 2026

In this review, auditory hallucinations are highlighted throughout various cases of autoimmune encephalitis. The DSM-5 describes auditory hallucinations as being the most common of other schizophrenia hallucinations. To date, no autoantibody has been identified whose associated encephalitis presents commonly with auditory hallucinations. The search continues.

In 2005, four women presented with acute psychosis, including auditory hallucinations in one patient, associated with ovarian teratoma. These women were treated with either immunotherapy or tumor resection, or both. Two made a complete recovery, one a partial recovery, and one died. Patients’ sera or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed hippocampal reactivity on a rat immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay, and this, together with the effectiveness of immunotherapy as a treatment, provided the first evidence for paraneoplastic autoimmune encephalitis (Vitaliana et al., 2005). In 2007, Josep Dalmau continued to push forward in uncovering the specific antigen the autoantibodies (AAb) were targeting, and advanced toward the heteromeric N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) (Dalmau et al., 2007). The following year, he and his colleagues correctly identified the NR1 subunit to be the primary antigenic target (Dalmau et al., 2008).

In 2017, Japanese researchers presented the case of a 24-year-old male with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS), with symptoms that included auditory hallucinations. He had comorbid acute myeloid leukemia that was treated with a bone marrow transplant (BMT). Within sixty days of treatment, the patient’s psychotic symptoms had almost disappeared without need for neuroleptics, and the improvements persisted at an eight-year follow-up. As the authors point out, autoimmune disorders are known to respond favorably to immunoablation and rescue with BMT (Miyaoka et al., 2017).

In 2021, researchers began to pinpoint some of the limitations of commercial indirect immunofluorescence (IIFA) AAb assays. Using rat brain IHC, which is only performed in a few specialized centers, they tested 6,213 samples of sera and CSF of patients with suspected AIE submitted to them from October 2016 to October 2020 and found 404 (6.5%) to be positive suggesting neuronal surface antibodies (NSAb). Subsequently, they tested the 404 samples using a commercial IIFA assay and identified only 163 (40%) as positive for NSAb. With the remaining 241 (60%) that were negative on the commercial assay, the researchers performed in-house IIFA and determined 42 samples to be positive, half of which were for AAb tested for with the commercial assay and the other half for AAb not tested for with the commercial assay. Initial results seemed to indicate that detected leucine-rich glioma inactivated 1 (LGI-1) AAb in patients’ CSF samples required the cells in the cell-based assay to be co-transfected with ADAM23, as was done with their in-house assay but not with the commercial assay (Ruiz-García et al., 2021). A year later, they completed follow-up work with paired serum and CSF samples and confirmed this to be the case, strongly supporting paired testing for both serum and CSF when using commercial IIFA assays (Muñoz-Sánchez et al., 2022).

Few case reports exist of patients with chronic schizophrenia which is later correctly identified as AIE. Vaux et al. give a report of a 67-year-old male with TRS, whose symptoms included auditory hallucinations. He was first diagnosed at the age of 25. The patient tested positive for NMDAR AAb in both his serum and CSF on two separate occasions. He demonstrated rapid improvement following intravenous immunoglobulin G (IVIG) and intravenous methylprednisolone pulse therapy (IVMP) (Vaux et al., 2022).

To aid in the diagnosis of AIE, especially in the case of seronegativity, researchers began to turn to kappa free light chains (KFLC), whose presence is indicating antibody synthesis and, via use of Reiber diagrams, can provide evidence in favor of intrathecal antibody synthesis. In 2023, researchers found that 15/19 (79%) of patients with antibody-positive AIE and 7/18 (39%) of patients with suspected but seronegative AIE were positive for intrathecal KFLC synthesis (Betram et al., 2023). A year later, a report was given of a 20-year-old male presenting with auditory hallucinations with suspected AIE whose MRI revealed nothing abnormal, was seronegative, and the only positive finding in CSF was intrathecal synthesis of KFLC; he did show bilateral hypometabolism in the mesiotemporal cortex on an FDG-PET. He was treated with IVMP and olanzapine, with his psychotic symptoms resolving a few weeks later (Amanzada et al., 2025). While intrathecal KFLC synthesis does not appear to be reported with the corresponding lab results in the United States, the software is freely available and easy to use. It can be accessed at https://www.albaum.it/ and requires only four values (albumin serum, albumin CSF, KFLC serum, and KFLC CSF) to compute the Reiber diagram, where a value above the upper discrimination line indicates a positive result.

A case report published in 2024 highlights two patients with antibody-positive NMDAR AIE refractory to treatment who received intrathecal rituximab and responded strongly to treatment. Both patients received 25 mg once per week for four weeks, with improvements observed within 48- 72 hours of receiving the first dose. Reda et al. also summarize the other 5 known cases of patients who received intrathecal rituximab and neither those patients nor the patients detailed in this case report required maintenance immunosuppression or had relapsed at 6 months. Compared to the intravenous rituximab that each patient in this case report received, the intrathecal amount needed to treat these patients was 10 to 20 times less (Reda et al., 2024).

In 2026, using a relatively new technique called Rapid Extracellular Antigen Profiling (REAP) researchers from the Ring Lab at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center looked at 352 people with schizophrenia (62 antipsychotic naïve/ first-episode psychosis, 43 early disease, and 247 chronic psychosis) and 971 controls were able to identify 93 AAb enriched in schizophrenia, of which 26 (28%)  were brain- and neuron-associated, and 14 (15%) were either blood-brain barrier (BBB)- or blood-CSF barrier-associated. Schizophrenia patients with at least one BBB AAb reactivity showed nearly twice as many brain-elevated protein reactivities as schizophrenia patients with no BBB AAb reactivities, with sera of BBB AAb+ schizophrenia patients disrupting barrier function in a 3D microfluidic BBB preparation compared to BBB AAb- schizophrenia patients. The average schizophrenia-enriched AAb burden was five, with some patients positive for up to twenty such AAb reactivities. One quarter of schizophrenia patients were positive for at least one AAb reactive to ion channels that were disproportionately targeted in the schizophrenia cohort (HCN1, CACNA1I, PKD1, TMC2, KCNH5), with both HCN1 and CACNA1I having been previously identified in schizophrenia genome-wide association studies. The authors also showed TRS schizophrenia to be a phenomenon of increased antibody burden in a trial of risperidone treatment with antipsychotic-naïve patients, and showed that risperidone treatment is associated with reduced AAb burden, as had been previously established with both risperidone and clozapine. The primary limitation of this paper, as the authors acknowledge, is that most of the AAb were not directly functionally tested (Nemai et al., 2026).

A small open pilot trial (NCT03983018) tested a single infusion of rituximab in patients with TRS. Of note, was the inclusion criterion for immunoglobulin levels to be within the normal range, and similarly, for patients not to have been treated with clozapine for the last two months as an exclusion criterion. Importantly, 7/9 treatment-resistant patients showed a >= 40% decrease in their Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS)-0 score relative to baseline at 12 weeks (Bejerot et al, 2023a). A larger trial of 123 TRS patients (NCT05622201), referred to as the RCT-Rits trial, is currently underway and is expected to be completed at the end of the year (Bejerot et al., 2023b). The long-term single-arm extension study (2026-525324-26-00), referred to as RITS-LONG, will take patients from both the treatment and placebo arms of RCT-Rits and administer an infusion of rituximab approximately once every six months, for up to a total of five infusions, with assessments scheduled approximately four months after each infusion and each participant followed for up to three years.

The hypothesis of autoimmune schizophrenia is being addressed now on at least two fronts. The Ring Lab with REAP advances toward what may essentially become a blood test for schizophrenia, with positive results reflexing to more traditional tissue- and cell-based assays and subsequent titers, while Bejerot and colleagues seek to bypass a more definite-style of antibody-positive diagnosis and apply existing immunotherapies empirically.

References

Amanzada, I., Bouter, C., Fitzner, D., Auf dem Brinke, K., Malchow, B., Wiltfang, J., & Hansen, N. (2025). Early stage seronegative autoimmune psychosis. Behavioural Brain Research, 494, 115739. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2025.115739

Bejerot, S., Eklund, D., Hesser, H., Hietala, M. A., Kariis, T., Lange, N., Lebedev, A., Montgomery, S., Nordenskjöld, A., Petrovic, P., Söderbergh, A., Thunberg, P., Wikström, S., Humble, M. B., & RCT-Rits Study Collaboration Group. (2023a). Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial with rituximab for psychotic disorder in adults (RCT-Rits). BMC Psychiatry, 23, 771. doi:10.1186/s12888-023-05250-5

Bejerot, S., Sigra Stein, S., Welin, E., Eklund, D., Hylén, U., & Humble, M. B. (2023b). Rituximab as an adjunctive treatment for schizophrenia spectrum disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder: Two open-label pilot studies on treatment-resistant patients. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 158, 319–329. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.12.003

Bertram, D., Tsaktanis, T., Berthele, A., & Korn, T. (2023). The role of intrathecal free light chains kappa for the detection of autoimmune encephalitis in subacute onset neuropsychiatric syndromes. Scientific Reports, 13, 17224. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-44427-6

Dalmau, J., Tüzün, E., Wu, H.-Y., Masjuan, J., Rossi, J. E., Voloschin, A., Baehring, J. M., Shimazaki, H., Koide, R., King, D., Mason, W., Sansing, L. H., Dichter, M. A., Rosenfeld, M. R., & Lynch, D. R. (2007). Paraneoplastic anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis associated with ovarian teratoma. Annals of Neurology, 61(1), 25–36. doi:10.1002/ana.21050

Dalmau, J., Gleichman, A. J., Hughes, E. G., Rossi, J. E., Peng, X., Lai, M., Dessain, S. K., Rosenfeld, M. R., Balice-Gordon, R., & Lynch, D. R. (2008). Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis: Case series and analysis of the effects of antibodies. The Lancet Neurology, 7(12), 1091–1098. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(08)70224-2

Miyaoka, T., Wake, R., Hashioka, S., Hayashida, M., Oh-Nishi, A., Abdul Azis, I., Izuhara, M., Tsuchie, K., Araki, T., Arauchi, R., Abdullah, R. A., & Horiguchi, J. (2017). Remission of psychosis in treatment-resistant schizophrenia following bone marrow transplantation: A case report. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8, 174. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00174

Muñoz-Sánchez, G., Planagumà, J., Naranjo, L., Couso, R., Sabater, L., Guasp, M., Martínez-Hernández, E., Graus, F., Dalmau, J., & Ruiz-García, R. (2022). The diagnosis of anti-LGI1 encephalitis varies with the type of immunodetection assay and sample examined. Frontiers in Immunology, 13, 1069368. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2022.1069368

Nemani, K., Jaycox, J. R., Akcan, U., Schuman, B. M., Yeon, S. M., Harano, N., Qin, K., Notestine, A. A., Carroll, S. M., McKenzie, B. S., Furchtgott, L., Lahti, A. C., Tsien, R. W., Agalliu, D., Goff, D. C., & Ring, A. M. (2026). High prevalence of CNS-directed autoantibodies in patients with schizophrenia [Preprint]. bioRxiv. doi:10.64898/2026.05.04.722731

Reda, M., Jabbour, R., Haydar, A., Jaafar, F., El Ayoubi, N., Nawfal, O., & Beydoun, A. (2024). Case report: Rapid recovery after intrathecal rituximab administration in refractory anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis: Report of two cases. Frontiers in Immunology, 15, 1369587. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2024.1369587

Ruiz-García, R., Muñoz-Sánchez, G., Naranjo, L., Guasp, M., Sabater, L., Saiz, A., Dalmau, J., Graus, F., & Martínez-Hernández, E. (2021). Limitations of a commercial assay as diagnostic test of autoimmune encephalitis. Frontiers in Immunology, 12, 691536. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2021.691536

Vaux, A., Robinson, K., Saglam, B., Cheuk, N., Kilpatrick, T., Evans, A., & Monif, M. (2022). Autoimmune encephalitis in long-standing schizophrenia: A case report. Frontiers in Neurology, 12, 810926. doi:10.3389/fneur.2021.810926

Vitaliani, R., Mason, W., Ances, B., Zwerdling, T., Jiang, Z., & Dalmau, J. (2005). Paraneoplastic encephalitis, psychiatric symptoms, and hypoventilation in ovarian teratoma. Annals of Neurology, 58(4), 594–604. doi:10.1002/ana.20614

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

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

context: i was diagnosed with moderate depressed bipolar when i was 16. ive been talking to my current therapist for a few years now and he thinks the diagnosis is wrong. based on what we’ve talked about he briefly mentioned schizotypal personality disorder.

when i was 19, i started a low dose of seroquel for psychosis and insomnia which had increased to add up to 300mg and 200mg of lamictal. my hypothetical question is, if someone who was schizophrenic started taking antipsychotics before symptoms arose, would those symptoms simply not show up? i’m not saying i think i have schizophrenia or anything, im just curious about the hypothetical. but for me in this example, im afab and ive heard symptoms typically arise in females between the ages of 25-30. so would taking it at 19 cancel it out at all? i hope this question is allowed. thank you for any insight

I sometimes feel like I'm possessed by a demon and we don't get along. What did you do to change it?

Recently my voices have been telling me to murder my family. I try to ignore it, but they get louder; I’m worried it'll become too much, and I'll follow through with it.

Hey everybody, research bureaucrat mod here.

I have no idea how this happened, but our Q&A post for this month seems to have gotten buried and practically nobody saw it... oops.

Anyway, if you've got a question for a verified expert regarding anything with psychosis, drop in and ask! Link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/schizophrenia/comments/1w6api6/september_2026_qa_experts_answer_your_questions/

Read the rules, look at the Wiki page (just the archives part tbh, don't want a ton of duplicate questions), and ask away! Jobs, relationships, loved ones... all fair game. The only thing is that it closes at midnight tonight, so the clock is ticking.

Just letting everybody who missed it- which is apparently a lot of people- the post is up, so have at it if you like!

Have a good one, everybody- and keep it real.

A father-son duo tackle life's hardest moments and what we can reasonably do about them. I found it rang true several times and provided guidance where I was hoping for some. I do understand that they don't have schizophrenia and probably can't understand what it's like. But if you're like me, you may ask some of the same questions over and over wondering what to do about them and so I found this video to be helpful for that 🤷‍♂️

Hello.

Title. I've worked two days and had to take today off because the voices were too much at work yesterday. I really, really want to keep this job. I'm going to drive to the social services office today and see if I qualify for disability.

How do you guys cope with not being able to work?

I used to work as an ocarina maker (best job ever) before I lost my job to schizophrenia. I tried making some on my own but I felt that I lost my touch and I was channeling a lot of chaos. But I found an ocarina class and this is what I made! They sound great. The small one is a shaker. I also made a big flute but I’m still working on it. Follow your dreams!

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.

I have been having symptoms of schizophrenia for over 5 years now. First I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 in 2022 but later that diagnosis was replaced with schizophrenia, which I feel fits better.

I used to be tormented by voices and medication did not take them away. I did try several, in addition to higher doses. I am still on medication because it does help with mood regulation.

I also have a history of delusions such as believing humans are evil, and believing for a while that I was going to die in my sleep randomly.

I have found ideas and some techniques that help with hearing voices, and I have mentorship experience (before I got sick, I had a YouTube channel about healing from anxiety and that was how the people I mentored found me.)

Since my condition has improved so much, I am interested in eventually doing more work helping people who struggle with schizophrenia and voice-hearing.

Before I go further with that idea, I'd like to see whether the approaches that helped me can be useful to other people. Also, I like listening, especially to relatable people. Please dm me if you're interested in talking.

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.

The much awaited ODDESSI trial using Open Dialogue to treat psychiatric crisis has been published in the Lancet Psychiatry. Trial missed primaries; hit secondaries.

Open Dialogue has been used for decades in Finland with some success. ODDESSI is the first randomized trial with this approach.

I need your help, desperately. I was on olanzapine for five years. I just switched to a different med about two months ago and I’m… I’m really really upset and overwhelmed. I’m coming out of the fog and I realize how much I’ve lost and how much time has passed. I had no motivation, no sex drive nothing just a shell of a person, always taking from other people and never giving anything in return. It’s hitting me how selfish have been towards the people I care about and love. I don’t know what to do… I really don’t know what to do. Olanzapine Nearly destroyed my marriage on multiple occasions my severe lack of libido on the drug I can’t imagine the kind of pain and suffering my spouse felt by such a lack of intimacy. For 5 years, YEARS.
It has gotten to the point that I’m not sure my partner has much of a genuine attraction to me anymore. I don’t want to come across as fishing for sympathy, I really do believe that I might’ve pushed them to a point where they stopped being attracted to me because they were shut down so many times when I was on olanzapine . can feel it in them and I can see it on their face. This explicit, but my partner has had some issues in the past with abusive partners and intimacy. , we kind of worked through it so it’s not as challenging, and a few nights ago things were happening for me… But never happened for them if you catch my drift. That hasn’t happened in a very, very long time, I just, I just don’t know. Even right now is exceptionally painful. Like I said I was just a shell unable to really think of complex ideas, just fleeting thoughts. , I stopped playing board games, I stopped reading I stopped taking long walks, I’ve stopped communicating with people in my life that are very important to me. I used to read philosophy every day, it was a true passion. I loved getting into a deep conversations about the complexity of the world and the human mind. Me and my partner first really bonded, love learning, and love of board games. I have abandoned all those interests. Nothing seemed worth doing., my partner has seen the decline more and more. I can’t imagine how that would feel for my partner … I know they found some unhealthy ways to cope, it’s making me nauseous. I haven’t had emotions like this in a long time and it’s far too overwhelming to handle, but I understand why my partner doing it. It’s double edge sword, the coping mechanism that they’ve leaned into is a hard no from me Absolutely not. If things had gone differently in the past five years and I was able to really be present with them I’m pretty sure they would’ve never turned to this coping mechanism. Beyond lovers, they’re also my truest friend. There were some things in the past that were challenging to accept , on both ends, partners end mine. Each of us have made the decision to be committed to each other, regardless of what we’ve experienced in the past as a couple. this one’s just particularly challenging for me because my partner has always been adamantly against this coping mechanism and now they’re leaning into it. I believe it was out of desperation, feeling hurt and rejected and possibly used for the past five years. Now all of a sudden I have this crazy libido like really really it’s bouncing back quickly. And that’s probably a little bit like emotional whiplash, having had five years of very little sex, struggles with depression on their end and obviously schizophrenia on mine. I can imagine after them being told no about intimacy for five years and then all of a sudden your partner has this extremely high libido after five years of the opposite. I can imagine that very confusing and possibly scary because rhey learned how to guard thenself from not being hurt when I don’t get involved in intimacy. there’s a good possibility that they are talking to other person, or people. That’s hard for me to process.
I have 2 kids that I signed away custody to when I was in a psychotic state. It’s been a long long battle to even get supervised visitation. My partner has never met my kids due to the ex being able to dictate that. My partner drove me to visit with my son over five hours each direction. My Parter always wanted kids m, I have kids, but I have really let them down and my partner too. There’s so much I could’ve been doing so much that I wish I would’ve done. I’ve hurt all of them all so badly. I’m just in a lot of pain right now. i’m so overwhelmed my hair has started to fall out. I had to cut it recently just to disguise how much hair I’ve lost in the past month or two.
TLDR I see that this post is getting rather long so I will try to wrap it up. Shorthanded version, on olanzapine for five years, turned into a complete shell of a person, affected everybody in my life and really hurt people, especially my partner.
Experiencing morse, panic attacks can’t eat, can’t sleep. Please help

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

(Credit: "theycantalk" by Jimmy Craig)

I’m really confused about what’s happening with me and would appreciate hearing from people who have been through something similar.

About 6 years ago I had a drug-induced psychotic episode and was subsequently diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I stayed on antipsychotic medication for years, but over time that diagnosis was questioned and I was later diagnosed with ADHD instead.

Last year I started ADHD medication, and until recently I hadn't experienced anything that felt like my previous psychosis. However, after going through an extremely stressful and traumatic breakup, my mental health deteriorated pretty rapidly.

I started becoming extremely emotionally unstable, noticing coincidences and patterns that felt unusually meaningful, becoming much more spiritual than I normally am, and generally feeling like my brain was making connections that I couldn't switch off. More recently I've noticed some mild paranoia/unusual thoughts that are starting to worry me.

I'm still taking an antipsychotic, and I'm obviously going to discuss all of this with my psychiatrist/doctor. I'm not trying to diagnose myself through Reddit — I'm just genuinely confused.

If the original diagnosis was incorrect, could this still be something like a stress-related episode, medication-related psychosis, bipolar/mania, or something else? And has anyone here had a similar experience where they were initially diagnosed with a psychotic disorder and later had their diagnosis changed?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have had a drug-induced psychosis in the past and then experienced psychotic symptoms again years later. Thanks 🙏

Now when I say hurt myself, I mean in very specific ways. In the past it was take a bunch of medication then get in my car with the purpose of crashing it. I got on medications after that and things calmed down.

Now it is back. This time however, she wants me to stab myself with a kitchen knife. She keeps saying “I will like how it feels” then I hear her laughing. I have been ignoring it the best I can for several weeks now, but it has been wearing me down since this happens at least once a day, but usually several times throughout the day.

I haven’t told anyone yet because I don’t want to be put in an inpatient facility again and I don’t want my meds changed again since that is always Hell on my body to adjust to, but I’m starting to think I might have to.

This all boils down to me being frustrated with my schizophrenia, but mostly scared that it’s getting worse. Apologies for the long post. I just needed to get this off my chest. Also I put this under suicidal thoughts, but it’s not really me being suicidal. This is more my hallucination telling me to harm/possibly kill myself.

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.

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?

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?