This wouldn’t be possible for me; I was in a deep psychotic state for a number of years, and I had 6 hospitalizations. Without the meds, I would have died.
If your multi episodic it’s meds for life or till cure.
If your not on meds then good luck to you but you’d be interested in diagnosis. With things being so long there’s issues with street drugs and what you’d call intermittent psychosis. It might not necessarily be schizophrenia but I reckon it is a spectrum.
If you ever recover from schizophrenia, here’s what will happen after you’ve been recovered without meds for like 5 years. The pdoc will likely rediagnose you not schizophrenic and possibly just residual sz or maybe they will just change it to something else because you recovered.
There is a very small minority group of sz that do recover without meds but it’s a very small percentage of them.
And also recovery means different things for different people.
Diagnoses are very maleable as you go through life and also vary from pdoc to pdoc too.
One might say your bipolar another may say sz affective, another might say its DID, another borderline another sz undifferentiated another paranoid sz. And on it goes.
One thing my pdoc told me is that she has 2 types of patients. Ones that take there meds everyday religiously.
And the other type is the risk taking type that accepts that they may end up in the hospital as a possibility for not being on aps everyday.
She put me in the risk taking category. I’m ok with it I’ve managed for years like that. But I do have aps as a prn and other meds as prn if necessary. So I still have safeguards in place and other therapies/treatments
It’s not like I think that there aren’t any schizophrenics walking around who don’t need meds. I’m sure some do, but what I’m saying is that, if you don’t need meds to control your psychosis, then I’d more readily believe that you had a different disorder. Psychosis isn’t unique to schizophrenia, but generally, schizophrenic psychosis is much more severe than say psychosis from depression (based on what I’ve read about the subject; I’m not perfect). Schizophrenic psychosis destroys our brains, oftentimes permanently. In my opinion, trying to live with an illness as unpredictable as schizophrenia while unmedicated is very dangerous because you can slowly get very sick an be none the wiser.
Some valid points made here for both sides of the argument but iam personally on the lowest dose of Lurasidone Pysch can put be on and iam defo SZ as my one and only severe episode was horrific and was sectioned for a month 9 years ago.But tbh I have been positive syptom free for almost 9 years,and I would class myself as High-Functioning tbh.
dun define urself high-functioning if u can’t hold a job, u may think u are well just because u r low-fuctioning without meds. i dun think it is possible to be high funtioning without meds tbh
I had a remission in 2007 and stayed five years off meds. I thought it would be forever off meds but my sza came back in 2012 and been on meds ever since. I don’t know if I can come off them again.
To be fair it’s not necessarily anti meds to see whether some people can manage without meds. The issue is the motivation of some, but not all, in exaggerating the number of people who successfully stop their antipsychotic medication. These people claim to be champions of patients’ welfare , but are anything but.
@schizophrenick Hope you weren’t talking about me I run my own Ebay Uk Businees Part Time, and iam in the process of looking for a 2nd job aswell.Iam well enough to do both Bud!
I’m 52 and still struggling. No meds. Diagnosed after many many years of suffering tell-tale symptoms. It did not seek this diagnosis. I sought help.
Unless you’re an imminent, visible, danger to yourself and/or others, as observed by a professional, they can’t force you to take medication. I have been recommended and refused medication many times.
Staying informed is really important for doctors and patients alike so that treatment methods are the best suited to each person. Schizophrenia, so horribly misunderstood and mistreated for so long, is understood to be a spectrum disorder, much like Autism. To treat one person at one end of the spectrum the same as a person at the other end of the spectrum would be a mistake.
I have had other forms of help and management, such as CBT. It certainly would be unrealistic to think it’s possible to manage and improve alone. I’d be dead now if I had done that.
If you can manage without meds you are likely to have less cognitive difficulties and negative symptoms than the average person with schizophrenia . That doesn’t negate you being a person with schizophrenia , but does mean you are less impaired by your illness.