I am not,I hope, unintelligent. However at times I have difficulty co-ordinating my thoughts . It’s like there’s a mass of wires all tangled up in my brain .
Sometimes it’s easy to post and other times it’s so hard to structure a coherent reply to something. The desire is there but it just won’t come together in a well constructed and thought out manner.
I put this down to executive functioning difficulties.
When my brain is struggling to gather my thoughts then often anxiety comes to the fore and a feeling of being mentally overwhelmed.
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I have cognitive dysfunction!!! …and anxiety as well…
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My cognition is messed up as well, but its cuz of valproate side effect - Im not able to speak a sentence properly, half way through the sentence i forget and get confused what i was trying to say. Theres alot of word salad. Sometimes while speaking my mind suddenly becomes blank and i stop speaking. Im going to reduce valproate dose.
Other problem i have is with executive functioning. I have very tough time understanding what people say to me. I’m not deaf. They speak the same sentence multiple times, and i still dont understand it. I can understand written text though. My attention skills, short term and working memory is also messed up
I’ve been thinking about adding low dose abilify like 5mg to enhance my cognition. Low dose Modafinil is also another option but it might worsen psychosis. Cant touch stimulants though.
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Thanks for replying @clinic and @far_cry0 . I have posted this on several forums and yours are the only replies. Sometimes I think I just have this knack for posting stuff hardly anyone is interested in.
According to Promethease the snp RS 4680 AA means I would have little or no response to Modafinil .
I’m on Depakote too and although it’s an effective med it’s turning me into a Zombie!
Always tired and zoned out!
I’m afraid to lower the dose.
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Any suitable alternatives?
No suitable alternatives at the moment.
I will bring it up with my psychiatrist.
Why don’t you take a couple classes or something, do something which draws upon your intelligence. I’m taking online classes at community college and my cognition can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. I find breaking things up into smaller chunks helps, do something small everyday rather than something big all at once. My cognition fluctuates and i can’t control it, my long term and working memory is currently sub-par, luckily i haven’t any tests recently. last semester my cognition was perfect, not preschizophrenic, but much better than it has been this semester.
Try going from a 20 year old guy with a iq of 125 studying information technology to a schizophrenic in a matter of 4 months and loosing a lot of cognition absolutely evil
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The severe social anxiety
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The fear and likelihood I’d be setting myself up for failure without prior help and recognition for those cognitive problems
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Sorry to hear about that.
But you can always go to school with a learning assistant. Mine was unreliable and I dropped out, but I wish I could have continued my studies.
I’ll probably be going to church tomorrow, so it’s an early night for me.
I am not even sure we have them for older adults in the UK(I’m 60). If we did I reckon you’d have to have an officially recognised learning difficulty.
I, in all probability have learning difficulties. However I come from a generation where if you were above average intelligence the idea of you have such difficulties was very much dismissed.
Hence no official confirmation.
The nearest I got to things being recognised was my prep school headmaster writing to my public school headmaster saying I was not very well coordinated and had problems with drawing and writing.
My public school report said I was disorganised and messy. Nowadays that would be a red flag for executive functioning problems but back then in the 70s it wasn’t. It was merely a blot on your academic record and something for teachers to pull you up on.
It’s a lot different nowadays, from what I know, but still far from perfect. If it was seen that you have spatial(or for others verbal) deficits, problems with executive functioning and slow processing speed,as I do, then those things would be flagged up for extra help and support.
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The deficits you are dealing with shouldn’t be an issue in most fields of study, unless you are doing geometry or physics or something like that you should be fine. Choose something where your intelligence (verbal intelligence and so on) is accentuated. If you can memorize facts or formulas and reproduce them on an exam you will do fine.
I know exactly how you feel.
I try to make sense, sometimes but my mind is just a jumbled mess. It takes me so long to write posts too, sometimes.
@eduvigis If you think executive functioning difficulties have no bearing on this then you are mistaken.
I actually contacted a doctor in the UK that worked at Cambridge about rTMS therapy. He didn’t provide much honestly just directed me to a website and went about his day.
Proper assmunch he was.
If you have schizophrenia you deserve a learning assistant, plain and simple.
I have paranoid personality disorder. It can involve psychosis but not as much as with schizophrenia.
Well I hope you don’t hallucinate too much. I’m off to get a ciggy (newport 100 cigarette). I only smoke cigars once in awhile even though I prefer them over cigarettes…go figure.