When I first got psychosis I was told that it was a good sign I had good insight into my symptoms and that most people with sz/psychosis are so into their own world of delusions and so cognitively impaired that they don’t even know they are going theough psychosis until someone tells them.
What I’m wondering is if most people on this forum have less severe sz or are higher functioning because it seems like most of you have good insight into your symptoms and are functioning cognitively pretty well considering you made it to this forum and are formulating your thoughts well into posts on this site. Most of you just seem so organized with your thinking and insight based off of posts and comments I’ve read.
I used to have no insight into my situation for months, that was until my hallucinations and paranoia, but after that I still had several delusions that I had no idea about some I did, but we are all treatment compliant. So yes now we are high functioning, because we stopped the illness in its tracks
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia 34 years ago, have lived in group homes and an ALF, and it’s my opinion that everyone on this website is high functioning.
To participate on this website requires the ability to read a reply (or start your own thread), comprehend the reply, and have the ability to reason your own reply.
My considerable experience with other people with schizophrenia leads me to believe that most of these people could not do it.
Not all people with sz have low IQ. Some even have high IQ’s like John Nash. He was brilliant, but at times was not functioning well. He was totally out of it - gone from reality. I think a medium functioning sz could handle this site. Probably not low functioning though.
I’ve been told by both my therapist and pdoc that I’m high functioning. I still struggle with depression and blunted emotions and some hallucinations but I stay med compliant and watch the stress levels so I can stay high functioning. It’s truly a blessing to be HF.
I had partial insight when I was psychotic, and the more severe it got the less insight I had. I’m on medication and since my dose has been increased I haven’t had positive symptoms on meds. I think I have very good verbal ability generally. If I have cognitive deficits, it’s in other areas. It still makes me kind of uncomfortable being on this forum, because I am very concerned about internet privacy.
I think functioning levels involves a lot of different criteria . Some people may be high functioning in all ways, but most people fluctuate as to how well they function.
I agree with this statement. I was always med compliant but when I’m in psychosis I loose insight. I have had relapses whilst on meds and my functioning take a tumble each I relapse.
It’s one thing to say that the ability to write well about my illness and give insight into it is a sign of higher functioning. I can often do that. But if we talk about how I function in society compared to “normal” people then there’s no comparison. They do much better than I do. So I’m not higher.functioning really.
Almost everyone here is at least mid-functioning ranging to high-functioning. If you go to the family side of the discussion community and read the posts there, you’ll see that what family and caregivers experience is mostly different than what you see here, except from a few floridly ill posters.
