Hi, so I’ve been out of hospital since 2008, but I still have these little hiccups every day.
Does anyone freeze for more than a few seconds or longer while doing something (i.e. walking, talking, doing an activity) and then blank out for a period of time feeling nothing, and then snap back to the present…even after like a decade on anti-psychotics? Can’t tell if it’s chronic ptsd or catatonic behavior.
any tips for snapping out of it? i will mention it to my pdoc but how do you all cope with these moments? how often is worrisome? I do it like once an hour or every two hours. I never mentioned it because I forgot to be honest and when I noticed it I used to tell myself it wasn’t a big deal.
I experience severe catatonia when in an episode. My tips for snapping out of it are just to focus really hard on waking up basically. That’s all you can do. Also Ativan. It can be really helpful for catatonia oddly enough (it’s the first line treatment) but for me it didn’t work too well because as I said I had the more extreme form. Talk to your doctor about it.
okay i will mention it, thanks!
I will also ask about ativan.
i’ve been getting worried lately because I have this bad habit of snapping in and out it while walking and I’m standing there staring at my mp3 player like in the street sometimes, most likely for under 3 seconds, but that freaks me out.
It would be neat if someone made like a bracelet that vibrates and beeps and could tell when your brainwave went into catatonia mode and just started beeping and vibrating right away. @szadmin can your affiliates fund something like this? Anti-catatonia beeping vibrating bracelet idea, I mean.
I get the memory loss moments. It is word/phrase comes to mind, immediately taken away. Better to use lists. Usually just fine without forgetting any bills, appointments, etc. Worked in life/death jobs…Sometimes it is just a DUH moment for us when not paying attention or doing something boring/repetitive. The voices can be SO monotonous. I think it’s just how it goes…Can do some exercises so you can concentrate okay enough. Like, you can probably handle driving if you ever learned…Read magazine shorts, video games, cook a little basic stuff, TV & review it in your head a little after. When voices first started for me, could not read book chapters for 2 years+ but okay enough now. Has been LONG time, worked PT in terribly stressful stuff, lived alone, yard work/maintenance, socialized, school but local area has become VERY hard on women so could not live alone any longer. So pestered by crazy strangers, got screwed by males at work and no unemployment for FT people, bad discrimination started at colleges too. So, working on leaving, sold house, no work, not much socializing after got thrown out of 3 business networking events in same day…(This place has established problem and lots of stories so kind of have clue how to handle stuff as this place is nothing more than a big crap any more.) Women who wanted to stay needed to get relationship to keep area problems off, or live with relatives who are home a lot as mine are almost retired.
I experience disassociation sometimes. I’ve had a tendency for it my whole life, when I was a little kid, even, if I was startled badly enough I would outright faint. Some childhood conditioning made it worse. It’s interesting how one haywire thing can be used to cope for another haywire thing, all inside the same mind. I disassociate a lot when I become symptomatic but know that I am becoming symptomatic, whatever that phase would be called. I notice it mostly in conversations, when I suddenly realize I have no idea what the other person just said or what it is going on, or how much time has passed (but it turns out to be maybe 30 seconds at most). I’ve been told I just stare blankly and don’t look quite right / all there. Not sure how similar that experience is to what you have described? Because I know that olanzapine did not make it better, made it worse, actually.
I had catatonia in the hospital. First 4 days I just lay in bed staring at the wall. Don’t remember eating or drinking. Don’t remember that my husband was there every day to check on me.
Yes, this is what happens! I’m horrible at staying focused during a conversation. Even when I’m talking, I’ll just forget what I was saying and poof! space cadet and then I’ll have to admit that I have no idea what I was saying…or even what the topic is that we were discussing.
Also, I snap in and out while I’m taking a walk.
Olanzapine is zyprexa, right? I took that of and on for several years…right now my symptoms are pretty bad and I’m on Abilify, prozac, lamictal, and busperone (anti-anxiety).
Last pdoc I saw wanted me to try Abilify, but I was terrified of it after reading that a common side effect was increased restlessness/agitation. So she went with olanzapine, and it made me a lot worse cognitively, there was no way I could have held down a job on that medication. Not really sure what I am hoping to try next, if anything.
Hi! I was on olanzapine off and on and it definitely made me cognitively foggy headed.
I went to university on abilify and graduated, something I couldn’t do on zyprexa. Abilify is great for positive symptoms, for me anyways. I take a lot of walks for an hour at a time, sometimes twice a day. That helps with the restlessness feeling. Listen to my mp3 player while taking a leisurely stroll through the neighborhoods. Gets out the jitters and the agitation.
I also liked seroquel, but it took me a month to get over that zombified state from switching meds…after the month though i could think and problem solve math questions (and I’m horrible at math, kept failing pre-calculus).
I sometimes find myself forgetting what I am doing when I am in the middle of doing something. I have to take a few seconds to remember what I’m doing. It scares me a little bit. I take it for signs of alzheimer’s. Also, I will often forget a word or a name for something that I should know, like a town, a store, an illness, etc. It can take a few hours of pondering to remember it. I often have to ask someone else - like, I ask someone, “What’s the name of that grocery store down by Long John Silver’s that’s kind of expensive?” The person I ask almost always knows, and it is a relief to remember it.
Geodon and Seroquel have helped me. They don’t interfere with my cognitive processes at all, and they do control my symptoms. They don’t work for everyone, but you might give them a try.
Is it okay to leave a quick comment here, despite being originally posted months ago? I’m new to this site so seeing some topics for the first time.
I just wanted to say/write I relate to this sort of disconnection. Strange mental pauses. Can happen and I may not realize it’s happening, also. Particular in conversation that must last 5 minutes, like at an appointment. Suddenly, all sorts of stuff happens and I may not even realize everything that’s going on that clearly displays a truly defined textbook definition of schizophrenia.
It can make me appear to look like a “statue.” Kind of hard to explain.
Anyhow, the Seroquel I take definitely does nothing to help this sort of thing. That just helps me concentrate better. The SZ is like 100% maxed in my particular case and thus permanent. It’s cool, though. I love living in isolation.