I struggle day to day with keeping up cleaning house and doing chores. Everything is an effort. I struggle to dress every day and keep my pyjamas on all day, and struggle to shower unless it is an Islamic ritual bath, I even struggle to brush my teeth every night. I told my husband about this and he said its not part of the illness as I explained, but laziness. He claims he is lazy too, so I am lazy because I struggle with motivation to do things every day. He says I have lack of motivation to do certain things I dislike like driving, because I was spoilt when I grew up. I feel confused. Maybe the voices were right and I am a liar and a hypocrite. Am I really being lazy do you think - or is it really part of the illness? What is the difference between laziness and negative symptoms?
I remember that you take Amisulpride 400mg. I take Amisulpride 250mg. Amisulpride makes me easily tired so I have not enough energy to do housework. I don’t lack motivation as I love my home and want to keep it clean and tidy but I lack the energy. I cook and clean the kitchen everyday. This a little housework would be just what I can take.
Lazy people that do not have schizophrenia or SZA, avoid work - they do not usually struggle to brush their teeth or take a shower or brush their hair. You most likely have negative symptoms from schizophrenia, or depression or the meds are sedating you. I struggle to get going, and I do blame all three - depression, negative symptoms and the meds.
For me I do not know if it is the negative symptoms, I do know that I am frequently depressed, and my meds are sedating.
Keep reminding yourself that you are not lazy - Lazy people avoid work and chores because they want to make things easy for themselves - On the other hand I am sure you want to do a lot but you find it difficult to maintain some motivation - there is a difference
I think this may describe the difference. I would look at laziness as a choice to not do something whereas negative symptoms don’t seem to offer much of a choice. Having the ability or energy or motivation to do something but not doing it even though you can do it, is a choice or laziness. Wanting to do something yet finding that something is holding you back that you can’t seem to control or fight against… I don’t have negative symptoms so I don’t know if that makes sense or not.
Yes it does make sense 
It is your meds and the illness making you feel lazy. I am drinking an energy drink right now to have enough energy just to stay awake. Your husband needs to learn more about your illness and side effects of your medications. I feel lazy without lots of caffeine. I suggest drinking very strong coffee 2-3 times a day.
You wrote here and asked for help - it’s obvious that you are not lazy but you are struggling with negative symptoms. I am too. So today I asked for help from my mother-in-law regarding my house and cleaning it, and she said she would help me. I said “I don’t care if you think I am lazy, I explained what negative symptoms are, I won’t come back to that explanation ever. But call me lazy all you will, but help me with this house.” She agreed. I plan to let her lead the cleaning spree and just do whatever she tells me to do. I can’t clean my house but I can follow orders, due to my medication. So having someone work with me to get to the end of this will motivate me.
What is your strategy to do all the chores you seem to actually be doing despite your negative symptoms? I couldn’t find a better one than the one I just described. Please let me know how you do it… 
You are not being lazy. I say that it’s because you have a lot of time on your hands and you are overwhelmed…that’s what I think it is anyways. When I wake up in the morning it’s like…wow, another long day of nothing to do then I start trying to “get a little busy” with getting chores done early while I’ve still got the energy then just relax with a cup of coffee and listen to music. sometimes when my girlfriend is around I will play guitar or banjo. I usually only play the banjo when I’m alone. I just try and do things other than just sitting…that’s depressing to me.
Thanks for your replies, it cleared things up nicely for me. I recognise my problem as negative symptoms not laziness, because I want to clean my house and take care of myself, but something stops me that I can’t explain, except to say is like a foggy hazy emptiness.
I don’t have any strategy. Long time ago I divided the chores up for each day on a timetable, but later stopped following it out of lack of motivation. When I do a chore it is because I see the house has become very noticeably dirty, or my husband comments on the dirty basin or complains he needs underwear laundered. Then I have to do it because it has gone too far.
Haha , it happened to me too. But I tend to take care that my hubby has clean clothes to go to work with and that my son is well taken care of.
It scares me most that I’m not yet able to cook for my son. Soon it will become a problem if don’t do something about it. I’ll have to get some support for that too, but I’m sure it will be ok, in the end. I have faith in humanity and will use my social abilities (as many as I have) to compensate for my avolition.
It is part of psychoanilytic doctrine that sz is accompanied with negative symptoms we might call laziness. I have a hard time brushing my teeth too.
I am not sure whether mine is laziness or not. What i do know is i get overwhelmed thinking about tasks especially if a certain amount of organisation and planning is involved. I find it hard to break things down into small parts. For me it’s as much, or more, a case of mental lethargy .
Re brushing teeth(what’s left of them)- that’s always been a problem. More often than not it doesn’t even cross my mind to brush them.
I thought a lot of what you said, about your questions, and it helped me make a decision I was avoiding for a long time.
I called my mother-in-law and told her: this and that is called a negative symptom, I am a sick person and I need help. Call me lazy if you will, but help me. She burst into tears and told me she was waiting ofr this moment for a long time, that I have no idea of what she is capable of, that se changet her perspective a lot having me and my brother-in-law’s girlfirend both SZ and in pain.
I’m very anxious about what will happen, but I’m sure it will turn out well. I took a benzodiazepine for my anxiety and it worked well, my husband was a bit dissatisfied that I called his mother, but he just got over it.
Tommorrow she will be by my house. I am looking forward to it. I hope we’ll be ok. I hope I’ll learn to clean the house more regularly with her and my aunt’s help.
Fingers crossed.
So we’re clear it’s not “laziness”. Can you find anyone who can team up with you? What you do is, you agree on a day, say Thursday, and one week you go to her house and clean the place together. The next week, she comes to yours and you clean it together. That way you spend one day a week cleaning, your own house gets thoroughly cleaned once very two weeks (and that’s more than most people’s). And you have lunch and a couple of breaks together. The whole thing becomes fun and more sociable, but not the kind of sociable where you sit around gossiping, which is very negative, but productive sociable. Keeping the place clean in between only takes a few minutes a day. And you feel much better.