Before I become fluidly psychotic I felt a deep sense of detachment which I brought up with my pdoc. I thought it was the meds. Even thought I wasn’t totally psychotic at that point my pdoc wanted to increase my invega from 75mg to 100mg. After the increase I feel good again. Do you think the detachment is normal when somebody is going into a psychotic episode? Do you think my pdoc knew I was heading that way because of the paranoia and detachment?
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Glad you’re feeling good again. Sounds like your doctor is on the ball.
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For me detachment, dissociating and derealization is a big warning sign that I’m not doing good. Usually my psychosis gets a lot worse after that.
I don’t dissociate unless I’m doing very badly, and in the recent year, it has usually resulted in me going to the hospital. I guess it’s because I now know it’s a warning sign that worse things are happening, and that I’m just trying to protect myself from it.
Is derealisation a separate DX than schizoaffective disorder or are both intwined? Meaning is derealisation apart of the SZA or are they different things?
@bobbilly honestly it’s a mystery to me. I haven’t gotten far enough with my pdoc that he tells me what symptom is from what MI. I wish, it would make things easier for me to sort out.
I did however just get a new diagnoses of BPD. This apparently has a lot of derealization and such so for now I’ll just attribute it to that, even though I don’t necessarily agree with this diagnoses.
I’ve experinced derealization since I was around 15, 16. It was almost always accompanied by psychosis.
Yes a lot of times my psychosis begins w feelings of detachment. Something won’t feel quite right. I start feeling like I’m not supposed to be here, not supposed to be in this body, etc, and things start spiraling from there.
My first Dx was BPD. The first time I used mental health services and going through a bad depressive cycle (didn’t know it was a cycle then) I told the pdoc I felt empty inside and she then Dx’ed with BPD. It took 3 years after many very manic and depressive episodes plus the psychosis outside of the mood element for that Dx to be taken off my record. I don’t want to put you on a downer but here in the U.K mental health system being Dx’ed with BPD is the worst of the worst in terms of treatment, you are treated like crap and they say it’s not really a mental health condition it’s personality and they can’t fix that so many people are left without services and no support. I’m glad its off my records.
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I’ve had derealisation at times of acute stress. Stress being a risk factor for me. My thinking tends to go off the rails then.
Nope it is common even for schizotypals…
Something I posted years ago on alt.support.schizophrenia .
Ever get this strange feeling when you are in a room that is usually
familiar to you?
As if you and the room are out of synch with each other and the room is
different somehow.
It is as if what is in the room is slightly unreal.
Posted on usenet at a time of acute stress.
iF IAM F***ing lucky i 'll get to have the mental fever breaking bit was
what happened real or wasit a dream disconnected everythingh is
unaturally calm bit with the room looking
slighly weird insome way smaller bigger clearer just basically somehow
out of sync like everything is veing seen through the lwens of a an
avant garde camera man stoned on on lsd.
I’m like this all of the time. Or maybe what I have is derealization, not detachment. I don’t know, I describe it as feeling detached. It’s like I’m not engaged with the world around me, not at all. Once in a while I will briefly come out of it, like for a matter of seconds, and everything will suddenly seem way too real. Coming out of it like that used to freak me out, especially when it happened at work.
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I have had bad derealization in the past. Not really anymore. It is a symptom of schizophrenia I think.
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