I’m just curious, I would make a poll but I don’t know how and I bet its complicated. I was first diagnosed with borderline personality disorder with psychotic NOS. I didn’t like the doctor who gave me that diagnosis she was a mean person. she took me off risperidone and trazodone even though the first time prescribed it worked. she put me on fanapt and celexia. Neither worked for me, the fanapt made me ill and celexa caused psychosis. so I switched doctors who added risperidone back but at a very high dose and trazodone. she diagnosed me with schizophrenia
I had to leave that doctor and go to a different clinic since my Medicaid was canceled because I didn’t get the notice of a review. I went to a clinic put me right back on a low dose of risperidone and celexa they didn’t work anymore I lost my mind and spent two weeks in a hospital. This doctor refused to tell me my diagnosis. I had to switch doctors again because we moved. the clinic told me I was schizoaffective with ptsd despite all the med changes and doctor swaps that is what it has stayed they just cant agree if its bipolar type or depressive type.
Yeah. I started out with non specific psychotic and anxiety disorder. So technical terms would be psychosis NOS and GAD I suppose. Then my diagnosis was later changed to psychotic depression and PTSD which I feel was just making it more specific. Then the last time I saw a psychiatrist during the hospitalization program I went to during my bad depressive episode they speculated I may have schizoaffective rather than psychotic depression. (Personally I don’t see a great difference between the two)
Diagnoses in mental health are complicated because so many have overlapping symptoms, so a lot of times there aren’t defined lines between what constitutes this mental illness vs this one. There’s no easy way to a direct and clear diagnosis. I’ve largely been told the diagnosis is unimportant aside from being used to prescribe medicine and benefits.
diagnosis matters to the government when it comes to benefits. I have noticed though that last two times I have been reviewed they were going to send me to a therapist and they then sent letters saying I don’t have to see them after all and they approved me again.
I was diagnosed as schizoaffective from my initial diagnosis and then my other pdoc read my book and changed my diagnosis to paranoid schizophrenia. now it’s just schizophrenic because I don’t think they include the word paranoid anymore?
My first diagnosis: schizoid features, dysthymic disorder, social isolation.
Over time eventually got into the nitty gritty of schizoaffective, psychotic disorder NOS.
Schizophrenia 1975-1983? Schizoaffective 1983?-2005 Personality disorder NOS 2005 -?
Current diagnosis Paranoid personality disorder .
All that really changed when I switched to a personality disorder was that I came off so called mood stabilisers like lithium and tegretol. Although the atypical antipsychotic I am on now is reckoned to have mood stabilising properties.
I think the pdoc that switched me to a PD was big on personality disorders. Certainly his use of language indicated so. Also as a patient that was described as awkward ,demanding and troublesome for seeking more help and support, and had a bad relationship with the psychiatric team, I fitted the clichéd model of a personality disorder case.
I was first diagnosed with psychotic depression and borderline personality disorder. After about two years my diagnosis changed to psychosis NOS, then schizoaffective disorder. Currently it is major depression and paranoid schizophrenia. The pdoc that diagnosed me with a personality disorder had the following criteria for diagnosis:
Female
Under 30 years old
Feeling empty
History of suicide attempt or self harm
I had never self harmed, but did have a suicide attempt or two under my belt and upon being asked if I feel empty, I replied yes… diagnosis made. However it was incorrect. I told him about voices I heard and other hallucinations I had and he told me straight out I was lying because “all borderlines lie”. Took me a long time to be taken seriously by a pdoc again.
I went to my current pdoc without telling him anything about previous history and let him over a period of time make his own diagnosis. At least he didn’t think I was lying about my hallucinations!
I was originally diagnosed with severe OCD. Which was true, but it didn’t cover everything. Eventually I switched to Psychosis NOS, and when that stuck around for a year it turned into undifferentiated schizophrenia. Recently, the doctors have been throwing around terms like mania and hypomania, but I don’t have an official mood disorder at the moment.
Over the years different doctors had different Idea’s on what was wrong with me, a couple ere way off the mark. Trouble is with Mental Illness is you can’t see it, and always will get different opinions.
First doc thought I was depressed and anxious, but I couldn’t find the courage to talk about my worst symptoms at that time. My other docs said Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder. One doctor was weird. I was living in Costa Rica at the time and this guy was American but he didn’t like labeling disorders. The disorder he most leaned to was Autism.
Depression —> PTSD —>
Bipolar —>
Anxiety + paranoid schizophrenia —>
Anxiety NOS + schizo-affective disorder + chronic PTSD. Been this last one for a good decade or more.The many pdocs I’ve had since this diagnosis seem to nod their heads in agreement at these labels
Paranoid sz then later found I needed anti depressants so said you could consider me sz affective but my doctor said he nolonger gives label just says I have a thought disorder.
My diagnosis has changed quite a few times over the years, initially it was just a behavior problem, but my first psychiatrist thought I was probably a schizophrenic. I know because I read his final notes in my chart when I was transferred from a private hospital to a state institution in 1982. Since then I’ve been diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia, Bipolar Type I with Psychotic Features, schizoaffective disorder - bipolar type, PTSD, and OCD. The last three are my current diagnoses. They are accurate as I see them, as I’ve read the DSM 5 criteria for these illnesses so I think I’m right.