I know people have heard of Schizophrenia and the stigma that diagnosis attaches. Do you think Schizoaffective Disorder has a stronger stigma because it sounds more aliening to people than Schizophrenia does because hardy anybody hears about it in everyday conversations. Do you think being open about having Schizoaffective Disorder people aren’t going to understand the condition really well and think the worst about that person? Does it sound more serious when in reality it is less serious than Schizophrenia. I know for me I become very anxious revealing I have SZA to people, instead I tell them I have Bipolar because I feel its less stigmatising and don’t have too explain to them what SZA really means…
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I try not to think in terms of one being worse or more serious than the other. Everyone’s experiences are so different.
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I not saying its a companion between them both I would like to know if lay-persons naivety around mental health conditions would upon hearing about SZA instead of SZ would they think its worsen and more dangerous condition (so to speak) If that makes sense?
I don’t think it does because at least people have heard of sz and have a general idea while they may have never heard of sza and just consider it a strange (but not necessarily dangerous) thing.
I usually have to explain when I tell people about my sza, “it’s basically bipolar (for me) and schizophrenia”.
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From what I’ve seen people say when I’ve been in hospital and talked to people is that they think sza is like sz-light, so to speak. So, at least in my experience, they tend to think it’s not as bad.
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When I have told people like new staff who come and work at my assisted living house I have SZA (before they read my notes) they look at me like I’m a alien and dangerous. It makes me feel uncomfortable discussing it because people are naive about it.
I’m sorry you’ve experienced that. People being ignorant of a diagnosis is never easy to deal with in those situations.
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I think to a normie ‘schizophrenia’ would sound worse than ‘schizoaffective’ cos of all the stigma regarding the former.
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I remember when I tried to cut a microchip out my armpit in 2016 and got rushed to hospital by air ambulance paramedics (Blood drip-lets everywhere) I could feel all the hospitality from my care staff when I got realised from hospital 7 weeks later on a new antipsychotic. The staff didn’t want me coming back here and and they told the other services users I might stab them next them (even though I have no history of violence) The tension when I came back here you could sense straight away from everybody. That has really affected me and my sensitivity. I think people think I am a danger to them. It makes me paranoid because I would never think about harming people. I feel sad they are afraid of me.
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schizophrenia sounds much worse for normies.
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I agree with @fingolfin.
To the majority of normies, Schizophrenia sounds worse because of all of the stigma attached to it.
No one knows what Schizoaffective is.
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Personally, I don’t think that sz is more severe than sza. With sza, you have more symptoms than with sz so, it has the potential to be much worse than sz. You don’t have the volatile mood swings and suicidality, usually with sz and that makes the sza much worse than sz. With sza, you have all the psychosis, with the severe mood symptoms added. Sz’s don’t have to worry usually about severe mood swings. And that makes them more well than sza’s.
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maybe a bit off topic to the question but does anyway else find sza having a better general prognosis than sz interesting? you would think having both psychosis AND mood symptoms would compound and make the prognosis worse than psychosis or mood symptoms by themselves
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That does make sense. In my experience at least, sza is a lot less understood. Seem to have spent more time trying to explain it to people than any other condition I’ve had. People seem to not know how to react because they don’t know what they are dealing with.
Most szs have no mood symptoms because there are almost no mood and personality left…
Only apathy, that is why they are lower functioning.
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I do not believe that schizoaffective disorder is less serious than schizophrenia They are different but can be just as debilitating To live with
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I don’t believe that sz’s have no mood left. I’ve seen plenty of anger coming out of paranoid sz people before.
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im schizoaffective depressive type and i feel the mood problems are worse than the schizo problems. they are easier to treat tho and i think my negative symptoms are not as severe as others since im able to exercise and keep up with hygiene.
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I’m Schizoaffective bipolar type. I feel my hypermanic/manic symptoms are worse then the depressive symptoms. When I get obsessive thoughts they start racing and i become obsessed with delusions which are very hard to control…
Schizophrenia sounds 10 times worse than Schizoaffective.
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