I got diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder 9 years ago. But I don’t think this is an accurate diagnosis for me as I do not hear voices which people with schizophrenia have.
I have had really bad anxiety since a child, and I also have bipolar and borderline personality tendencies.
I never go out of the house and I will never be part of society, I sometimes hear things in my head but they are more like my thoughts and not like voices.
I have problems with explaining things to people and when I try to talk to someone, I often say something wrong by mistake, and then I think they don’t like me.
I have been in hospital a couple of times after overdoses, but when I was suicidal it was mainly stress related and not just depression.
I have got a new doctor and I am starting a new medication today called Fluvoxamine and I will be taking it with my antipsychotic, because they think it will help me sleep better and not worry about things so much.
I think you explained yourself why you got the diagnosis - you have psychotic tendencies, obviously some defining traits of schizoaffective.
Hearing voices is not a requirement for schizoaffective, or for schizophrenia for that matter. It’s common, but not required for a diagnosis. If you deal with depressive or bipolar symptoms, and you have some sort of psychotic symptoms in the absence of prominent mood symptoms, then you could be considered schizoaffective. I’m schizoaffective, bipolar-type, and I don’t hear voices. I only hallucinate during psychotic breaks, but I can have other, less severe symptoms between breaks and while not in a severe mood state.
I am diagnosed schizoaffecive, bipolar type, and I rarely hear voices. I deal with a lot of paranoia and what they refer to as thought insertion, among other things. I had another thread about the hearing voices thing, if it helps:
Does Anyone Else Rarely Hear Voices, Like Me?
Why do you think they gave you the diagnosis? Do you ever feel paranoid or deal with delusions? Things like that? A lot of people don’t get auditory voices. I just get telepathic voices which is apparently known as thought insertion.
I also have terrible OCD. Luvox is a great medication, maybe the best for that. OCD makes the illness ten times worse
Hi Anna, I don’t know why I got the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, I don’t have any paranoia or other delusions, when something happens I don’t think it has any personal meaning.
I read the other thread about schizophrenics not always hearing voices that I got in one of my replies.
Can you tell me is schizoaffective disorder is when you have bipolar and schizophrenia, or when you have bipolar with psychotic symptoms,?
And is schizophrenia more to do with problems with functioning than having hallucinations,?
I have had only really known one person with schizophrenia in my life, he was my Platonic girlfriend’s boyfriend, and he used to hear voices voices a lot, and he believed that they his parents who died in a car crash trying to communicate with him though spirits.
He was a really nice person, I wish I had someone to talk to now.
Just to say thank you for all your replies, I have been on Fluvoxamine for 2 weeks now and it is really good, my doctor was a bit reluctant to prescribe it to me because it cost 10 times as much as other ssri’s. Fluvoxamine is nicer than the other antidepressants, it has the lowest side effects, it is mainly used for OCD, but I think it would be good for any anxiety disorder caused by obsessive thinking. I have not had any problems with interaction between it and my antipsychotic, but I have read it can increase the effect of Olanzapine, but I don’t ever use that one anymore anyway.
my dad and i have schizoaffective disorder. at first i was diagnosed with schizophrenia then borderline personality disorder with psychotic nos. but eventually after several years i got the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. my dad went years without a diagnosis. because he refused to go to doctors. my dad was on olanzapine for a while but it didn’t help him so he quit taking it and became psychotic again but the doctor he was seeing let it go until he was almost hospitalized. she finally put him on seroquel. i hope the meds help you.
Schizoaffective is basically a mood disorder with psychosis. It can be depression with psychosis or bipolar with psychosis.
It seems you can be diagnosed with schizophrenia without having hallucinations or delusions if cognitively you are very scrambled (disorganized speech, ie speech that makes no sense is probably bound to get you an sz diagnosis) or show strong negative symptoms like flat affect (showing no expression). It’s weird because technically your supposed to have positive and negative symptoms to be diagnosed but there are people on here with only negative and it’s called simple schizophrenia? I don’t know much about it.
Hi Anna, thank you for your reply, I also have borderline personal disorder as well as anxiety and bipolar. My bpd has not been officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist, but I have been told that I have it by other people who know me. My mood can change very quickly when something happens to me, and no one wants to be friends with me however hard I try to be nice.
what you described sounds like me o.o like, i’ve felt other-worldly entities but never heard voices or seen them. and i act bipolar at times… hmm maybe i’m schizoaffective? anyway love your username!!! I LOVE KORN 
I guess I experience thought insertion, myself.
Mood and social skills are measurably affected in schizoaffective disorder, and therefore pathologically significant, by things like but not exclusively a certain isolation and consistent social dysfunction seen in person’s lack of drive and engagement with their social environment. It can be better described as Schizotypal personality.
Schizophrenia on the other hand is all the above, plus gross psychotic delusions and voices. It is a complete breakdown of a personality which creates adverse, lasting, and permanent brain alteration to such an extent that a person is no longer the same as they once were. And yes, I have it.
He never said he had psychotic tendencies. He said he had borderline tendencies.
Schizoaffective disorder was described to me, by my psychiatrist, as a combination of two disorders: Schizophrenia and Bipolar. Or Schizophrenia and Depression, depending on which type you have. It’s actually the state of having two disorders at once.