I have had psychosis for 10 months. I have auditory hallucinations, no paranoia, no cognitive symptoms, negative symptoms of low motivation, and I believe my psychosis was induced by LSD or a fake LSD, NBOME substance also combined with smoking weed for 4 years since age 16. I’m 21 now (male) and I don’t do illegal drugs anymore.
I found a study online a while back. It said that 77% of substance induced psychosis is in remission at one year and 50% of general psychosis goes into remission at the one year point. So I have reason to have hope. But I am feeling more and more hopeless each month that it doesn’t go into remission.
The conclusion of the study says, “The association of premorbid adjustment, a shorter duration of untreated psychosis, better insight into psychotic symptoms, and lower severity of psychotic symptoms with improved clinical outcome, reported previously in studies of schizophrenia, generalizes to psychosis remission in psychotic disorders that are substance induced.
I have all of these predictors of recovery in substance induced psychosis. Is there hope for me to recover? Does this bring any of you guys hope?
My voices started 4 years ago. I was off the deep end in psychosis for two years and in the two years following that I have been recovering. I’m a lot better off than I was. I used to smoke marijuana but stopped, however that did not stop the hallucinations. They are as bad sober as they ever were.
I read there’s a recovery rate of 25%. You stilll have the disorder but you can get the hallucinations under control with medicine and delusions with willpower, reality checking, and also meds.
Not really. I kind of thought I had schizophrenia in the beginning, but the doctors said it was a panic disorder. It took like 1-2 years to get the schizophrenia diagnosis. They ruled everything else out.
The only good thing is I don’t hallucinate at all. But my negatives were extremely bad and my cognitive problems reduced my IQ by at least 10 points (estimated). I have very low motivation, drive, and initiative on medications.
Off medications, I don’t think I’m real and I question reality like if it’s even real too. I think I live in a computer simulation often.
Had my first psychosis in 2013. Been in psych wards four times. But in remission since 2015 thanks to Invega Trinza and Sustenna. My negative symptoms has improved somewhat the last couple of months. The motivation is better but I’m kinda flatter in emotions still
You know now you can’t tolerate street drugs which is a major breakthrough. If you stay away from them and because you are young there is every hope that you won’t need to be on medication. Even if you do need meds its not so bad when you find one that agrees with you. Beating the street drugs is the hard part I found and that kept me rebounding for many years.
I think there is a decent rate of recovery, but the people you see here are those that kept on having psychoses. What else would they do on a sz forum? Get therapy, change your lifestyle (drugs…), work on recovery.
Even in the worst case, with chronic psychosis, a good quality of life is possible. My life is harder than before, but more meaningful too. There is lots to be grateful for.
Nobody can tell you the future, but yes, there is hope.
@Gollum thank you. This makes me very hopeful. I am prepared to live with this my entire life. But I’m still wishing and hoping for a recovery. I’m on Invega Sustenna but it doesn’t work all of the time and there are some side effects I could do without. I hope I find an AP that agrees with me better.
I’ve had it my whole life, earliest memories at age 3 were of hallucinating. So 23 years of illness. I was not able to receive official therapy until I was 18. I did not try medication until I was 20. Today my symptoms are entirely under control (on medication) and I have not had any major episodes in years. I rarely even get symptom flare ups anymore and when I do they are quite mild. I’m in nursing school and have a boyfriend and a job and friends and really function as well if not better than someone without a psychotic disorder. Granted I have never done illicit substances, but if I can make this recovery after nearly 2 decades of untreated psychosis, I firmly believe anyone can.
I’ve had psychosis/schizophrenia for about an year, actually just got diagnosed with it 2 days ago. Anyway, yes there is always hope if you have the desire to get better and are not treatment resistant.
I’ve had this illness going on 8 years in April. I’ve had it since I was 22 years old. I was originally diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia, but it transitioned into Schizoaffective Disorder. My symptoms flare up only when I’m stressed out, but otherwise it’s well managed. I’ll be 30 on February 1st, so I’m proud on how much I’ve learned about this illness and myself over the years.
@Anna 23 years is the longest of the commenters here. That is heartbreaking to hear you had to deal with this as a child. I’m happy to hear you can lead a normal life now. You must have so much inner strength. I didn’t know you could have psychosis at such a young age especially for a female because they usually get it around 30. I’m still trying to find the right AP that doesn’t cause me so many problems.
My symptoms started in 2013. I was first diagnosed with a psychotic disorder (psychotic depression) in 2014, however no one was sure what was wrong with me and some doctors and therapists said I was making up my symptoms. Nearly everyting improved towards the middle of 2016 after being treated for OCD. I still had voices but they were often helpful and I didn’t have such a hard time dealing with them. I thought they were just part of OCD honestly. Well, in December 2017 everything changed. I started to believe that my voices were more than just symptoms. I was getting closer and closer to a complete break, and I probably would’ve ended up there had I not been so frightened by a hallucination that I opened up to my Computer Science teacher. She called my mom and I started getting treatment with antipsychotics. I was diagnosed again with psychotic depression in March 2018 and then with schizoaffective disorder in May 2018.
I’ve had the symptoms of sza for the last 36 years. But, I wasn’t officially diagnosed until 25 years ago. I was very good at hiding and brushing off my symptoms.
I’ve been sz since before the hills were alive with the sound of Music. I was in the hospital three times and was kicked out of a day hospital. and never went back- long time ago. I’ve gotten steadily better especially after the Lord found me. I’ve had jobs, bought houses, been in a small ministry, gotten married, got an AA. in cooking. Anything is possible. Don’t put yourself down, people can be fairly kind. Just fight it and keep at it and don’t quit.
I’ve been diagnosed schizophrenic since 2015, and my hope of recovery rests in Amyloban 3399 (a supplement that increases nerve growth factor in the brain,) which has reduced my voices to being audible maybe 5% of the time after having taken it for 2 weeks. They’re still a very tiny bit audible when I concentrate on silence, but I feel like I’m winning this fight finally. I can ignore them when I’m reading now, and I don’t need music on 24/7 anymore.