The link below has the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. How many symptoms listed do you have.
https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/288259-overview#a1
2 Likes
Alot
15 characters of schizophrenia
1 Like
pretty much everything listed there,
I’m doing it for sza since that was my diagnosis
Positive symptoms - hallucinations (but mine are mostly visual, not auditory), delusions, I never had disorganized speech & idk what disorganized behavior means
Negative symptoms - I have had a decrease in emotional range but mostly in the positive direction I can still feel negative emotion quite intensely, not really poverty of speech though I did experience that when I was younger during my 1st depressive episode, loss of interests and drive; tremendous inertia
Cognitive symptoms - Neurocognitive deficits (I have memory and attention issues), no real social difficulties though
Mood symptoms - I experience depression and maybe sometimes hypomania (but like the mania thing is debatable and even if I do experience it it’s not a regular thing like the depression is)
So overall I have everything except disorganized speech, poverty of speech & social deficits.
I don’t know what I’m doing here. I haven’t experienced symptoms in 8, almost 9 years…
The symptoms I experienced were Positive symptoms - grandiose delusions; paranoia; and Mood symptoms - Felt high (cheerful, optimistic, extremely confident, fearless, limitless, unstoppable, invincible and extremely intelligent.) while seeing the world’s colors more saturated and brighten.
1 Like
Are you on medication? Bc if you are that’s why you haven’t had symptoms
I’ll try to summarize what I experienced before I was medicated, though I still struggle with certain things like being organized. I’m apparently Schizoaffective Bipolar Type according to my therapist, still hoping to get a pdoc soon for official confirmation.
Positive symptoms - hallucinations (auditory and visual), delusions.
Negative symptoms - Loss of interest in things and drive but am still able to do things like work and even my motivation to do that, has gotten better since being on the right med; Apathy at times too.
Cognitive symptoms - I have difficulty organizing, though I always sort of have since I was young from what I’m aware.
Mood symptoms - Not as of now since my moods are stable, but before meds, I would go from laughing at something, to feeling like crying in just moments. I also had short lived bouts of hypomania (ranging from hours in length to even just 4 days). Also experienced short bouts of depression where I’d feel overwhelmingly sad and wanting to cry for no reason.
I experienced all of those symptoms.
I don’t understand how people are coming up with numbers? I’m missing something. But let’s go with a lot.
1 Like
Delusions, no hallucinations. Algoia and avolition.
It changes with your illness and the medications.
I have breakthroughs. That means you get positive symptoms even on the meds. They push through the medicine and give you problems but I’m happy with that because I survive on as little antipsych as possible.
Negatives. That is another story.
You shouldn’t be worried about ticking off the list…the shrink does that and a decent one will figure it all out. Meanwhile. if your diagnosed…take your medications!
1 Like
Why make a list? Isn’t it enough to know that you have this or that symptom?
Voices
Intrusive thoughts
Delusions (although I think they are real)
Lack of drive (avolition)
Bouts of deadness/depression
1 Like
I’ve been on medication only then, 9 years ago, for about 6-9 months… I wonder if my doctors gave me a wrong diagnostic…
To be more specific… I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at 18 years old. 9 years later and I still hate the doctors who forced me to take antipsychotic medication because I absolutely loved the symptoms! (of grandiose delusions and playful/stimulating paranoia). I loved seeing the world from another perspective/dimension, It was like living into a parallel, updated Universe! I felt like people feel on some narcotics (psychedelic mushrooms, ecstazy, “NZT”-from the movie Limitless, etc) I could say that I was also having tactile, smelling, and visual “hallucinations”… (btw, visual hallucinations are not what people think they are. I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, but I was seeing and feeling them in a different way. I was seeing the world from a different perspective, the way an enlightened buddhist monk sees it… or/and the way an eagle sees and analyzes the world up from the sky. I had a binocular, tunnel vision… I was also seeing the colors brightened and more saturated.) I was seeing, feeling, smelling and thinking the world/everything from a very amplified angle… like I could focus on something kms/miles away and could analyze it in detail: size, shape, color, texture, smell, etc. I felt like a true confident mathematical genius… like, everything finally made perfect sense in my head… Well, with an IQ of 145 it’s safe to say that I already was a genius since before but without those symptoms (that made me feel like being on NZT) I couldn’t use the whole capacity of my brain, at once. I remember solving dozens of difficult math problems in minutes that I wasn’t able to solve before. Those symptoms made me feel fearless (well, as a martial artist I probably already had reasons to feel like that), limitless, unstoppable, invincible, extremely aware/conscious about everything that surrounded me, so I was feeling enlightened, extremely confident and intelligent. I was skipping sleep/nights because life was finally worth living, every second of it! Then doctors took that away from me… 
I only took treatment for 6-9 months but I never experienced (those) symptoms of (paranoid) schizophrenia again, in 9 years.
1 Like
Did you ever take drugs? That is odd if you never had an episode again after that despite not being on meds. Maybe go in for a re-evaluation? Who knows. If it doesn’t affect your life than I guess it doesn’t matter.
I understand what you mean about missing the excitement. My first episode was the most exciting time in my life, I thought I was having this huge spiritual revolution. But things ended up going downhill in a very very bad way so there was a lot of horrifying things there too.
1 Like
I’m hitting a patch of negative symptoms. I think I may be malnourished and have been for some time…
I have cognitive deficiency, delusions and negative symptoms.
Aw man I was like that but it can get you into trouble
1 Like
“Did you ever take drugs?”
Drugs as in narcotics? No, I never took or seen drugs in my life… (not even weed) I’m not sure if they exist in my south-eastern european country. I was, however, at the time (before and during the symptoms until to my hospitalization) addicted to Ginkgo Biloba… and I was kind of abusing it… I was taking like, a box a day that were supposed to be for a week. You can find it in any farmacy and you don’t need a prescription for it. I always wondered if those symptoms were actually from Ginkgo Biloba, and not from paranoid schizophrenia… but my psychiatrist insisted that it wasn’t from Ginkgo Biloba and I was, in fact psychotic/mentally ill. 
Then I wondered if I was psychotic because of my abuse of Ginkgo Biloba…
