I have been diagnosed as schizophrenic and I don’t simply believe it. I never heard voices even though I told my psychiatrist I do because I thought he were asking about thoughts and yes I have a lot of thoughts of other people what they are saying. I am paranoid that something could happen that I would die. I am scared of everything around me(I am not that scared but I always start thinking what if…). I don’t think these is symptoms of schizophrenia.
We can’t diagnose you, only your doctor can do this. They generally don’t hand out an SZ diagnosis lightly. You have to show a certain number of symptoms over a certain amount of time to make sure they are not misdiagnosing. If they say you have it the odds are that you do.
I never had voices either. A fair amount of people have the diagnosis without hearing voices.
It can be things like paranoia, disturbed thinking, thoughts out of control, intrusive thoughts, being unable to control your inner voice, falling into conspiracy theories, etcetera.
Sometimes the diagnosis is hard to believe at first. It took me a long time to believe it. Also, symptoms can come and go or change over time. Psychiatrists rule out everything else before diagnosing sz.
It’s another paradox with the illness is that the illness makes you think you don’t have it, but at the same time someone who doesn’t have it will think they don’t. How do you know if it’s the illness making you think inaccurately or you are well and thinking accurately?
To me it comes down to if the medicine gives you relief of symptoms or not. If you take the meds and the phobia and paranoia goes away then you should probably keep taking it. If it doesn’t go away you are treatment resistant or have a personality disorder or something.
You will have to explore all these thing with a dr not mental patients online. But it does seem you have something going on.
First step about schizophrenia denial… i didnt believe i had it for like 7 years…i dont hear voices… i get paranoid and really weird thinking my mind is like the wheel of fortune just spins spins spins
I didn’t believe my diagnosis for a long time. Sometimes I still don’t. A lot of us feel like frauds in that regard, as I’m sure you can tell from the comments you’ve received. Also, to reiterate what everyone else has said, we can’t diagnose you as much as we’d love to help. I agree with @Jonathan2 that a second opinion is a good idea if you have doubts.
I did get second opinion and he came to the same conclusion because I said I was hearing voices and in reality it was just my thoughts not voices. I didn’t even know what’s it’s like to hear voices(I still don’t know).
I am on meds however the phobia and paranoia doesn’t go away it just decreases in intensity. I was pretty sane when I took the diagnoses.
on the bright side I am pretty functional and I can hold a job so I don’t think it’s that much of a problem, it’s just that sometimes it becomes annoying.
im in a similar situation with voices. they were once terrible. life ruining. however i beleieve i do have and now im dx’d with sza bi polar type. my mood is nothing to do with my illness. it was psychosis. deep psychosis. it was scary. i do believe i have sz myself.
