I’m in a negative spiral lately. It takes a lot of energy from me.
Been feeling the negatives and somewhat depressed because of it. I haven’t seen much progress on my symptoms. I’m just tired and fed up with it.
There is not much I can do about it.
It’s what it is.
I have good and bad days. Much depends on how I sleep.
Do you sleep better now with your cpap?
I’m feeling the negatives today myself. I really need to shower this morning before I go to group at 1 because I haven’t showered since last Thursday but I might just put on some deodorant and call it good.
I don’t know why it’s still so hard for me to shower. I can barely do it once a week. I showered every day easily until I got sick in 2013.
No, it worsened my sleep and I feel more tired on it.
I don’t have good or bad days. I have months of bad days and a couple of good days.
Maybe up your AD?! That’s what I would do if I had that many bad days.
Yeah, I’ll take a shower today. I’ll have to force myself.
It’s hard but what are we supposed to do? This illness is brutal.
Hopefully you’ll get into the shower! 
I can’t, I’m on 20mg of paxil. I need to speak to my doc about it.
I really don’t have any energy in me.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that tomorrow is one of your good days.
But I agree you need continuous follow up by a pdoc.
Thank you @TheFountainPen. Hopefully I’ll feel better soon.
I googled and the max dose of Paxil is 62.5 mg,
So there is some margin.
Ok, my doc told me 30mg is the max dosage. I’m on 20mg.
I don’t know if it will help with negs though, only with the depression that comes with that. The negs are really sucking me dry on any energy I have.
Talking to family and friends makes me feel better.
How would you describe your negs? Lack of energy, lack of will, daunting feelings at the idea of doing things, perhaps a propensity towards anxiety and an avoidance system around it. Maybe a mix?
Understanding the mechanism behind your negs can help you understand how to work around them better. With lack of energy pacing yourself and trying to avoid switching contexts quickly can help. With lack of will, simply waiting on your good moments and capitalizing on them with extra self-care after achieving whatever tiny inconsequential goal you’ve found the will to do can encourage your subconscious to be more willful over time. With daunting feelings at the idea of doing things, simply pushing through the feelings starting from where they are less oppressive does help if you stay consistent and with a positive attitude, validating yourself for what you achieve and not feeling down for what you don’t, can help through strengthening self-efficacy.
The point is that our internal positive reinforcement system, especially while taking antipsychotics, is incapable to keep up with our negative reinforcement system by design in order to prevent or limit psychosis. You need to make your remaining positive reinforcement count, things like feeling underwhelmed by your achievements are the first that need to go because we don’t have a balanced system that can handle mixed feelings with good outcomes.
The good needs to be underlined as good even if it’s not good enough, that will make it more prominent over time and eventually it might become good enough, you can’t improve your negatives through behaviour unless you make this key alteration in your mindset. There is no such a thing as good enough, you wash that one time that week, take in whatever feeling of achievement you get on top of the stress and the lack of energy, don’t linger on the fact that it’s making you extra tired, linger on the fact that you decided to do it and did it, because if you manage to feel more gratified about it next time your willingness to do it again will improve and your negatives will grow ever so slightly less oppressive.
The antipsychotics we take literally work by making it harder for us to validate ourselves and, that isn’t to mention that psychosis itself introduces a ton of extra questioning of oneself. After we are both done we end up with a system for self-validation that’s a wasteland. We need to do our best to revitalize it, especially where we are sure it’s a good thing. That takes introspection in order to identify when tiny good things happen within us and the willingness to take the time to spur them on however inconsequential they may appear. It’s a lot like gardening, only for your subconscious. You identify the seeds and water them, take care of their growth. If there are weeds entangled with them you don’t even take them out until you can do so without pulling out the flowers.
That’s how I live my negatives, they are me doing some gardening on some really tough land after everything got destroyed. I can either look at the nice garden of my neighbours and cry over my destroyed garden or start getting my hands dirty to turn over the soil, then finding some seeds and start taking extra care to grow whatever it is that I manage to get going, which probably wouldn’t even be my first choice, no pressure. You can’t compare a field where a hurricane has been and the nutrients have somehow left the house to one in full bloom just because it’s spring.
Good luck, I hope I had something worth hearing to share and not just my self-important BS on the topic.
The top dose of seroxat is 60 mg it’s worth trying this maximum dose
Thank you for your long reply! I really appreciate it.
When I have negs I just lie on the couch all day long. I also suffer from anxiety which has made me avoidant of everything that stresses me. Like making small talk with strangers, going to the store, anything that needs interaction etc. Also I have realized I have difficulties going to the gym because I feel observed, it makes me paranoid as fu-ck.
I have a long list of problems with anxiety, avoidance, negatives and paranoia. I don’t understand how on earth I became like this?
I’m going to talk to my doc. I can increase the dosage by myself but then I would have problems at the pharmacy because I run out on meds.
Well APs don’t just mess up dopamine receptors, usually they are messing up serotonin too and serotonin is basically your self-assurance, your sense that the world is a safe place and you have nothing to fear. You take that away and stress and anxiety become much more prominent and with them paranoia. It’s not all APs that can have all you’ve said as side-effects and plus they are a common experience in people with schizophrenia.
Are you feeling better? @Speedy
Today was a good day. I didn’t feel “heavy” as I usually do. We’ll see how tomorrow will be.
How are you @Aziz? Are you enjoying being alone?
I am bored but my aunt visited me this morning and brought food.