I struggle to relate to a lot of what people experience on here. I can relate to some of the stuff, struggling to find work and keep work and psychosis but I don’t feel I experience it often enough. I question my diagnosis all the time, yes I might have sz, sza, bipolar or whatever, but I won’t know for sure unless I try and go off meds, but that won’t be a great move.
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How many times have you been hospitalized for psychosis? I’ve been in 4 times over the last 15 years, but usually after a month or so I get back to semi normal. I don’t have constant postive symptoms either and I can function medium to high depending on negs/depression. I’ve managed to work part time on and off for about 6 or 7 years since I got sick.
I thought the same as you and tried quitting meds once a couple years after my first episode and my next episode was even worse than the first. If you’re going to quit taper slowly over the course of months. Once you stop it completely try and take it easy for a couple weeks after and avoid stress/triggers. I didn’t do the second part and it came back to bite me.
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I question mine too, I’ve been reccently diagnosed in 2023 and I’m still in that phase of thinking that my schizophrenia isn’t that bad. When I swapped medications from paliperidone to aripiprazole my care co remarked that since i didn’t have any reaction to the change it shows that my illness isn’t as bad as they thought.
But again I think its just wishful thinking on my part. I feel like I suffer greatly from the negative symptoms, but like others I don’t have positive symptoms.
I guess like you said one way to find out is if we taper off our meds. I want to do the same. My doctor said i can try in a couple years from now which sucks.
The first episode happened in 2010, where I was not hospitalised. I was treated in the community.
The second episode happened when I came off antipsychotics and was given an antidepressant which caused psychosis. I had to be hospitalised for that one. So in 15 years of having this illness, I have had two episodes of psychosis and one hospitalisation.
Thats really nice that whatever it is it hasn’t totally taken over your life. Will hopefully be the case the rest of your life !!!
You’re on a simlar time frame as me. I’m guessing you’re around 40. I’m 42. My first one was in 2009. I almost had to go in one time after I quit effexor cold turkey, but I was able to recover in a couple days. The moral of the story is if I wasn’t a dope looking for a buzz to cure my depression/negs I’d have only been hospitalized twice too lol.
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Luckily I learned from my last two mistakes and have been clean from harder stuff for about 5 years now. I was never an addict but I liked to mess around. I still drink now but I’m looking to cut that back this year.
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Please keep discussion of drugs and alcohol in a recovery context per the rules. Thanks for understanding.
v.
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