So I was thinking about this again randomly this morning.
Bipolar Disorder as a label at least kind of describes what someone feels. Sometimes they have too much energy and it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes they feel very sad. Sometimes they feel wound up but also bad at the same time. As a mood disorder it’s very focused on feelings.
Schizophrenia doesn’t really explain how anything feels, it has almost nothing to do with feelings, as a label. So it’s less empathetic feeling in a way. Schizophrenia is about delusions or hallucinations or disorganized thoughts. It’s hard to find an article about schizophrenia that talks at all about how the schizophrenic person FEELS. Or what it FEELS like to have schizophrenia, not just what happens.
So I wonder if for some people preferring a label like Bipolar or Depression or Borderline or GAD and so on is about wanting some more focus on feelings. Maybe after 50 pdoc appointments where lack of florid psychosis means everything is “okay” and it doesn’t matter how you feel.
There’s plenty of research on what people with schizophrenia feel, specially connected to the negative symptoms. And a good pdoc always asks.
Also, when it’s connected to mood issues it’s often diagnosed as schizoaffective, which is my case.
I’m done obsessing about this, either it’s schizoaffective bipolar type or bipolar with psychotic features it’s virtually the same thing.
The only think is that my anxiety reduced substancially and my negative symptoms aren’t that bad, they’re bad on my depressed days, on my stable days I don’t feel them.
I don’t have flat effect, only a bit avolition. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Who knows?
Not that I have found. I only find stuff on negative symptoms which is lack of feeling. Positive symptoms in SZ are not about feelings, but there are a lot of feelings that can come with SZ experiences. I’m glad you are no longer obsessing about it. I think a lot of people do, though. I just wonder if that might be one reason why. Feelings can feel (lol) more important than non-emotional symptoms sometimes. For me personally I think I would like more emphasis on feeling better in my treatment. It’s like 99% of the focus is on, “Did you hallucinate this week?” instead of, “How are you doing?” When I just had a Bipolar diagnosis I remember it was always about, “How are you feeling?” I would like a little bit of that back. That doesn’t mean my label needs to change, just my treatment interaction a little bit.
I don’t know. My pdoc always asks how I’ve been feeling. It’s always the first question. I always say “fine” lol I lie. I have manic and depressed and mixed and all of the episodes regularly and I don’t talk about it. I will discuss it with him on my next appointment.
I’ve been feeling a lot more stable since quitting my degree, it wasn’t doing me good the cognitive dissonance it was giving me. “Ghosts” “they don’t exist” “Energy” “Auras” Bah, ■■■■ that ■■■■.
Now that I’m just taking my drivers license things go smoother. I don’t have that much to do.
Still have periods of mania here and there, but no noticeable depressed episodes for months now, which is cool.
But yeah, feelings are more attributed to schizoaffective. But I’m getting that when you say feelings you mean moods, am I right? Because it’s different.
Sort of. I feel sad very often. I feel it physically, it hurts in my chest and sometimes my jaw, and sometimes I feel very suicidal in waves, even though I have no suicidal intentions, they feel more like the sorrow version of panic attacks. I asked my pdoc about an anti-depressant and she said no, she said I need to be on anti-psychotic because I get psychosis and not an anti-depressant. It was like my feelings/mood didn’t even matter at all just because I also get psychosis. If my label was a mood disorder then we would likely be focused on my feelings, too, at least. Like I said I don’t think it’s my label that needs changing but just the interaction with my treatment, like more attention paid to my feelings, not just hallucinations.
Edit: Like I wanted to add an AD and she said no like it didn’t matter, all that mattered was psychosis. I wasn’t asking to replace AP with AD just add and she was just tunnel visioned on the SZ.
She diagnosed you as sza right? My pdoc was blunt, says he won’t prescribe me an ad because it can trigger psychosis. And I sure needed it a few months ago.
Ah my pdoc is not so blunt, I think she more so tries to persuade me in subtle ways. Like when I asked her about the side effects of Latuda she said, “I’m going to get you some information here,” and then she wrote down homework for me to research prodrome, so in the end she tried to appease and then distract me about the side effects, probably because she didn’t want me freaking out. Unfortunately I am often more keen and aware than I let on so I still noticed she did that, I wasn’t really distracted, I just seemed like it worked probably.
So anyway when she said she would not let me have an AD she only said it was because she wanted to treat my psychosis and an AD doesn’t treat psychosis. I was thinking well no ■■■■ lol but I didn’t want it for the psychosis I wanted it for the suicidal wave attacks. So it gave me the impression that nothing else matters because I have psychosis which really irks me. But that is an issue between me and my pdoc, not with the label itself.
I am very suspicious, most of the time. Not sue if it is psychosis paranoia or BPD type thing but yeah it is true. So far my only side effects on Latuda are decreased sleep and waking up with a lot of acid in my stomach like I haven’t eaten in a while.
But in a way I was right to be suspicious. I didn’t want Abilify because it was so activating for so many people. So I asked specifically about side effects for Latuda. She dodged my question. Turns out it’s very activating for most people. I think she didn’t want to tell me that, she probably knew that I probably wouldn’t agree to try it if I knew upfront.
But then on the other hand the Latuda isn’t going terribly, either, and in fact some good things are coming from it, so I’m not exactly upset with her, either.
Anyway sorry to derail so much here. My main point I was trying to get at is that it seems like more attention gets paid to feelings in the treatment of mood disorders than in SZ. I would like more attention on the Affective in SZA than on the Schizo sometimes. So for me personally I could see myself preferring BP emphasis over SZ emphasis for that reason.
I getcha. I think, honestly, that she’s focusing on the psychosis first, and then she will focus on what remains of the affective side, because it’s more important. I would trust her. It’s what my pdoc did, and it turned out well.
I also asked for an anti depressant but he refused, said it was dangerous. And the depression eventually faded, as it is normal in sza or bp. If it didn’t fade I would be pissed.
You have a lot to worry about on psychosis and less to worry about on moods, because they aren’t so prominent.
Bipolar disorder In bipolar disorder, psychotic symptoms tend to fit in with the person’s mood. For example a person who is depressed might hear voices telling them to kill themself, or a person with mania might believe they have special supernatural powers.
Schizoaffective disorder A person with this disorder has both a mood disorder and psychosis, and the voices, hallucinations or false beliefs are more independent of what is going on with their mood, and may be present even if their mood is stable.