Mentally ill or lazy

I think there is a fine line between the two. I call myself lazy until I have a headache. How are you on the difference between can’t and won’t?

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Before I was diagnosed I was lazy. Now I have the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Lazy was a misdiagnosis.

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I think Antipsychotics cause my negative symptoms. But I guess it better then constant voices.

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When I lowered the Risperdal down below the 2 mg mark - 1.5 mg I still had Negative symptoms (lack of motivation).

I always blamed the Antipsychotics for my lack of motivation, but I guess I was wrong - it got worse the lower I went.

I am pretty certain that its the illness that is giving me all this lack of motivation

I tell the difference between the two like this: when I’m mentally ill its when I want to do something but can’t, and when I am lazy I can do something, but don’t want to. I have a bit of both nowadays! :blush:

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…a little of both…thanks for asking.

For me, I was highly motivated and energetic before I got sick (schizo-affective). Then I started becoming lazy and started getting really bad negative symptoms on medication. I think the medication causes negative symptoms for me. About a year ago, I got off my medications and my negative symptoms let-up. I ended up going to the department of rehabilitation because I wanted a job. For me, that’s a big step. But then I became extremely paranoid (possibly due to topamax, energy drinks, and brain supplements) and I lost progress. I feel like anti-psychotics keep me sane but make me dumb and lazy. I really want to work but I think the “laziness” supersedes my motivation to work. It’s really sad. I want to contribute to society yet I define myself as lazy because of my illness. I know if I got off tranquilizers I would be less lazy and more energetic but I would probably become psychotic again. For me, my family, and society, it’s probably better to be “lazy”.

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I loved to bust ass all day at work doing heavy labor until I broke my back, but during my down time I just loved to do nothing but relax. I think we all just gravitate towards being lazy, and I think it occurs naturally with having a mental illness too.

Tough question. I’ve been calling myself ‘recovering’ for a few years, and have been struggling with reducing my meds which causes symptoms for a number of weeks at a time. But if I look carefully, I have been capable of doing low level jobs for at least two and a half years, and am pretty close to being able to do serious stuff again, like learning a programming language.

I’m at least fifty percent lazy. I could do the remaining recovery while I worked, have a better social life, more daily rhythm, money and so on. The fact that I don’t go out there and do it has some excuses, but it’s part lazy, I’m enjoying the summer.

If I look at motivation, it’s only in the last few weeks where most of my motivation has come back on the new lower dose of Orap. Before on risperidone my motivation was awful, and on Orap it has been only a bit better.

Its an old fashioned way of looking at things , some truth and some untruth.

Mmmmm, from my experience, it is difficult that I am able to differentiate if I am lazy or it is my avolition.
Tolteca.

All my life I’ve found myself shirking things that it would be easier just to take care of. I think it is part of a “learned helplessness” complex.

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People sometimes love the helpless and need them (us) to help to feed their egos. It’s called being an enabler.

I think the illness doesn’t cause my laziness. When I behave lazily, it’s due to being physically sore, like yesterday and so far today. I mean come on, the way I workout is pretty nuts.

I can be very lazy when my whole body hurts to move, which makes sense.

I struggle with the whole laziness v lack of motivation(negative symptoms ). Thrown into that is cognitive/ practical hindrances to starting and carrying through tasks. If I’m asked to help with a task and it’s not beyond my manual/practical skills/cognitive issues then I’ll do so so I guess I’m not totally lazy but doing things for my own benefit is more problematic.

I also have less negative symptoms on higher dosage of my AP. I remember having negative symptoms from before I got medicated. Before I got ill I was very much productive. This illness with it’s negative symptoms may make me appear lazy…but believe me…everyday I try to get up and do something.

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Good question :thought_balloon:

Why “or”? Why not “and”? And why label at all?

Because in thought disorders, labels become mandates, stipulations and unconscious limitations of possibilities.

This isn’t going to make me popular here, as I well understand: But much of what I see going on here is painting oneself into a corner of helpless victimhood.

So, notmoses, your lean toward the “lazy” interpretation?

“I” tend to lean towards no interpretations (or evaluations, or appraisals, or assessments, or judgments, or analyses, or interpretations, or conclusions, or decisions, or attributions of meaning). But only as soon as I have observed that “I” have already done so.

Let me dumb it down as much as I can: The moment I start to consider anything in words, I have shut down my senses. I am no longer looking, listening or feeling. I an thinking. And thinking is not being. Being is never verbal. If one looks at thinking (from outside of its own box), it becomes clear that it cannot possibly be being.

Would schizophrenics be better off if their left (verbal thinking) hemispheres were disconnected? Would almost everyone be better off if their left (verbal thinking) hemispheres were disconnected?

In the former case, possibly so, even at the costs of losing some practical capacities. In the latter case, arguably, but not actually. We need to pure reason to survive in a world of technology built upon it.

But too much of a good thing may not be. Which is what Immanuel Kant was trying to get across back in 1781.

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