Looking for feedback on differences… I can’t afford treatment but I assume it’s probably best I go.
I hear voices. I can hear them and it feels like they can communicate with my thoughts directly as well as a spoken voice. Pictures flash in my head obsessively. I feel like the can restrict my breathing. My throat gets a bubble in it. I feel like they can flare up my pressure points. I get a pressure like headache when I think i certain way.
Really, it feels like they can pull me in or out of my mind through my body.
Its been a year since I’ve seen a psychiatrist. My mind feels like a war zone most days.
I would try to go. I was experiencing the same before my diagnosis. Being on meds saved me. I vent on here now as I need more social interaction. Those two things keep me going.
I agree with @Saywhaat. The times I wasn’t on meds were very difficult. I think you will feel better if you can see a doctor and get some medication. Maybe he or she can figure out a way to get some assistance with paying for them too.
There are only two kinds of schizophrenics that are better off meds: treatment resistant ones and high functioning people with mild psychotic symptoms for whom the meds are mostly an impairment with their sedation.
It is important to make this choice with your pdoc and your family, the pdoc could also help you find a way to get them cheap so you should be seeing one.
I’d recommend trying to see someone to help you manage symptoms. No matter what you choose to do you should definitely look into all types of grounding mindfulness and reality testing. Coping skills are important.
Off Meds
-Constant mood swings, can be totally fine and cheerful one minute to murderously angry the next then to fine to wanting to die and in pain, etc
-no energy or motivation whatsoever
-poor attention span
-poor hygiene (it causes anxiety or takes excessive effort)
-I have failed classes and life is just hard even really basic things
-intense anxiety a lot of the time, worrying over everything and no confidence in myself because of fearing everything will go wrong
-anger issues
-go through depressive episodes, some are a couple weeks long and extremely intense and painful like being boiled alive continuously for 2 weeks (I have become a danger to myself during these times before) and some last months and are more like nothing brings me joy and everything is meaningless
-I really just don’t get a lot of enjoyment out of life in general it’s like constantly being in the process of drowning and fighting to poke my head out of the water and only succeeding once in a blue moon
-I can and often am tormented by cruel voices
-I can and will experience tactile hallucinations of being sexually or physically abused
-I can become paranoid
-I can lose sense of reality and of who and what I am
SUMMARY: off all meds my life is pure hell. Most of my life I didn’t have access to medication and I feel like that was the equivalent of putting my brain & soul through a meat grinder for 2 decades, did a good deal of permanent damage
ON MEDS
-No more mood swings, no more depressive episodes, no anger issues, no unreasonable anxiety, I’m just a normal human being
-I actually have motivation and energy back, I can experience excitement and enjoy things again, my passion is back and it’s like I can’t get enough of life and all the things I want to do
-Hygiene comes naturally I don’t even have to think about it
-Basically all the normal life things that one (who isn’t disabled) should be able to do seamlessly I can now do normally
And I’m not currently on an AP but on them (& this is coming from the most effective one I was on)
-No voices
-No hallucinations
-No paranoia
-No delusions
-Basically I just didn’t really think about my “other world” at all I was very focused and set in reality
SUMMARY: meds will change your f*ng life my friend, can guarantee off medication I would not survive to old age I’d definitely kill myself long before then, I literally spent every day fantasizing about being able to die, now I feel like my life can’t possibly be long enough to do all the things I want to do
disclaimer-this is when you find the RIGHT meds, which can be a loooong and at times very unpleasant process (wrong meds can even make your symptoms worse!!), I still have not found the right AP for me but am working to try another one now (and badly need to be on one), but DONT GIVE UP because when you do find the perfect med combo it’s a miracle, the meds I’m on now give me no bad side effects and have given me my life back
