Hello everyone. I am having a hard time with the negative symptoms yet again and was wondering if anyone has any coping mechanism that works for dealing with negative symptoms.
I can’t think up any for the life of me and I have been pretty damn down lately with no motivation and feelings of worthlessness. I have had to put in effort just to do simple stuff, my energy level is low and I am just in a depressed mind state.
My highlights of the day are when I first wake up and have myself coming out of dreams, I guess I should clarify and say that it is much better feeling for me to be dreaming than being awake.
Last night I was Google searching for suicidal thoughts and schizophrenia and had no luck addressing the topics, I know I am not the only one who has suicidal thoughts. I just don’t know how to cope, I feel no joy and have no motivation.
Time for lunch, at least I can satisfy hunger urges.
It sounds like you’re depressed. That would need to be dealt with in treatment. As for avolition, you could try writing lists, making habits, and gradually increase activity.
I take Wellbutrin for depression but I don’t feel like it’s working as well as it has, I know my dopamine is low like crazy due to Invega but I can’t do a thing about it.
How about coping mechanisms for poverty of thought and poverty of speech? Lately I have been feeling like just a waste with nothing to contribute to conversation, my social abilities are very poor.
Yes, depression is different from negatives. You can be both depressed and have negatives.
As far as i know, depressed thoughts are best dealt with ssri.
For negatives there’s no cure.
You can only DO things without thinking about them. You DO what has to be done like a robot, automatically.
For me, this trick works when it comes to doing simpler things, like showering or brushing teeth. It doesn’t work when i need to study or plan a productive day.
I guess the negatives have me depressed because there is nothing to do about them like you said, there really isn’t a good way to express how bad negatives suck.
I miss being able to think and talk quickly and efficiently, I used to be a normal guy and I remember it and that is what has me depressed. I cope by being around family as well @Qwerty but I have times where I withdraw and seclude myself too.
I am not sure I can deal with an ssri added onto this, I didn’t respond well to them at all in the past and I really feel like dopamine is the problem, not serotonin.
@kuckuckuc do you get depressed or have suicidal thoughts? How about your negative symptoms, have they gotten worse over time? I am concerned that mine are getting progressively worse.
I made a thread asking if negative symptoms get progressively worse but didn’t get much feedback.
If I knew what I could do I wouldn’t have made this thread, as you said about the Nobel prize, same for me.
Part of my problem lately is that I am forgetting things and I am having a hard time finding out how to express how I feel.
I forgot about depression being different than negatives because the way I feel is so low that I can’t compare symptoms separately, they are all together as a singular state of being.
My fear is getting stuck trying to get out of feeling this way and running into dead ends like I have been.
I know I had that feeling often when I was really struggling with my sz, and it went away when I got better. I’m not sure if it was because my depression lifted, because my cognition improved, or because I got more social. Probably a combination of all three. But I think the cognitive part was more important. If you have the energy, you could introduce more cognitively stimulating activities into your daily life. E.g. reading books. Start with something simple, like a novel you’d love to read. Don’t start with advanced mathematics unless you’d love to read advanced mathematics. Hope you figure this out. Negative symptoms are so much about habits and daily life.
In my case, nothing helps. Just patience until they subside. They come in waves. Sometimes are severe. Other times I have severe positive symptoms and I don’t notice negatives
There is actually a lot you can do with them. But you have to get past what is stopping you, whether that is psychosis, learned helplessness, cognitive difficulties, drugs or whatever. Learned helplessness and drugs were a big part of it for me. The problem is that meds don’t really help much, and there has been very little research on therapy for negative symptoms, so it’s not easy to figure out what you really can do. But negative symptoms are not impossible to overcome.
The first part of actually overcoming them is to stop believing that there’s nothing you can do. I refused to believe that, and with help and tons of effort overcame them.
One thing that helped me is if you’re up, do everything while you’re up. So like let’s say you got out of bed to go to the bathroom. While you’re in there, brush your teeth, shower and get dressed. Because if you go back to your room first, you may not have the motivation to go back again to do those things.
I used to drink a lot of caffeine to help with the energy levels. Now I have modafinil. Some people are prescribed vyvanse which I don’t know much about. So stimulants can help, mine helped me hugely.
