I’m a bit lost, I was wondering if someone could help me out. I hear people speak of both positive and negative symptoms.
I’m not sure if you are saying you tested positive for schizophrenia, or these are symptoms that you actually enjoy having. Any help much appreciated
Positive symptoms are things that you have that are “extra” (+) to the human experience. Like hearing or seeing things that are not there.
Negative symptoms are things that you are missing (-) from the human experience. Like lack of feeling or lack of motivation.
Thanks, gotcha @everhopeful - this helps me track what people are talking about
Yea positives are abnormal things you experience that healthy ppl don’t experience, delusions, hallucinations,etc Negatives are normal things you lack that healthy ppl have. Low motivation, apathy, lack of pleasure etc There is also cognitive symptoms of sz. Yes sz has a lot of symptoms and it affects everything in life!
Here is a more detailed and professional description:
Thanks @Aziz great article, very helpful
Positive symptoms: Delusions, Hallucinations, Disorganized thinking, Paranoia
Negative symptoms: Alogia, Anhedonia, Amotivation, Affective flattening (Flat affect, Blunted affect)
Cognitive symptoms: Impaired attention, Impaired working memory, Impaired executive function
Based on they type of schizophrenia the symptoms varies. For example in paranoid schizophrenia delusions, paranoia is prominent. In catatonic schizophrenia cognitive symptoms is prominent.
It’s funny you mention that. In the car accident, I got a head injury that was in the front left lobe. These are identical symptoms for head injury and for schizophrenia.
Yes low activity in prefrontal cortex region reason for cognitive symptoms.
Good to know…
ADHD medications like adderall, modafinil, strattera etc improve it. But in some it can worsen positive symptoms as most of them are dopamine and epinephrine boosters.
definitely find stims to be a double edged sword for those exact reasons, I get far more productive and motivated to participate in life until I cross the line in dosage and it sends me into deeper down the rabbit hole than any other outside factor besides extended lack of sleep (usually caused by stims
I think, It’s named positive symptoms, because it’s easy to diagnose an SZ patient if they got hallucinations, and delusions. It’s a positive result of the diagnose.
(like if you’re having a blood test for a disease and have a positive result)
It’s harder to diagnose an SZ patient because of the negative symptoms, they look like a lot of other things like depression or just feeling down in general.
Here on the forum, i think there is just as many suffering from negative symptoms as positive.
I have more problems with the negative symptoms, than the positive.
Thanks @bluebutterfly that makes a lot of sense. I think I struggle with both, lately I’ve been good but I do get down and frustrated sometimes
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