Is there a difference between being psychotic and having psychosis symptoms?
I was just puzzled when my pdoc said today I’m not psychotic. Is it because I have insight or because my spiritual radio is real? He said it all to do with my thought processes and will be addressed in therapy. So do I really need my meds? He says I do and that I have sza but saying I’m not psychotic confused me.
Do I fit in here then? I’d hate to leave this wonderful forum!
some people think psychotic means psychopathic but the definition is literally “relating to, denoting, or suffering from a psychosis.”
Some people, including doctors, think “psychotic” means you are in a psychotic break. Like, full-blown psychosis.
But you can have symptoms of psychosis, like breakthrough symptoms, and not be in crisis.
For example, I still hallucinate, here and there, but I’m not in crisis, not in a psychotic break. A psychotic break means very severe symptoms and usually loss of insight.
Does that make sense?
I don’t know if this is what your pdoc meant, though. But this is what they may have meant?
Psychosis is shorter and can be caused by other things than what psychotic disorders like schizophrenia is caused by,
Before I was sick, when I was growing up normal in the nineties, the term “psychotic” was used colloquially to describe someone who was cruel and uncaring. Only later, when I fell ill with sz symptoms at age 30, did I begin to use the term to exclusively refer to people in psychosis (people who have lost touch with reality).
Not sure if the old connotation still flies, but I usually try to use the term “in psychosis” rather than “psychotic” in casual conversation just so I don’t send the wrong message.
Im not a doctor but my own opinion is that having symptoms of psychosis doesnt necessarily mean your having a psychotic episode.
A psychotic episode generally involves some loss of contact with reality.
I still hear voices every now and then but doesnt mean im having an episode. Its just a little glitch.
I was psychotic in 2016, it means I broke with reality.
Having some psychotic symptoms are signs of psychosis.
The difference here is that in a full blown psychotic state you lose all sense of reality.
I sometimes wonder if I ever had full blown psychosis. Maybe the closest I came to it was the night at my sister when I heard mumbling voices and was wandering around the house looking for them and making grabbing movements in the kitchen (which I was told I did - I have no memory of it) and lying on the floor talking to the voices (which I remember) and making groaning sounds according to my sister (which I have no memory of). The next day my sister took me to the clinic and I went to hospital because I was suicidal.
Maybe it has something to do with knowing how to act right. I’m a psychotic person who knows how to function in society to some extent and have guilt over things.
As @LevelJ1 said psychosis is a break from reality. Its possible to show symptoms without breaking from reality. These are still psychotic symptoms though
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