Schizophrenia mania or psychosis

I’m assured the labels don’t matter but is it important to get the right diagnosis? I don’t think I have a mood disorder. I’m allergic to anti depressants which make me manic or psychotic without my anti psychotics or a mood stabilizer and I don’t relate to people with bipolar. I’d rather just accept that I have schizophrenia and stop trying to fool myself. My mom obv has it. It’s not bipolar for her. I react with normal emotions without any mood altering medication. This past year changing my label gave me hope. But my doctor was being sympathetic I think rather than understood exactly. The stigma of psychosis bothers people even professionals. I was afraid of having the label. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I have all the traits of most people on here during episodes or unmedicated. On Abilify I may be less creative but so much more grounded! I can stop the constant thoughts and sleep. I don’t get paranoid. It’s hard to depend on anti psychotics thinking you are fine then taken off them realize how much they influenced my health and well being.

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Depending on your delusions, the doctor can diagnose you. I have something called delusional disorder, it’s very rare but my mom is schizophrenic. Do you lose touch with reality?

No not really. I’m just kinda eccentric but I’m on Abilify and have been for 10 years. It helped I think but I can’t be sure I was diagnosed at 16 with schizophrenia.

I think that labels do matter - getting the right diagnosis is important.

Like you, it seems that certain stimulating or antidepressant type drugs make my bipolar disorder a lot worse.

I recently got off of Lamictal, a stimulating mood stabilizer and I am much more stable , moodwise.

I honestly feel that my current psychiatrist is getting even more confused by my diagnosis.

The thing is I probably do have bipolar like symptoms, which are exaggerated when Antidepressant type meds are on board.

My psychiatrist recently told me that my constant paranoia and mistrust of others is a separate issue from bipolar - she is now telling me that it could be part of my personalty?

It is so frustrating not knowing what my diagnosis really is - I have a lot to talk about with my pdoc - blaming my paranoid behavior on my personality seems a bit sketchy - Man this is so frustrating :confused:

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I think people are more complex than the diagnostic systems allow for and can symptomatically straddle several diagnostic categories. Although my diagnosis is boiled down to paranoid PD my symptoms have also included elements of general anxiety, social anxiety/avoidant PD, schizophrenia/schizoaffective/, depression, bipolar(mood swings) . agrophobia

How were you dxed at 16? Would you mind sharing?

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Psychosis is a scary word because it seems to indicate psychopathy. The word psychotic ties them both together, but they are still two very different things.

If more civil schizophrenics were open about there illness instead of preferring to keep it undisclosed things could be different. If there were education programs in junior high health classes that layed out the ground level vocabulary for understanding mental health issues, that’d go even further. Both in reducing stigma and as a preventative measure through general awareness.

People like living in ignorance.

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I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I’m pretty sure it’s over-diagnosed. It’s a pretty rare disorder; it’s more rare than schizophrenia. It’s a pretty popular diagnosis these days. The thing is they struggled with diagnosing me and finally gave me the diagnosis after ruling out psychotic depression, even though I scored higher on it. The weird thing is I don’t hear voices and I don’t hallucinate. I never had disorganization or catatonia. I just have negative symptoms, anxiety, derealization, OCD, and philosophical “delusions”. My last psychotic break included extreme paranoia but I’m pretty convinced Topamax caused that.

It was unfamiliar to me, I thought about the time I was walking through a neighbors yard and a black lab growled at me. My cousin said stand still and make no sudden movements.

Yet it was written there on a piece of paper. Before the black magic, the electroshock, the time flipping.

Oh that’s funny I thought, She took me aside and said the doctor would prescribe me medication to correct the false memories.

Wait. Schizophrenia means false memories…so I took out a broken pencil I hid under the desk because they threw away all that I had written and told my story as broken as it was. It was proof I guess…to me…that they were wrong.

The next day I stood up and said I’d had enough. I’m not crazy! I said and told everyone I tried to walk out and then realized these doors would never be opened. The nurse called in a man with a stretcher but he refused the orders…

What is schizophrenia to a girl fighting terrorism?