Hi I’m very curious to know whether these negative symptoms like low motivation slowing down of the body are linked to the actual illness or the medication ( or both) so… Is there anyone who has had psychosis or schizophrenia and doesn’t ever take antipsychotics and are you still feeling low motivation etc?Thanks
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If you really have schizophrenia eventually you will need to take an antipsychotic. There is such a thing as unmedicated schizophrenics and I don’t think it is a pretty picture. If you are quite young, your illness may not have fully progressed.
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I think the illness and the meds both can give you the negative symptoms. I had them really bad when I first got diagnosed… Over the years but they disappeared. Still take the AP’s but no symptoms.
Both, furthermore the unmedicated schizophrenics I saw, had the motivation and energy only to do weird, stupid or bad things…
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Thanks for the responses. My psych nurse told me that some people do come off the medication after a while and recover. Do you reckon that the side effects like slowed body will go I guess I’m asking anyone who has experienced coming off medication for good.
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BTW I’m not suggesting people just come off at their own will But definitely talk to their doctor first cos it can go horribly wrong.
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Yes the side effects are not permanent.
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Due to changing from medi-cal to work-provided private health insurance, I haven’t had any meds since October. I gradually ran out of Prozac and lamictal by the end of October, too. I was on the max injectable dose for abilify, plus 60 mg of prozac and 200 mg of lamictal.
I’m good, stable, not hearing voices, not uber paranoid, not having severe insomnia, etc…am I functional? yes. Am I satisfied? no.
I live in constant anxiety about what will happen if my neurochemistry turns bad again…i’ll lose my job, my health insurance, everything. I also found that off meds if two coworkers are talking, I can’t focus on just one voice and I have to ask one to repeat themselves.
It takes more effort to feign normalcy if I’m not on meds. It’s a hassle trying to interpret the hidden meanings of normie small talk as is, but to add to it now i’m second guessing everything because i’m off meds, socializing has become an exhausting mental feat.
I’m off meds, I’m actually doing pretty good, and if I had any choice in the matter I’d be on meds again in a heart beat. I wish I had access to meds.
Can I ask is that from experience?
Mostly indirect experience but I’ve also been on a low dose of an AP, I experienced orthostatic hypotension and when I stopped it, the problem stopped.
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That’s my anxiety too what if this comes back? But I’m opposite to you I’m still looking forward to coming off if it means I can exercise property again and get a normal sleep pattern and read.im sorry you can’t get on the med at the moment in uk it’s different I get it for free under a disability thing do you not have that?
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no, thanks to being medicated for a decade, I became functional and now work full-time, which means my income is over the limit for gov. sponsored medicine. The medicine is no longer free for me under this insurance plan, which means I pay 30% of the retail cost.
Abilify costs over 1,000 US dollars per month. That’s about 300 per month on one medicine alone, and that’s at bargain basement prices.
I cannot afford the med I need and that has kept me stable enough to finish my BA, start and complete my MA, and find full-time work.
I could never read psychotic. No attention span. I couldn’t finish a 3 box comic strip, I’d be too caught up the cruelty of the voices by the time I read a half of a sentence. My sza was not a pleasant experience, so I do not look forward to its return.
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This is the thing though I don’t know for sure if I will be able to sleep normal hours read and exercise properly again but my doctor says I’m at a stage where it’s ok to experiment and come off antipsychotic at least temporarily
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I wouldn’t recommend trying to be SZ and off your meds. I’m only psychotic and not full blown SZ according to my psychiatrist, but I experience some symptoms closer to negatives than depression symptoms, especially since I’ve been unresponsive to depression medication. However, my energy levels are so tanked that I can barely handle basic self care and only have the energy to do dumb, irrelevant crap that won’t help me in the long run 
I feel like a fuckingn) lab rat
Apparently I’m psychotic rather than scz too that’s y my doctor agreed with me trying to come off n see how it goes I’m fed up of only being able to do dumb crap so I wanna see if coming off makes a difference ev n if my motivation is still low maybe it won’t be AS low
Just be careful going off of APs. Even those simply suffering from psychosis can benefit from the treatment to help diminish some of the exhausting parts of it.
I think I speak for everyone when I say that after a psychosis, one always suffers from negative symptoms. I do not know if this will worsen (or improve) in the future. But most people can no longer take up life as they did.
I often look for positive stories, but they are hardly there.
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Can’t you try some older meds that you could pay cash for I’m on haldol and Zoloft it’s maybe 15- 20$ a month if you shop around. For me anyway.
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I have psychosis and I’m not currently on an anti psychotic. I’ve tried quite a few, but none have worked that well for me other then seroquel.
I’m on an anti convulsant. It’s my second or third I’ve tried. This one I just take with an anti depressant but I was put on an AC and AP at the same time before.