I believe certain things I believe are real even though no one else believes it. Other things are gone, but while religiously taking meds, certain things remain. If it’s only sz, why can some things go away with meds and not others?
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Good question. Maybe some of those things you have believed longer than others? This sounds like something to ask a doctor or therapist. Conditioning is a helluva thing. We almost train our minds into tricking us. Except our brains actually misfire.
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I have the same problem. In the early days of my 6th antipsychotic and nothing gets rid of delusions. Hopefully this new one dents them once i hit therapeutic level, but I’m just expecting better control of my other positives.
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I was the same way, but eventually it went away.
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You’re probably treatment resistant like me. I had to explore alternate strategies when the meds weren’t doing it for me.
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I’m going to talk to my pdoc about this
The only way to get rid of all my positive symptoms is to take such a high dose of APs that I’m reduced to being a drooling lump. I’d rather suffer some discomfort in exchange for having an otherwise enjoyable life. It doesn’ matter how real the delusions and hallucinations feel to me, I recognize that they’re not real and couldn’t possibly ever be real. Honestly, they’re just damned silly when you sit down and think about them. Just got to treat it all like crappy elevator music and ignore it.
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Even when I was floridly psychotic, I could sometimes step back and look at myself as kind of enjoying the distress I was putting everyone else through by acting out my insanity.
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Is treatment resistant similar to or different than oppositional defiance disorder. I have heard that term used before but Im not sure if it still, was changed to that, or seen differently now. I always saw it as a person who refuses to take advice or listen to pdoc as the o.d.d. and I feared I had that label but if i did was never told by anyone. Since i was diagnosed it has improved a bit in psychiatry.
or does treatment resistant mean your treatments are not effective enough or your medication isnt working–even though you follow doctor and advice and the oppositional label still exists.
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I have the same problem. I only know the delusions I still believe are probably not real even if they seem real is becuase I didn’t have these thoughts before I got sick. That and the fact I don’t feel an overwhelming sense of signifigance are my only yardsticks. I suspect in the two years I was symptomatic and unmedicated, I made a number of pathways in my brain that still exist to this day.
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All I know is I follow drs orders. I don’t argue or have issues with authority. I always take my meds.
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What an interesting thought.
Yeah i cant seem to stop sometimes…I have so many delusions and paranoid beliefs. I try to separate the crazy from the not crazy I dont know ive lost the ability to adjust my level of awareness on the spectrum. Most key is
dont overreact, dont assume to know something you dont, dont assume that a piece of evidence can be the full story or that evidence=reality, there is a such thing as false - evidence and false evidence if often used to persecute people or for other reasons such as a prejudicial trial against a black person accused of robbery --and the evidence was either planted or ignored in support of a trial that would be big win for cops --dont always assume to know someones motives, protect your thoughts, dont say too much online
not everyone remembers things the same way, dont try to argue or contradict someones reality because it was seen or experienced differently, dont assume your the one with all the answers, trust science but always take with grain of salt, second opinions and fact check information, some people cant handle certain thoughts, be careful with words, be more empathetic, be more compassionate
those are all advice i am working on for myself
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I have been on abiilfy for 15 years. I have tried going off it three times. The first time in HS, I got sick and I just remember I was a straight A student then failing within a few weeks. Had time issues, like I looked up and the whole school was empty but no one had told me everyone had walked to the church for some catholic prayer event. It came on speaker i didnt hear it. so my attention suffered first most of all, then teacher had diabetic episode and started repeating class instructions from day before which scared me into thinking the day had been repeating itself, it was near spring break so everyone was honking their horns as we passed but it upset and triggered me and i thought i was being targeted–the drivers speech sounded mechanical and i thought he was on some subliminal plane where radios in cars brainwashed people…
then i dropped out a bunch of other scary stuff happened–doors locking me from outside, Michael Moore giving me the middle finger from the TV during NFL season, a bright object outside the mountain, tooth decay pamphlet found in the cereal cabinet, a george bush doll found next to my dads chair, and i kept get blamed for all of it including someone pulling down all the fire alarms, thinking phones were tapped, hearing the wrong person on the phone being someone else, air force doing pyramid formations around the house, cameras reacharging themselves and some pictures appearing on my sony handycam where I recorded some paranormal stuff and then I was put in the hospital at 17 this was before I started journaling so i would not have false memories.
so yeah If I stop abilify basically I go into another dimension or something is what I have learned. I was only successful once at being off abilify and then my friend was murdered. and every time i ever get close to success there is an evil lurking around the corners…not that abiilfy even works it just makes me miserable and less capable of joy and pleasure also must do something to prevent me from the phenomena…its easier to battle the darkness when Im medicated, and then i can be on less later–but the phenomena is too much for me.
what i just wrote makes me feel anxious…i honestly will never fully believe the psychiatrist or system…i went in too deep. I dont know for sure if my mom was a 911 truther or not, the FBI told her they would destroy her family if she told anyone something she knew or spoke out against it, she was arrested at a protest at Dusquesne University against their Nuclear Weapons Research program. I found out that my grandpa was teaching there, but i also know he was drafted by the army to do nuclear weapons research. I just find that strange, and apparently both my parents were there–and my mom spent the night in jail she said she was pregnant with me then but idk the story changed recently now she was not pregnant yet–the FBI did interrogate her my dad confirms. She went to jail, why did my dad not go to jail. I have tried to press further, did he get her out of jail, were they dating at the time? why didnt he mention his dad was working there as a teacher and if he was also an Army Scientist…
so my mom started thinking she was being blackmailed by agents when she got these random letters, she was always an activist–my dad was mad at her about credit card bills and her weight, so she was put on phentermine and prozac for post partum depression i was eight years old so she was about 28 when she began having her symptoms of schizophrenia. She said she “felt like” they gave her forced electroshock therapy in the hospital, she was bruised and banged up pretty bad, i remember her parents are the ones who paid to hospitalize her–one of her delusions was she was in love with someone named Jim and that her parents refused to allow them to marry so now she was with my dad.
She was going to find jim her true love. I was eight years old, I heard my dad answer the phone “we found her she’s at a bus station” the story is that she tried to commit suicide not try to run away. the hospital no longer exists where they kept her, she has asked to get her hospital records and i remember it was months and months…she was in a wheelchair area --they didnt send her home with any pills. so i assume this why that shes not lying but my dad shouted at her enough so she no longer remembers anything.
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That’s so much to deal with. Ugh!
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Yeah. It is and its hard because like I want to agree with the system and it tests your faith but to deny myself my own reality also would be immoral. There are times when I had symptoms of disconnection, true textbook schizophrenia, and times I have been completely lucid and its very complicated. I dont blame anyone. The problem is yes I have schizophrenia, but my reality is just as valid, and I feel this will be a challenge for us as humanity to approach. By valid I mean dont destroy someone’s reality because it contradicts your own. If a person is happy in their fantasy-land you should not forcibly medicate them. It is now tech. illegal to do that but that has been my personal experience, i didnt believe I had schizophrenia and they wouldnt let me go home until I took anti-psychotics after I willingly went into a hospital at fifteen. I feel like they rushed to label me, like they just couldnt wait.
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I always, always, always to this day think in the back of my mind that my son doesn’t really exist. That when he died at birth he wasn’t able to be saved and it’s a whole big conspiracy to make me believe he lived to save my feelings. It’s a great source of sadness for me and yet people say it’s not true. I just go on as if he really is truly with me and I want it to be true he’s here and I sometimes just stop when he’s with me and I think how could I ever have doubted you.
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That sounds just plain awful. I’m so sorry you deal with that
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Thank you. I’m sorry you deal with these men. It’s got to be exhausting to feel followed all the time.
Before I got my symptoms under reasonable control I used to get this feeling like I was on display wherever I went. Like everyone was watching and judging me in particular. I was a nervous wreck when I had to go out.
I hardly would go anywhere. Just the doc and the store. This is pre covid. Now I only pretty much go store and doc, but it’s covid reasons. But I used to go shopping once a month. Now I can easily go once or twice a week and I can go at a moments notice.
I owe a lot of my bravery to cymbalta, it really helps me. Do you have an antidepressant? I forget. It seems like you just started one, Zoloft maybe? Well, if that’s true, let me tell you something I’ve learned over my 40 year carreer as an ad consumer; If you find yourself questioning whether or not your ad is really helping you, it isn’t. When an ad is working properly you have no question, you are just like yes, I’m good can I get a refill doc. It takes up to 2 months after starting, or increasing to feel the full effect of an ad, and for side effects to simmer down.
Depression can cause psychotic symptoms and should be well medicated in a sz patient in my opinion.
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@Leaf , I take citalopram (Celexa). I didn’t know an AD could help my paranoia.
I go out more than I used to but it really messes with my head, hence, the drinking. I’m sober now but now I have no way to numb myself and have to learn to better cope with stress.
I’m sorry you struggle too. I’m really happy for you that you have meds that are helping you.
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