My negative symptoms appeared mostly abruptly - and in discrete events. It was weird. My voices would tell me they were destroying my soul; I would feel something “click”; and then I would suddenly feel the loss of energy/soul/feeling in my body/being. This happened a bunch of times over the course of two years, and each time it left me feeling worse.
One time, my voices said they were going to really obliterate me, and for the next two hours, I felt them drain the life force out of me. I ended up sitting on a chair in a total stupor, with my mouth hanging open. I’ve never fully recovered from that.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? What was the onset of your negative symptoms like? Did they appear suddenly or gradually?
I think my appeared gradually. wanting to do less and less, Getting more and more confused, loosing more and more attention. Getting a little colder and distant everyday until one day I just wanted everyone I knew to be gone. I didn’t want to interact with anything or anyone. I do remember laying in bed gazing at the wall for nearly a day and not really being motivated to do anything else.
I would pop in and out as well. I’d loose hours to stupor. It would always surprise me when I would sort of snap out of a stupor and find myself in a different room or it would be night now, or day now.
Have some negative symptoms at the moment. Im in front of my computer realising that im facing and have within reach the greatest library and entertainment resource ever created by my species and I dont know what to do. Im just sitting in bed - with no desire to do anything… except of course wonder what the hell is wrong in my brain to create a situation like this and vent about the situation.
Mine were pretty low, but I would cut class, spend lots of time playing xbox and watching south park and I was asocial, save for one friend. The negative symptoms crept up on me. I was more energetic for the first six months of my psychosis and then started withdrawing from life more and more.
Meds kinda increased the negative symptoms until I learned that I need an above average amount of sleep at night and caffeine in my blood all day.
First I stopped socializing. Then I stopped reading. Then I stopped playing video games. I lost my job. Then I stopped talking. Then I stopped bathing. Then all that was left was to sit in a chair and stare out a window. When I bothered to get up out of bed at all. I slept 16-18 hours a day. I could no longer hold a conversation, just answer simple questions. I didn’t eat if a meal wasn’t put in front of me.
That was me nearly 3 years ago. Exact. I sat in bed 18 hours a day, I barely spoke, I didn’t do much but just gaze at the emptiness in front of me. I did have a part time job that wasn’t to taxing and I didn’t have to speak. I only kept that because I never want to be homeless again.
I’m so afraid of ever going through that again. I was in there, I just couldn’t get out. I really tried, but I call it, trapped in Wax build-up
Laying on the couch for hours watching snow on the TV. Trouble speaking and making facial expressions. Not washing. Social withdrawal. Moving and acting slowly. It started at age 12.
I truly hate this condition. Like for the disability associated with SZ - there is rarely a story of how we really suffer in the main stream media. SZs sufferers constitute about 1% of the world population - but I never really studied or even understood the nature of the symptoms before I was diagnosed.
We need to do more - we shouldn’t suffer in silence.
