Having schizophrenia and taking antipsychotic,antidepressant is it possible to have passion,intense emotion in things,people and life in general?
LOL,I really enjoy passionate and expressive people,would want to be like one with firery passion and expressive emotionā:ghost:
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I guess you are on a low dose. Am i right?
Haha,yea,low dose antipsychotic Abilify and also Mirtazapine medium dose at 30mg
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This is probably it. If you would be on a high or a medium dose you wouldnĀ“t have this passionate feelings i guess. Just recently iĀ“ve been put to a low dose and im starting to enjoy life as i was before meds, Everything returned minus libido. This wasnĀ“t the case on a higher dose.
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Yea,guess I am lucky in somewayā¦but some people doing well too on high doseā¦@asgoodasitgets is on high dose amidulpride if I am not wrongšļ¼heās doing very wellā¦
I guess you are. I can only speak for myself. If he is doing well on a high dose, great 
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when I was on a high dose of Seroquel I felt nothingā¦ I had no hallucinationsā¦ no acting outā¦
But I felt nothingā¦ I wasnāt compelled to do anything. But when the meds got switched upā¦ I started feeling againā¦
Then something in my head changed and I started going manic for a whileā¦ that felt greatā¦ I was passionate about everythingā¦ I was burning out a lot.
But nowā¦ with the mood stabilizersā¦ I still find tings importantā¦ I still feel stuffā¦ just not as intensely. I think once I get used to the Depakoteā¦ then Iāll feel stuff againā¦
right nowā¦ Iām in a bit of the self questioningā¦ about a lot of thingsā¦ is it meā¦ or is it Depakote?
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iām on a lower dose, the norm is about 600mg and i take 200mg but it is enough to keep the wolf from the door,
I must have mistakenā¦glad your psychosis is kept at bay : )
i havent got sz light though, i had it really bad, iāve just been very lucky that i reacted so well to this med, as you know everybody is different and i think it also takes some work on our part too bc you know its not all the meds and all that all of the time lol, we need self will and inner strength to come through as well i think.
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Can I get an Amenā¦
Thatās where the therapy comes in.
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Sounds like it could be a good thing. Is it a lot different since the Abilify though?
Iām just curious because Abilify made me have some intense āhappyā feelings that were odd. Laughed at almost everything. Wasnāt like a mania but it was bizarre.
It could just be you doing well on a drug, in which case, rock on!
i didnt really get a lot of therapy, think i was kinda self taught by my dad and friend sweep and also this site, i kind of learned how to cope in my own way, i always had help and support though but my cpn didnt really do much even though i felt the security of her coming over, anyway the cpn decided that i didnt need their help anymore and i was discharged fro their services but i still see a psychiatrist every couple of months and he got me in touch with a charity that runs support groups and things for people with mental illness,
i am also hoping to work at some point in the future and hopefully becoming less dependant on state benefits and being more independent as a result, my main goal is to become entirely self sufficient, i dont want or need any help in the future apart from my meds,
i just want to be your average every day joe, just a run of the mill guy you know, no strings and no mental baggage, i want to turn the ladies heads and hopefully they will see me for who i am and not bc i have a mental illness or have had, just need to keep taking those meds though.
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Iāve been working for that as wellā¦ just a nice middle groundā¦ a simple life is where I find contentment.
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i think we would get on really well with each other on the outside, you sound like a guy iād really like to get to know, its a pity we dont stay nearby lol, we both seem to be on the same level and that is hard to find these days lol, who else do we know that has recovered as much as we have? who can actually feel things and is almost symptom free and actually hoping to go somewhere or get somewhere in life,
i really admire the people on here who are doing jobs and have a family or have achieved something in their lives despite sz and it makes me want to do that too, it is inspirational for people on here, i would like myself to be an inspiration to others as well, i hope i am anyway and i know you are.
when i was really unwell and over medicated it was hard and that is an understatement, i thought things would never change and i got paranoid and had symptoms back then too but after changing to a better med i have to say that i have changed my mind about that big time and i would like to say that things can change and will change if you want it to hard enough, i am not saying you should switch meds or anything though
but i think some people like me when i was overmedicated and before that too, i didnt really know how to express myself properly and tell people how i actually felt, i was holding it all in and it was like a huge ball of negativity and thats where the sz thrives, thats what feeds it, i know now that i should have talked to my p/doc and cpn a lot more than i should have but it was so difficult, i just ended up repeating everything and nothing was done,
i feel that the pdoc and cpn should have done more for me, they should have asked more questions and i should have had more therapy than i did instead i got a few questionaires here and there and i was like wtf, i was oblivious to just how contemptuous they were (maybe not the right word) but i think they could have done more than that to help, i feel like i was passed around from p/doc to p/doc and it wasnt fair,
so if you have a problem with your p/doc or you feel unfairly treated i suggest that you try to do something about it instead of like me andn what i did which was let them get away with it, its not fair.
sorry for the rant lol
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You have every right to rantā¦ some docs seem to do more harm then good. Iāve been trying to put my finger on why some docs just seem better then othersā¦ is it educationā¦ keeping up with the timesā¦ meeting others who are doing better so they get out of the box more.
I KNOW (now) I was over medicated for a while ā¦ my parents had to push and fight for me to get back to a doc they trustedā¦
heās the one who switched up my meds dramaticallyā¦ cut the doses way backā¦ added the Latudaā¦ that was a huge change for me.
Heās also the one who got me into therapy and really helped my parents help me.
Iām sad to find that heās really rareā¦ because so many docs I was with refused to cooperate with my familyā¦ despite the fact that they were the ones paying all the bills and living with meā¦
Alsoā¦ I sadly bought in to the doom and gloom prognosis of one of my docsā¦ he even told me that I was too ill to handle a part time jobā¦ donāt even think about itā¦ Iāll relapse in an instant. As far as school? Not in my life.
But the doc I was able to get back to found me a training program so I was eased into a small part time jobā¦ that raised the confidence to try a little moreā¦ and a little more.
I do get angry when I think about some of my old docs and how much they overmedicated meā¦ how much their limited experience affected me. How much I bought into their doom and gloom prognosis.
I never thought about school until I ended up on this siteā¦ I credit @77NIck77 a lot for inspiring me to try an on-line classā¦ and go to the student with disabilities centerā¦ and give it a shot.
I sure didnāt get better all by myselfā¦ itās a whole preservation team that keeps me from fallingā¦
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Even with what seems like a positive recovery, there is still a fight. There are no guarantees anywhere. Even if you were 100% symptom free with a great girlfriend and 100% supporting yourself, you could be hit by a car and have to live in a wheel chair. The point I am trying to make, is that you never know whatās next around the corner, and since you canāt count on anything, changing your perspective can be really helpful. Itās much harder said than done, and while I try to do this, I still have my crashes. The trick is to try to get more highs than lows, and stay at a comfortable middle ground most of the time.
I began to experience psychotic symptoms at age 9. I began antidepressants at 11, then mood stabilizers. By the time I was 15 I had taken my first antipsychotic during an involuntary hospitalization. After that I took 7 other antipsychotics until I ended up on the only thing left they could put me on - Clozaril. My entire life was uprooted and I spent my childhood and young adult life in a vicious place where I wished something would strike me down and kill me. After ten years on Clozaril I finally switched to Latuda. I was 28. I had been in a deep state of psychosis and lived with a delusion that controlled most of my decisions for 7 years, yet I had no idea I was delusional. Within 24 hours of being free of Clozaril my world was different. Iād resigned myself to believe I would never support myself or finish college. It was night and day. You never know what to expect. A place I wanted to get to, and thought was just a dream, was a raging battle as well. Iām glad I got to that place, but I still had to fight hard to survive. It doesnāt really end, but you can change how you let it affect you.
When I was 15 I joined a forum very similar to this one (I was around here a little bit in early 2000s but then just isolated). It was for mental health issues in general. It was a live saver. I read so many stories from so many different people and found great support from older members who had overcome so much, yet were still figuring out how to manage things. I still keep in touch with two of them.
It can be bittersweet to hear success stories. But it is always hard when you have to piece together what success really is. The things you (you=anyone) think will make you happy, often donāt work out the way you think they will. Quite often while you are working towards what you think you need to get better something you never expected will come your way, and it will be even better. I never thought Iād be where I am now. Itās still difficult. At 28/29 I was grocery shopping on my own for the first time, trying to figure out this basic life crap. I felt like an idiot because I could do some amazing things but I was clueless on some basic social interactions and things people pick up as they go through high school. There are so many things people can see about me on paper that would make me look not all that successful. But I am so far beyond most people in many many ways. It isnāt a complete, clean package. I still canāt support myself 100%, but I know Iām working on it and Iām working on taking care of myself. But money doesnāt prove anything. There are so many things I do that take skills of all kinds. Skills Iāve honed and worked at that most people donāt have. Even the ones with fat paychecks.
The biggest thing I have found to be helpful, is to free yourself from needing significant validation from doctors. They often really donāt even get what we deal with to being with. Donāt let yourself feel like they are the only ones who can tell you if youāre doing well. If there is something you feel particularly comfortable with, see if you can put in a little time here and there volunteering or whatever. I love cats. My cats have saved me from suicide before. Cats have been better to me than many people. I went to the local animal shelter a couple months ago to donate some food to them. I spent about an hour there. I visited cats who were in nice rooms, but had no one giving them attention a lot, and no one to take them home. I played with them and I could see how happy it made them. The people at the shelter appreciated it too. They want to help all the animals, but there are too many to give everything to all of them. No one there knows anything about my diagnosis. They just know that for one hour I was there helping some animals and enjoying myself a lot. They thought I was a nice person who cared about animals who didnāt have homes. End of story. You can go so far as to say that doing that validated that I could do something really cool that almost anyone could have done. Itās feeling like a contributor to society on a general level.
I donāt know if this is making sense. You have to take things slow. It will go faster that way, momentum will build. Doctors are not magicians, and there are plenty who completely suck. Itās important to see the balance between trusting them and knowing where you need to speak up and say if something is wrong with how they do things. There is a chance you will just get beaten down. Sometimes you have to almost play a game. Tell them enough so they can help, but donāt tell them everything because they can go ape and try to make you take a whole bunch of crap you donāt want to. Itās a ādonāt put all your eggs in one basket deal.ā They are just part of your team.
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I was just about to head in this direction on @Gtx1990 's behalf when I ran into this. Abilify is known for this. And Abilify + Remeron mirtazepine would have to be expected to induce such an experience. Hopefully, the dopamine-blocking component of Abilify will keep a lid on manic over-expressionā¦ but having taken Remeron and become manic myselfā¦ Sigh.
@asgoodasitgets
Iād suggest sufficient training in mindfulness skills to monitor very carefully whatās going on while taking two meds that have a well-known capacity to induce mania.
See http://behavioraltech.org/resources/mindfulnessPractice.cfm, which is probably the most widely and highly regarded source for mindfulness skills training on the planet right now, as they are the developers of DBT, which is the current gold standard in professional psychotherapy.
Excellent recommendations all the way along.