I have a new therapist now since my insurance plan changed and today was only my second time seeing her and she is suspicious of me that I’m faking my schizophrenia. Like WTF? She really thinks after more than five years of therapy and medications that I’m faking it?! All because I asked her a simple question she thinks I’m faking it. All I did was say “I just wanted to ask you something. I’m diagnosed as having disorganized schizophrenia but I also have manic depression and I know that having schizophrenia symptoms and a mood disorder is considered schizoaffective. Since I have both wouldn’t that make me schizoaffective? I’m just curious.” And she starts to ask me why knowing if I’m schizoaffective is so important to me. I told her it’s not “important” to me I’m just curious. Then she starts talking about how reading symptoms online can make you start to believe that you really have something when you don’t, which I understand. But why would she say that? I told her yes I do research on my illness because it’s something I’m going to have to deal with for possibly the rest of my life and would like to know everything about it. Again she says if I’m looking up symptoms I’m going to start thinking I have them. Are you kidding me? I KNOW I have the symptoms, I KNOW I have schizophrenia, who are you to tell me otherwise? I have to deal with voices yelling at me and seeing evil spirits almost 24/7 and being scared out of my mind and you think I’m making that up?! I’m going to give this therapist ONE more chance the next time I see her and if she says some stupid ■■■■ like that again then I’m going to look for a different therapist because I’m not gonna be told I’m “faking” my illness when I’m struggling to even take care of myself. Can’t believe how therapists are these days. This is really upsetting.
Well, my therapist told me something similar once and she was right. I was thinking that I had a lot of negative and cognitive symptoms. When I really listened to her, I started to get better. I don’t know if it is your case.
At least I started to be more positive. I don’t even read things about schizophrenia on the internet anymore.
@FrankTheTank888 your therapist sounds a lot like my therapist.
My therapist has very little experience with Psychotic clients.
Like a lot of other therapists, she mainly sees a lot of non Psychotic (Neurotic) clients.
My therapist doesn’t think that I have Schizoaffective.
She sees me as having pure Bipolar.
My psychiatrist has more experience with Psychotic patients.
She feels as if I might have Schizoaffective Disorder.
I wouldn’t worry about your therapists behavior, it’s typical.
Give her another chance. Maybe you guys just got off on the wrong foot. It’s hard to jump right into therapy with someone you barely know, and there are bound to be hiccups in the process.
Oh my lord that’s so annoying, I hate when doctors harp on patients for wanting to be informed on their condition. Seriously no one would stay on antipsychotics for 5 years just for fun.
Your therapist didn’t say that you don’t have schizophrenia.
She simply described a phenomena commonly called “medical student’s disease.” This is a phenomena in which a person believes they are experiencing symptoms that they’re reading about.
In your post, she (your therapist) never said you’re faking having schizophrenia .
@kindness She did say after that conversation “do you really have schizophrenia?” Like why would she ask me that? I replied with “Yes I do but I don’t WANT to have it. I’ve been hallucinating ever since I was 14.” So I’ve been dealing with this for about 6 years now
She might be basing it off you being on sub-therapeutic doses of medication too. If you are fine on 5mg Abilify or whatever that’s a good reason for her to question whether you are really ill.
I would find another therapist. One who understands schizophrenia.
@jenny480 That’s the thing. My mom found this therapist and thought we’d like her because she has experience working with people with schizophrenia. I have disorganized schizophrenia so some days I can be completely fine but other days my thoughts are all warped and racing and I either talk really slowly or stutter a lot. She told me “You seem very animated and very well spoken for a schizophrenic” WTF is that supposed to mean?! What, does she expect me to be making no sense when I’m talking and constantly talking back to my voices? No. I can manage my symptoms very well even without medication. Yes I talk to my voices but not out loud I do it in my head and start to zone out. But yeah it’s pretty ridiculous that she would say something like that. I’m taking notes of what my voices are saying to me, at least the ones I can remember, and show her it the next time I see her and see what she says.
That’s a good idea about taking notes of what your voices are saying to you. It seems like that she doesn’t believe that you have schizophrenia. It makes it hard to find another therapist with having your mom found her. I would try one more time and if she still doesn’t think that you have schizophrenia, then I would find someone else. Explain to your mom that she is not helping you.
I had a therapist who didn’t believe me that I was schizo affective. I finally left her and found a great therapist. I think that I could have been seeing this great therapist earlier if I hadn’t tried to stay with my old therapist. That was a waste of money. Good luck.
These mental illnesses are fine lines sometimes.
Maybe this therapist doesn’t want to diagnose you and place you in a box right away.
I would give her some more time and let her get to know you.
If things don’t change in a couple of months then I would move on.
Wow. I appreciate your pain. It’s horrible to feel misunderstood. I had the opposite problem with my old pdoc. He talked to me like I was 5 and felt like I should live in an in-patient hospital. That was a year ago. My new pdoc thinks I am very high functioning and I am successfully going to college. I dunno WTF these folks are doing sometimes. SMH…
It is very confrontational to think that you are faking it. It puts you on the defensive. She should know better than that. I hope visit #2 goes better. I am grateful that I really like my therapist.