This debate is real and sometimes quite heated between people diagnosed with schizophrenia. This civil conversation a about the issue is enlightening and shows how two people can have differing points of view and both are valid.
Category: Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia and Breakthrough Symptoms
This seems like a good time to discuss breakthrough symptoms of schizophrenia. This is not easy for me to admit, but important if I want people to understand what it’s like to have a psychotic disorder.
“People can be on the best psychotropic medication targeting a mental health disorder and still experience disruptive and paralysing symptoms. These breakthrough symptoms can be voices, delusions, paranoia, anxiety, or perhaps even depressive features that go unchallenged and uncontrolled by medication. Breakthrough symptoms can be very disturbing, and demoralising, due to the chronic, sporadic, and their seemingly unpredictable nature. This type of symptom activation can be triggered by something external.”
~ psychreg.org
I’ve been feeling numb for a few weeks now and hoping to control it through positive coping strategies such as increased meditation as I did not want to go through a med change of increasing my antipsychotic medication.
It didn’t work and this past week breakthrough symptoms of thought broadcasting and thought insertion which drives my paranoia continued rising to the level of needing a change. After consultation with my psychiatrist I’ve increased my antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications and one on my antidepressants which is a noradrenergic and specific serotonergic antidepressant (NaSSA) and encourages sleep, i.e. drowsiness is one of it’s side effects.
My breakthrough symptoms can best be summed up as more invasive auditory hallucinations, paranoia and delusions that people can read my mind and insert thoughts into my head against my will. At this time I realize it is just a delusion and not real. If I didn’t make the med change it wouldn’t be long before I believed my delusions despite all evidence to the contrary which would probably require hospitalization. The med change will probably take a couple of weeks until I am completely back at my baseline. It’ll be an interesting couple of weeks, but this is part of the reality of living with a severe mental illness.
#MySchizLife #BreakthroughSymptoms #PsychoticDisorders
Privilege and Schizophrenia (Video)
I discussed something very similar the other day. I should have know “Living with Schizophrenia” would have a video and explain it ways that I did not touch on. She goes in much more depth, but there are almost scary similarities in what I wrote. Perhaps I had seen this video before and that helped to germinate my post, who knows.
I’m Privileged
I’m privileged:
~ I live in a Western Country with well trained psychiatrists and therapists.
~ I’m white and middle class.
~ I have a college degree and a deeper understanding of my illness.
~ I have good health insurance.
~ I can afford my medications.
~ I have a family that has helped me pay my therapist out of pocket instead of one that my insurance would cover.
~ I have a roof over my head and food to eat.
~ I have a support system.
~ What if I had been poor with no insurance and lacking a support system? Would I be homeless and not medicated? Would I be the “crazy” person talking to himself on the street corner?
~ Having schizophrenia is difficult enough sometimes seemingly impossible, but I can’t imagine how hard and how different my life would be if I wasn’t privileged.
~ I’m no better than anyone else with schizophrenia, just privileged to be born into my social class and all the perks that come with it.
#MySchizLife #Privileged #Schizophrenia
The Four Types of Schizophrenia
People with schizophrenia may hear voices or noises; become very paranoid; believe they have unusual powers; think others control their thoughts, or vice-versa; or believe world events are connected to them
It can be a long road to diagnosis however. Patients — and families — are often in denial. After all, it’s a tough diagnosis to accept.
“We don’t label it schizophrenia right away; the diagnosis can follow a person throughout life once it’s in their chart,” says Dr. Minnie Bowers of the Cleveland Clinic.
Schizophrenia looks different from one person to the next. Here are the four main categories patients fall:
Paranoid schizophrenia: The person’s paranoia may be extreme, and they may act on it. “They may show up at the door of the FBI and ask, ‘Why are you following me?’” says Dr. Bowers. They may also behave oddly, have inappropriate emotional responses and show little pleasure in life.
Catatonic schizophrenia: The person shuts down emotionally, mentally and physically. “People appear to be paralyzed. They have no facial expression and may stand still for long periods of time,” she says. There is no drive to eat, drink or urinate. When catatonia lasts for hours, it becomes a medical emergency.
Undifferentiated schizophrenia: The person has various vague symptoms. “They may not talk or express themselves much. They can be confused and paranoid,” says Dr. Bowers. The person may not bother to change clothes or take a shower.
Schizoaffective disorder: The person has delusional thinking and other symptoms of schizophrenia. “But they also present with one or more symptoms of a mood disorder: depression, mania and/or hypomania,” says Dr. Bowers.
Source: The Cleveland Clinic
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