TwilightPrincess

Do you have anyone you can reach out to? I often feel like you are now, and when I do, I find just talking to someone helps. If you have no one to talk to, you could try the chat room. It seems silly, but it sometimes works for me.

My voices pretty much say nothing but humiliating and derogatory things to me. That and one of them likes to try to get me to hurt myself. :-(

My AP does not help with my negative symptoms. Ritalin is used to treat those, but it only kinda sorta works. Lots of therapy and patient friends who sometimes have to force me to take showers and leave my apartment are how I deal with them. If it weren't for them, I'd probably be a complete shut-in. As far as psychosis going completely away, no, it does not. However, when I'm med compliant I usually know that my voices and delusions aren't real, so that helps in dealing with them. It's not 100% though.

Stress has always been a pretty big trigger for me. Do you have a good tdoc? Working on stress reduction techniques has really helped me.

I see my pdoc about once a week for about 30 minutes.

I try to leave the situation and calm down. If I can't, and the stress is too high, I get triggered into a mini psychotic episode. I honestly find leaving and having a cigarette (or a pack, lol) and just thinking of something else very helpful. You can't always do that, though. A lot of my therapy has been around stress management. Have you spoken with a tdoc about this?

I also feel better knowing that I'm not alone. My GF sometimes literally pushes me into the shower and turns on the water.

So, assuming that the insurance company my work uses approves it, I am officially on long term disability. This will last somewhere between 12 weeks and 2-1/2 years, depending. About 4-5 months into it, I'll take a massive pay cut, so I'm hoping it doesn't take that long. My tdoc wants me to go through a specialized voc rehab to get my skills (coding and technical writing) back up to speed and my pdoc wants me to go through some medication adjustments and possible out patient hospital stays during a time when I don't have to worry about work. All of a sudden, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I showered for the first time in days, cleaned my whole apartment (it had been filthy for weeks) and I'm finally doing all of the my laundry. I even have the window blinds open (I usually freak out when they're open). I feel really good. Who knew how much worrying about work was dragging me down? :-)

I am struggling with this myself. I am a self-aware schizophrenic which is a double edged sword. I know my delusions are not real (most of the time). But I still have them, and my voices. I also get to know I'm crazy. It kinda sucks dealing with it.

I was first diagnosed bipolar as a young teenager. That diagnosis was changed to schizoaffective in my late teens. In my early twenties, all of my symptoms went away and I thought it was just a phase. Sixteen years later, I was diagnosed with depression. The antidepressants kicked off a manic phase, so the diagnosis was changed to bipolar. Then schizoaffective and finally my current diagnosis, which is paranoid schizophrenia. With all my diagnosis and med changes, it feels like I'm just a giant guessing game.

My pdoc just took me off of Latuda and started me on perphenazine. I was just wondering if anyone else is on it and what kind of results you've had.

Yes. It might come to that very soon.

Well, I was working. My pdoc took me out of work again for yet another change of AP. I'm really afraid they're going to fire me soon. I've gotten warnings and it's been harder and harder to concentrate and do my work.

For what it's worth, my diagnosis change considerably over the last year and a half, when my symptoms started. I went from depression to bipolar 1 to schizoaffective and finally to paranoid schizophrenia. I see my pdoc tomorrow and I'm already planning on asking him. However, I already spoke to my tdoc about this and she said it can take a while to diagnose schizophrenia and that it's sometimes hard to distinguish the negative symptoms of schizophrenia from depression and the delusions, hallucinations, etc. from mania.