aura

I also have moments of lucidity during episodes. If there is one thing I've learned about bipolar over the years is that anything goes.

Sometimes when my eyes are shut I can see my room normally as if my eyes were open. Is this a kind of hallucination? Anyone else experience this?

The entity is putting suicidal thoughts into my head.

I tend to get upset when the wrong diagnosis is written down for me too. I feel so misunderstood. I would recommend having an open conversation with your pdoc about this.

Went to Hearing Voices Group today and it went really well. It's helpful to interact with other people who hear voices... really helps to normalize my experiences.

@Wonderful.Cheese I get nervous around billing stuff too, but I think it's pretty unlikely that she will be able to access your online accounts.

My doctor says it's possible to have psychosis with hypomania. I wonder if that's what happened to me in the past?

Yes, I definitely do have SZA. My question is whether "bipolar type" necessarily means bipolar 1 or could I have bipolar 2.

I wonder whether or not I really have ever been full blown manic before. I have been hospitalized twice for "mania," but I think I might have just been hypomanic those times. I was still sleeping 5-6 hours per night at least and had some insight into my condition.What really tipped the diagnosis over to mania was the presence of hallucinations and delusions. But I have since been re-diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and have experienced psychosis totally outside the presence of a mood episode. For those of you who have experienced both mania and hypomania, what is the difference, not including psychosis? Is it possible to have bipolar II and schizoaffective?

I don't have a cocktail anymore! I'm almost done titrating off trileptal, which leaves me only with clozapine and clonazepam (which I take maybe once a month at most). I'm so grateful that clozapine works so well for me.

So glad to hear you're doing well! I'm also finally on a med regimen that works for me. I hope we both continue to thrive.

For me the difference has to do with functioning. With hypomania I can still do my job; with mania I can't. Or if I'm engaging in risky behaviors, like driving recklessly, and am thus putting my safety and the safety of others at risk.

Today I asked my therapist (who is a psychiatry resident) if it's typical to have a complete remission of symptoms with medication (as I've had with clozapine). He told me about 1/3 of patients with schizophrenia have symptoms remit on a medication regime. Then he quickly corrected himself, saying I "definitely don't have" schizophrenia. I asked him what the difference is between schizoaffective and schizophrenia and he said if I has schizophrenia there is no way I could be in a PhD program and actually succeeding in school. He also said schizoaffective has positive symptoms of psychosis (hallucinations and delusions) but not so much the thought disorder and negative symptoms. I was just wondering if anyone else out there has had this conversation with their doctors. I always thought schizoaffective was basically just schizophrenia plus a mood disorder, but I guess that's not the case?