Schizophrenia - General Discussion

vividorca9 said:Did I ever mention that you all are absolutely insane and terrible? Do I really need to bold the sensitive, beautiful, and brilliant part I just pointed out? And the creative part?

I was just echoing what jumbi said—honestly, I was just repeating myself. You saw exactly which parts I chose to bold.

You know enough about this whole mess that any further debate is just a waste of breath—besides, everyone here has actually tried to lend a hand. But hey, whatever... life is a bitch sometimes.

I just wanted to say that having a psychotic diagnosis doesn't automatically make someone a crazy or terrible person!

Of course they aren't. My son deals with psychosis, so obviously I don't see things that way.
The main thing is that when you're living with someone going through a psychotic episode, you have to stay as calm as possible. If you don't, you just end up feeding into their anxiety and making everything worse.
It sounds like vividorca9 is reaching her breaking point—you can tell by how she’s typing—but panicking isn't helping anyone, least of all him. Honestly, it would be best if both of them sought out professional help so they can each find some stability. You can't just dump your own mental state onto the other person. That just creates this endless cycle and makes the whole house feel like a pressure cooker.
It takes a massive amount of patience, tenderness, and just plain old love. Because if that person starts feeling unloved? That’s terrifying for them.

briskcyclist40 said:

I just wanted to say that having a psychotic diagnosis doesn't automatically make someone a crazy or terrible person!

Of course they aren't. My son deals with psychosis, so obviously I don't see things that way.
The main thing is that when you're living with someone going through a psychotic episode, you have to stay as calm as possible. If you don't, you just end up feeding into their anxiety and making everything worse.
It sounds like vividorca9 is reaching her breaking point—you can tell by how she’s typing—but panicking isn't helping anyone, least of all him. Honestly, it would be best if both of them sought out professional help so they can each find some stability. You can't just dump your own mental state onto the other person. That just creates this endless cycle and makes the whole house feel like a pressure cooker.
It takes a massive amount of patience, tenderness, and just plain old love. Because if that person starts feeling unloved? That’s terrifying for them.

I've been through the exact same wringer they're in right now—I know firsthand that there's nothing I can say to fix it, so I'll spare everyone the useless lecturing on the subject.

Larry Lewis, have you ever looked into B3 therapy—you know, niacin?
Do you read much English? Take a look at this; http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Schiz...emical_problem

I just stumbled onto this connection today between metabolic issues caused by a B3 deficiency and full-blown psychosis. I've been reading all over the place about how people are seeing incredible results. In a lot of cases, the hallucinations and depression just... vanished. It's hard to find much info on this in American medical circles, but there’s plenty of research out there in English and Italian.
I actually sat down with my son's doctor today to talk about trying this out, and he gave me the green light. Honestly, he was starting to suspect something like this anyway, especially since the standard meds don't seem to be doing anything for my son at all.

briskcyclist40 said:Larry Lewis, have you ever looked into B3 therapy—you know, niacin?
Do you read much English? Take a look at this; http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Schiz...emical_problem

I just stumbled onto this connection today between metabolic issues caused by a B3 deficiency and full-blown psychosis. I've been reading all over the place about how people are seeing incredible results. In a lot of cases, the hallucinations and depression just... vanished. It's hard to find much info on this in American medical circles, but there’s plenty of research out there in English and Italian.
I actually sat down with my son's doctor today to talk about trying this out, and he gave me the green light. Honestly, he was starting to suspect something like this anyway, especially since the standard meds don't seem to be doing anything for my son at all.

I haven't tried it yet, though I might give it a shot while I still have some extra cash to burn.
Mind you, I’m already taking a whole cocktail of supplements—The Pentagon, calcium-magnesium-zinc, and a few other things.

My episodes aren't exactly life-shattering, but then again, anyone with half a brain would want to get rid of them.

For me personally, OCD is the absolute worst part—it mostly manifests as those relentless, intrusive thoughts that just won't quit.

For me, OCD is hands down the worst. It mostly shows up as those constant, intrusive thoughts you just can't shake.

I totally get what you're saying. Back when my life was a complete wreck and the stress was hitting redline, I tried dealing with it, and then the panic attacks started rolling in. It didn't last forever, but let me tell you, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I remember my doctor telling me that's what happens when things overflow—when the stress builds up too high and anxiety just takes over. Honestly? It feels more like a psychological hurdle than some clinical psychiatric issue. Maybe it’s enough to just—and I know how easy this sounds to say—actually sit down and find answers to the questions we keep burying deep inside ourselves.

briskcyclist40 said:

For me, OCD is hands down the worst. It mostly shows up as those constant, intrusive thoughts you just can't shake.

I totally get what you're saying. Back when my life was a complete wreck and the stress was hitting redline, I tried dealing with it, and then the panic attacks started rolling in. It didn't last forever, but let me tell you, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I remember my doctor telling me that's what happens when things overflow—when the stress builds up too high and anxiety just takes over. Honestly? It feels more like a psychological hurdle than some clinical psychiatric issue. Maybe it’s enough to just—and I know how easy this sounds to say—actually sit down and find answers to the questions we keep burying deep inside ourselves.

Believe me, I have spent countless hours digging through my own head and interrogating my own soul until I felt physically sick to my stomach—and even then, nothing changed.🙂

I think my psyche is just plain worn thin, and honestly? That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Larry Lewis..check your PMs, I sent you one

briskcyclist40 said:

I just wanted to say that having a psychotic diagnosis doesn't automatically make someone a crazy or terrible person!

Of course they aren't. My son deals with psychosis, so obviously I don't see things that way.
The main thing is that when you're living with someone going through a psychotic episode, you have to stay as calm as possible. If you don't, you just end up feeding into their anxiety and making everything worse.
It sounds like vividorca9 is reaching her breaking point—you can tell by how she’s typing—but panicking isn't helping anyone, least of all him. Honestly, it would be best if both of them sought out professional help so they can each find some stability. You can't just dump your own mental state onto the other person. That just creates this endless cycle and makes the whole house feel like a pressure cooker.
It takes a massive amount of patience, tenderness, and just plain old love. Because if that person starts feeling unloved? That’s terrifying for them.

Yeah, that’s definitely not how this works.

If you give him fifteen reasons why you love him, he’ll find the one reason why you don't.

And that’s the whole damn issue.

It’s this constant push-and-pull dynamic. When I try to get close, he gets suspicious, thinks I can't be trusted, and pushes me away. Then, as soon as I say "fine, bye," he suddenly becomes super attached and starts looking for support because apparently, if I'm not interested anymore, he can finally trust me.

It took me forever to figure out his modus operandi since that's not how I operate, but I eventually saw the pattern. 🤷

He needs love from a distance. As weird as it sounds, he needs a cold approach rather than my hyper-emotional style. (I have BPD, and we’re known for being dramatic, but also for huge outbursts of affection—I honestly thought that was at least a positive trait 🙂).

Typical conversation:

-I love you so much.

-But what if you fall in love and leave? What if you don't need me anymore?

-I don't think that's going to happen because I don't feel that way.

-Well, you don't feel that way now, but can you guarantee it'll stay like that forever?

-I can.

-You're lying.

-Fine, then, I can't.

-See? There's the proof that you can't be trusted.

And that’s where the fighting starts.

Or this:

-You're this age, you're gonna fall in love and walk away.

-I won't, because I've been through enough and I think I'm past that stage.

-Maybe... but who knows...

And boom, more fighting.

I’ll take your advice to heart, and I'll probably let you know how things turn out later on.

It’s not like I think anyone is terrible or losing their mind... I actually know exactly why I care about this specific guy instead of anyone else. He has certain qualities, so there's no way I'm judging people just because they deal with this condition.

And honestly, it finally clicked: there's no point in arguing with him when he's set in his ways. 🙂

That's on me. I tend to take everything personally, and maybe he just needs someone who isn't wired that way. 🤷

Thanks for the input, and I truly wish you the best of luck managing your own situation. 🙂 I hope we're good. I finally got some sleep, so my head is clearer and I'm not reacting quite so intensely. 🙂

Larry Lewis, why've you gotta be so brutally honest all the time? Honestly, having a little bit of diplomacy is a damn important life skill 😬

David Vaughn75 said:Larry Lewis, why've you gotta be so brutally honest all the time? Honestly, having a little bit of diplomacy is a damn important life skill 😬

Ah... I suppose that's just what happens when people lose their minds—or maybe I don't even know anymore.🤷

So, I’m here to brag, though it’s more about offering a bit of hope to anyone who feels like their entire universe just collapsed, much like mine did exactly twenty years ago.

We are approaching the twenty-year mark since my initial diagnosis from the School—various types of Sch. Based on the medical literature from that era, which is now completely obsolete and largely discredited, if a similar episode doesn't recur within twenty years, then everything is fine and that first episode wasn't actually Sch.

So, I’m just counting down the days, waiting for this final stretch to pass so I can confirm I am perfectly sane. Well, perhaps I'm not entirely sane, but I am certainly far from having my world fall apart.

In these past twenty years, I have achieved all my dreams and actually accomplished more than I ever dared to imagine. I know the next twenty years will be incredible because I intend to make them so, and no one is going to stop me—absolutely no one. The only catch is that I am no longer twenty-one; I am forty-one now. My best twenty years are behind me, so I suppose I’ll have to work much harder to ensure the next two decades turn out exactly how I want them to.

I am going to celebrate this milestone with some ice wine. It isn't wine served with ice, but rather wine made from frozen grapes; it is incredibly potent and sweet, perfect for an occasion like this. It isn't red, and I won't tell everyone else to go grab a glass... actually, forget that, grab a glass and drink up, because I truly don't give a damn about any of those 295 diagnoses.

Truth be told, my situation today is quite similar to how things were twenty years ago. A girl broke my heart and left me in a state of total despair (there is even a specific thread for that kind of thing on Reddit). The only difference is that I learned from that old heartbreak that you should always have another girl in the wings, because grieving is much easier when someone is there to comfort you. So, at least today I have someone to hold me while I mourn the one who left and broke my heart.

And in the end, absolutely nothing from my diagnosis came true—Sch Hebefrenija (295.x—I can't recall if x equals 1 or 5 or what).

Therefore, I am raising a glass of ice wine to everyone currently facing a Sch diagnosis and believing it is the end of the road. It isn't; anything is possible.

fadedlynx96 said:So, I’m here to brag, though it’s more about offering a bit of hope to anyone who feels like their entire universe just collapsed, much like mine did exactly twenty years ago.

We are approaching the twenty-year mark since my initial diagnosis from the School—various types of Sch. Based on the medical literature from that era, which is now completely obsolete and largely discredited, if a similar episode doesn't recur within twenty years, then everything is fine and that first episode wasn't actually Sch.

So, I’m just counting down the days, waiting for this final stretch to pass so I can confirm I am perfectly sane. Well, perhaps I'm not entirely sane, but I am certainly far from having my world fall apart.

In these past twenty years, I have achieved all my dreams and actually accomplished more than I ever dared to imagine. I know the next twenty years will be incredible because I intend to make them so, and no one is going to stop me—absolutely no one. The only catch is that I am no longer twenty-one; I am forty-one now. My best twenty years are behind me, so I suppose I’ll have to work much harder to ensure the next two decades turn out exactly how I want them to.

I am going to celebrate this milestone with some ice wine. It isn't wine served with ice, but rather wine made from frozen grapes; it is incredibly potent and sweet, perfect for an occasion like this. It isn't red, and I won't tell everyone else to go grab a glass... actually, forget that, grab a glass and drink up, because I truly don't give a damn about any of those 295 diagnoses.

Truth be told, my situation today is quite similar to how things were twenty years ago. A girl broke my heart and left me in a state of total despair (there is even a specific thread for that kind of thing on Reddit). The only difference is that I learned from that old heartbreak that you should always have another girl in the wings, because grieving is much easier when someone is there to comfort you. So, at least today I have someone to hold me while I mourn the one who left and broke my heart.

And in the end, absolutely nothing from my diagnosis came true—Sch Hebefrenija (295.x—I can't recall if x equals 1 or 5 or what).

Therefore, I am raising a glass of ice wine to everyone currently facing a Sch diagnosis and believing it is the end of the road. It isn't; anything is possible.

So you were dealing with acute psychosis back then, huh?

Psychiatrists love handing out fancy labels, but usually, they just slap "acute psychosis" on your file the first time you walk through the door—even when they haven't got a clue what's actually going on. Then, if the psychosis flares up again down the road, they just pivot and write down F20.0 (paranoid schizophrenia) and call it a day.

David Vaughn75 said:So you were dealing with acute psychosis back then, huh?

Psychiatrists love handing out fancy labels, but usually, they just slap "acute psychosis" on your file the first time you walk through the door—even when they haven't got a clue what's actually going on. Then, if the psychosis flares up again down the road, they just pivot and write down F20.0 (paranoid schizophrenia) and call it a day.

They cycled through diagnoses between various forms of psychosis and IBM several times, eventually landing on hebephrenic psychosis before other doctors reframed it as hebephrenic IBM. Since the medical nomenclature keeps shifting, it's hard to pin down what the final diagnosis actually was, especially since even the specialists in Washington, D.C. couldn't reach a consensus on whether it was hebephrenic IBM or just hebephrenic psychosis.

Then there’s the whole laundry list of other issues—OCD, anxiety, panic disorders, ambivalence, and probably more—but I was told not to dwell on them because the primary diagnosis outweighs everything else combined.

fadedlynx96, are you on any kind of medication right now?

That’s right. Lithium and fish oil. My latest diagnosis was bipolar disorder, though I posted a similar version of this on the specific bipolar thread with some extra details added.

I’ve been on lithium for about five years at most. Looking back over the last twenty, there were stretches of fifteen years where I wasn't taking anything at all. Honestly, I wouldn't even be touching the lithium if my ex-wife hadn't forced my hand.

It would be easy enough to just walk into another psychiatrist's office and convince them that I'm perfectly fine and don't need any medication. Even my current girlfriend—not the one who left me—agrees with that assessment. But somehow, I've realized that having a bipolar diagnosis provides a convenient way to justify just about anything. When my girlfriend tells me I'm acting irrational, I simply tell her that she's probably seeing something in the diagnosis or that I must have missed my dose today.

Still, I remain convinced that I don't have bipolar disorder and that I don't need the lithium.

fadedlynx96 said:That’s right. Lithium and fish oil. My latest diagnosis was bipolar disorder, though I posted a similar version of this on the specific bipolar thread with some extra details added.

I’ve been on lithium for about five years at most. Looking back over the last twenty, there were stretches of fifteen years where I wasn't taking anything at all. Honestly, I wouldn't even be touching the lithium if my ex-wife hadn't forced my hand.

It would be easy enough to just walk into another psychiatrist's office and convince them that I'm perfectly fine and don't need any medication. Even my current girlfriend—not the one who left me—agrees with that assessment. But somehow, I've realized that having a bipolar diagnosis provides a convenient way to justify just about anything. When my girlfriend tells me I'm acting irrational, I simply tell her that she's probably seeing something in the diagnosis or that I must have missed my dose today.

Still, I remain convinced that I don't have bipolar disorder and that I don't need the lithium.

Then why don't you?

Robin Lopez2 said:Then why don't you?

There is a slim, almost negligible chance they might actually pivot my diagnosis and treatment plan toward something else, though living with lithium and bipolar disorder is something I’ve come to accept without much fuss.

In reality, the likelihood of a diagnostic shift is actually quite massive because I have never once managed to convince a single psychiatrist that I am perfectly fine; they always land on some label and prescribe whatever medication they deem necessary.

Technically, I could simply decide that I am healthy and require nothing at all, but I am not that naive, and after twenty years of navigating this system—not just twenty years of pills and doctors—I have learned that it is generally wiser to follow their lead.

Lithium itself isn't the issue, as the side effects can be managed reasonably well, and it doesn't carry the same risks of skipping doses or overdoing it that you see with other substances, whether we are talking about narcotics or antipsychotics.

My family has been dealing with my brother’s schizophrenia since 2008. I feel so incredibly bad for my parents. My mom is seriously ill, but she refuses surgery because she’s terrified of leaving my brother alone. My dad tries to cope by staying out of the house as much as possible. My brother has his good days, but the bad ones definitely outweigh them. Now he’s off his medication again, sending me messages claiming that big-time American groups are out to get him and that he’s going to take them all down. It's just heartbreaking. :-(:-(:-(
I don't think there's a harder battle than schizophrenia. Even though I know some people manage to handle this illness well, I’m losing hope that my brother will ever be one of them. 😢