Schizophrenia - General Discussion

I've got these chills running all over my body, almost like I'm freezing up. It’s getting hard to even walk—I feel completely wiped out and can barely move, plus my heart is racing like crazy. I'm guessing it's just because the weather turned cold suddenly.

🥱 Everything is looking good.

bluedrifter45 said:Does anyone actually know what psychological testing looks like in practice? I suppose it’s just a mountain of multiple-choice forms, based on what I’ve heard, along with some repetitive reciting of stories and numbers, and then that's it, plus the interview. Is there anything else to it, I guess?

I recall visiting a neurologist over at Cedars-Sinai back in 2001, where she spent several hours conducting various tests on me.

It ain't nothing... I wasn't even there, they didn't put me through those x-y-z hours of testing.
I backed out of all that formal bullshit like I wasn't part of it. And it's not like I wasn't. I was.
And honestly, it feels great... being unrecorded now, someone who doesn't have ten liters of bile sitting in them ready to vomit.
Pssssst. What kind of joke are you playing on them when it’s actually true, telling them... what?
Man, oh man... just black sludge and leafy cypress. But whatever, if it is, it is. Obviously.
Or maybe it isn't... doesn't matter if it's unimportant, eventually; how it matters to be unimportant in... whatever...

Screw your coffee. Those people don't get what coffee actually does, whereas tea is just great for your mental state and organization.
But fine, whatever. If there were more tea... or for me. Yeah, if it were tea, it would be better than super. If it were tea instead of coffee.
Like some weird thing in cartoons or horror movies... that's actually interesting (except when it isn't).

ironrider11 said:It ain't nothing... I wasn't even there, they didn't put me through those x-y-z hours of testing.
I backed out of all that formal bullshit like I wasn't part of it. And it's not like I wasn't. I was.
And honestly, it feels great... being unrecorded now, someone who doesn't have ten liters of bile sitting in them ready to vomit.
Pssssst. What kind of joke are you playing on them when it’s actually true, telling them... what?
Man, oh man... just black sludge and leafy cypress. But whatever, if it is, it is. Obviously.
Or maybe it isn't... doesn't matter if it's unimportant, eventually; how it matters to be unimportant in... whatever...

Screw your coffee. Those people don't get what coffee actually does, whereas tea is just great for your mental state and organization.
But fine, whatever. If there were more tea... or for me. Yeah, if it were tea, it would be better than super. If it were tea instead of coffee.
Like some weird thing in cartoons or horror movies... that's actually interesting (except when it isn't).

Man, you've been burned🙂 but in a good way. I can tell you've been watching TV based on that coffee comment. But look, there are plenty of teas out there strong enough to really hit your system, even mentally. I'm not talking about chamomile here. For me, whenever my stomach aches, a little chamomile settles it right down.🙂 Just relax. There's nothing wrong with any of this. It's natural. And cartoons? Well, we all watch them.😁 Every single day, unfortunately, along with the horror movies.

ironrider11, sorry if this feels a bit too personal for this thread, and I’m really not trying to mess with you.
Do you happen to have a speech impediment? Like, a stutter or something? Honestly, I’m not even trying to poke fun at you—I just noticed it while reading through your posts.

They say psychosis kicks in once we let our inner child run wild without any boundaries... It sounds a bit ridiculous, but do you think there's actually some truth to that?

I just moved past a depressive phase and now I'm hitting mania, naturally... It’s honestly exhausting knowing this manic high isn't real, because I start believing I'm invincible when, in reality, I can't handle half of what I think I can.

Nicole Barrett76 said:I recall visiting a neurologist over at Cedars-Sinai back in 2001, where she spent several hours conducting various tests on me.

I think I know what you're talking about

Look, I don't know much about coffee, honestly. I cut out one cup from my routine, and now I’ve just been sleeping straight through from 4 AM to 4 PM. It’s totally thrown me off. Today, I tried having half a cup of a different blend just a bit ago. Even after that caffeine hit, all I want to do is sleep—it's like my body is just begging for that missing cup. I even gave green tea a shot, but nope, still just sleeping. And it's not like I'm depressed or feeling down or anything... it's just weird. How is it that cutting out one single cup does this to me?

Right now, I’m navigating a pretty heavy cocktail of meds: I’m taking Depakote 300 mg (one in the afternoon and one at night), Prazosin at 25 mg (once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and then a 100 mg dose at night), half a pill of Rivotril 0.5 mg in the morning, half again in the afternoon, and a full one at night, plus one 2 mg tablet of Akineton in the morning. Does anyone who’s more experienced with this, or maybe someone on a similar regimen, mind explaining what the Depakote is actually doing for me? My psychiatrist mentioned we might start tapering it off at my next check-up, though I have no clue what the daily dosage reduction will look like yet. 😵

Schizophrenia is an illness of the soul... so is it even possible to heal a soul with nothing but pills? You can certainly try...

Joseph Fowler33 said:Right now, I’m navigating a pretty heavy cocktail of meds: I’m taking Depakote 300 mg (one in the afternoon and one at night), Prazosin at 25 mg (once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and then a 100 mg dose at night), half a pill of Rivotril 0.5 mg in the morning, half again in the afternoon, and a full one at night, plus one 2 mg tablet of Akineton in the morning. Does anyone who’s more experienced with this, or maybe someone on a similar regimen, mind explaining what the Depakote is actually doing for me? My psychiatrist mentioned we might start tapering it off at my next check-up, though I have no clue what the daily dosage reduction will look like yet. 😵

Regarding Valproate—given your specific situation, using it as a mood stabilizer essentially works by boosting those GABA neurotransmitter levels. Since GABA acts as an inhibitory agent, it’s generally believed that this process helps to dial down manic episodes. I guess it just helps steady things out.

Rebecca Rivera3 said:Schizophrenia is an illness of the soul... so is it even possible to heal a soul with nothing but pills? You can certainly try...

One is technically "supposed" to use medication to manage both the "positive" and "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia, which is apparently what science tells us, though it seems to me that the various antipsychotics usually just require a whole mountain of additional drugs just to handle all their side effects.

It’s just a vicious cycle... a loop of hell that keeps repeating itself... how tragic.

I assume you all saw the news from a few days ago regarding the passing of the Linkin Park singer... his final song was "Heavy," which almost seems to foreshadow his suicide

It’s strange... something just happened to me. I think it might be a hallucination, but I can't seem to shake it. There is a ghost sitting in the corner of my room, much like one out of Harry Potter, but it’s too blurry to clearly see. Still, its presence is incredibly unsettling because I know it isn't actually there—it's just stuck in my head, and it’s starting to drive me a little crazy. I don't think I can sleep in this room anymore.
I really need to see a doctor... :-(

silvergardener6 said:Regarding Valproate—given your specific situation, using it as a mood stabilizer essentially works by boosting those GABA neurotransmitter levels. Since GABA acts as an inhibitory agent, it’s generally believed that this process helps to dial down manic episodes. I guess it just helps steady things out.

Thanks for the info! Just wondering, though—is 900 mg a day considered a high dose?

Rebecca Rivera3 said:Schizophrenia is an illness of the soul... so is it even possible to heal a soul with nothing but pills? You can certainly try...

But let’s really step back and ask ourselves: what actually constitutes a soul? Does such a thing even exist at all?

Personally, I believe it does; the soul is the very essence of who we are, an intrinsic part of our being, isn't it?

And that brings us to the crux of the matter—this "soul" is a fundamental part of us, a complex byproduct of our lived experiences, our genetics, our brain chemistry, and everything else. Everything is processed within the physical confines of our brain; every single reaction we have, whether conscious or subconscious, stems from neural activity, and every emotion we feel is just the result of some chemical process in the brain, which leads me to conclude that our soul and our brain are essentially one and the same entity.

If that is the case, then medication might be able to influence the soul, but it can only exert an influence; it cannot truly "cure" it, nor could it ever manufacture a new soul, especially since our understanding of the soul remains so incredibly primitive.🍿

Furthermore, if my reasoning holds true, once the brain ceases to function upon death, our soul effectively vanishes along with it—it simply evaporates into nothingness... and if, by some chance, our soul does persist in some sort of disembodied form after physical death, then the concept of an afterlife becomes entirely meaningless...

Back when I was at my lowest—before everything really hit the fan—I didn't believe in anything except pure logic. I think I actually suppressed all my emotions on purpose because I wanted to distance myself from anything that wasn't strictly scientific. It wasn't until I started feeling like I was losing my mind that I actually began questioning things like the soul...

Since I've started trying to be more mindful of my spiritual side, I feel like I'm handling my internal struggles much better...
darksurfer4, you're absolutely right; the soul is everything. Without it, we aren't even whole. Medication doesn't "cure" the soul, it just helps ease the fight. I actually just took one to help me sleep... I've been having some pretty intense nightmares lately.

Rebecca Rivera3 said:Back when I was at my lowest—before everything really hit the fan—I didn't believe in anything except pure logic. I think I actually suppressed all my emotions on purpose because I wanted to distance myself from anything that wasn't strictly scientific. It wasn't until I started feeling like I was losing my mind that I actually began questioning things like the soul...

Since I've started trying to be more mindful of my spiritual side, I feel like I'm handling my internal struggles much better...
darksurfer4, you're absolutely right; the soul is everything. Without it, we aren't even whole. Medication doesn't "cure" the soul, it just helps ease the fight. I actually just took one to help me sleep... I've been having some pretty intense nightmares lately.

Hang in there, Rebecca Rivera3. Love you. 🙂 Sweet dreams.