I just got diagnosed with schizophrenia and the only way I’m coping with it is drawing a lot. I spent the whole weekend in a psychiatric hospital after my first psychotic episode and I tried to draw some of my experiences and things I was looking forward to once I was discharged. I also journaled a lot which helped me to get my feelings out in private, but the biggest thing was I was trying to record what I was hearing from voices to track how positive or negative they were. It helped me to stay grounded and remember they’re not real even though I really want to believe some things they say.

What are your guys experience with antipsychotics? Whats your favourite one? Have you tried a few

I keep seeing it mentioned in music and my life and everyone I know’s life was so volatile in that particular year and now I am wondering if it’s possible the world ended in 2012? I have felt for some time my brain was swapped with a brain from a different me in another dimension and maybe it happened sooner than I realized and I have been moved to a new timeline in a sort of limbo post the world ending in 2012.

I am diagnosed with schizophrenia but don’t personally believe my diagnosis and wonder if this is all the entity playing tricks on me to make everyone believe I am crazy.

You search for answers
and find explanations
that feel like answers.
Some last a day,
some last for years.

And perhaps, eventually,
you learn that you don't have to open
every door.

Don't believe everything.
Don't reject everything.

Sometimes just say:

I don't know right now.

And in that little space of not knowing,
there is suddenly room again.

i suffer from extreme isolation due to my schizophrenia. mood swings, delusions, every goddamn symptom you could think of is constantly thrown my way in different forms and variations. it takes my fucking life away. i can’t exist like a normal person at this point, i’m only 22. i don’t have friends, i can’t hold a job for long, i don’t have a concrete relationship with most family.

i can’t even tell any family members of my illness (besides my long term partner) because i’m afraid of being told i was misdiagnosed, again i am very isolated and have been since a child, so i don’t regularly speak to family members, much less about mental or physical health. i was even accused of attention seeking when i first began developing symptoms in highschool and was trying to reach out for help.

anyway, the point of this rant is the whole ‘schizo’ meme online. i know it’s stupid to get torn up about. but it just fucking obliterates me every time i interact with it, i can’t use any social media besides threads or reddit anymore because of it. i don’t know if my phone is just listening to my convos or what because i don’t actively search that shit.

i’m so ashamed to even exist as a human being and normal functioning people use my day to day disability as a joke and i hate it. it boils my very existence. it’s so beyond stigmatizing and makes me feel even more alone. i’m glad i finally found this subreddit, it definitely helps, but fuck.

everything is always so terrible for me, so i’m grateful to have found a space where we can communicate and connect peacefully. i told one friend of my illness during an intense moment of vulnerability and they told me, “i wouldn’t have guessed, you act normal!” as if i told them i was LGBT or something.

TL;DR: social stigma around this disease is horrendous and is closing in around me emotionally.

I tried olanzapine + risperidone (injections) for my first psychosis. Awful with side effects.

Then, later they put me om Rexulti + quetiapine, also awful.

Thorazine (chlorpromazine) was better than quetiapine for me.

My previous psychiatrist wanted to have me on Rexulti till the end of days, but I've changed the doctor, who prescribed me Vraylar.

Olanzapine alone is actually quite tender, imo. I still take it if something in my life happens (like meeting my gf not a while ago, so I am on 5mg olanzapine for a few weeks).

I did 10-15mg, up to 20mg this summer, to gain some sleep after I've had other issues (not as pleasant as meeting my sweetheart).

Other than that I take lamotrigine and melatonin.

I started Vraylar 5 months ago and, frankly, these were awesome. I love it! Compared to Rexulti it's a tremendous difference.

Rexulti made my life unbearable. Vraylar made it enjoyable.

I have thought broadcasting. I could swear no one wants anything to do with me, including my family. I haven’t had a text from someone apart from my mom in years, every previous friend had betrayed me, and yet, I swear if I’m out there I’ll find someone. It’s so hopeless lol

Or was the treatment forced upon you by someone?

Even if the action has nothing to do with me.

But it's been like that for twenty years plus for me since I was 17.

the world is just unpleasant for me like that I can do reality checking but you can't change my perspective in the world I'd have to go to therapy everyday. i'm just that sick my brain has become smooth or some shit like that the things that supposed to work don't anymore and the medication can do so much.

it's the simple things that seem so demeaning to me.

I'm a sick puppy. medicated and still sick seeing therapy every three weeks and still this is my baseline which is still bad I do things but I don't do some things and my outlook of the world is jarred no wonder a bitty from colombia is absouletly taking a guy like me the cleaners I can't even think of this world in a real way my reality is totally fucked up. EROTO mania anyone?

Do you remind yourself of this? Do you challenge this? Do you even know this? Have you been disappointed so much that you don’t even fight this anymore?

I am a 30-year-old female who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but I have also suffered from OCD since my early childhood, and it has gotten progressively worse as I aged, my main themes are severe checking, false memories, real event, magical thinking.
People who don't have these conditions always assume schizophrenia is the worst part, but if I could wave a magic wand and remove just one, I would choose to get rid of the OCD in a heartbeat.

For me, the interaction between the two is pure torture. My schizophrenia creates the paranoid thoughts (like feeling watched, targeted, or that my belongings are being sabotaged). But it’s the severe checking OCD that acts like a relentless drill sergeant. It forces me into endless, exhausting loops of checking locks, windows, my apartment, and my things over and over again.

The worst part is that the OCD forces me to constantly battle my own memories and my own sight. Even when I look right at a locked window, my brain tells me I can't trust my eyes. Schizophrenia causes a lot of suffering and negative symptoms like isolation, but the OCD doubt is what makes me question the very ground I stand on. Without the OCD constant checking loops, carrying the weight of my schizophrenia would feel so much less chaotic.

I felt isolated from other OCD sufferers for years because they usually fear *being* the bad person who does harm, while my paranoia flips it outward to fearing *others* harming me. I'm posting this to see if anyone else with dual diagnoses relates to how these two conditions feed into each other, and why the "doubt" disease can sometimes be the most torturous part.

I’m supposed to start it soon and I just wanna know everyone’s experience. Taking it for psychotic symptoms

Drug induced schizophrenia / psychosis . How long does it take to heal without meds?

I used to work full time before the schizophrenia set in and now I struggle to get out of bed alot of the time. Ive been trying to fill my days with hobbies and that seems to help but I cant get over this crippling feeling that im a burden to society for not working currently. In fact im not sure if I could work again because every time I try I have a mental breakdown and lose the job within a couple months.

I guess my question is, how do you deal with the feelings of feeling like your a burden or bad for not working?

Art

I’m hearing voices and they seem to be getting worse. I’m hearing banging and the music is getting faster or slower and there’s shadow people everywhere

So. Lithium is the only thing that works. However. Long term it destroys everything and fuck doing a blood draw every 3 months.

Has anybody tried Oratate? It’s online. I’m ok on it if that’s all that I’m using.

But I can’t combine it with other RX or I will go insane.

On its own, it’s very very good though.

Are any of you on the Rx? It starts at 150 mg and that’s ridiculously high

I keep hearing voices and I don’t know how to cope with these feelings anymore. It’s awful I’m worried that my ex boyfriend took drugs and somehow managed to give me the drugs in some kind of way

I don’t wanna use traditional sleeps aids. Got enough medication as it is. I don’t like melatonin bc I feel simulated the next day. Any suggestions or recommendations yall have from experience? I keep hearing magnesium but there are a few different variations I wasn’t sure on. Thanks

Hello everyone, I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia for about 12 years now and I have been taking zyprexa for about 8 years and find that my symptoms have started to get worse. Is switching to geodon a good alternative? I am going to taper from zyprexa for a month or so and then gradually increase the geodon. My family is concerned about how my symptoms might overwhelm them as they are the ones to emotionally support me when things go wrong or I have psychotic episodes. I want to know people’s thoughts and opinions so I can personally have peace of mind and my family has peace of mind, thank you.

Supongo

I really just want some people's thoughts on this, and if anyone has something similar. I'll try my best to explain this, sorry if my writing is sloppy im at work right now.

My mom used to be addicted to morphine, clonozapam, and adderall, and quit cold turkey in her 40s. We have no prior history of schizophrenia in our family, and this started soon after she quit, so im assuming it was some kind of drug induced psychosis. I know before this she was having delusions, but no auditory or visual hallucinations.

It started when I was 10, after her fiance died and she quit all her drugs. she claimed she started hearing a small, faint voice in her head. She said she didn't have an inner monolog before this, so it fascinated her. It was sweet and cute, and was starting to get more and more loud and frequent. It was, entertaining to her, she said she felt absolutely nuts and wish she showed more concern at the time. I know she also said she saw visual hallucinations of Anthony Kiedis from the red hot chili peppers but only once?? Anyway, she was living with my grandma and that's when it started getting worse.

She said it would start telling her CRAZY things, it switched from being cute and sweet, to a nasty vile voice. It would tell her absurd lies and be like "Aha just kidding!!", and almost had her believing that Elon Musk also had a similar schizophrenia demon and that they need to meet up and get married. It is able to speak and move through her, she'll wave her hands around and speak nonsense—but its not her, she had no control. One day, it punched her in the face. That's when she had enough and got medicated, and she had been since. Now she is a completely regular human being, just with this demon inside of her.

In her current state, it only will speak a little bit and maybe move her arms/hands around a little. She can control it way better and is nothing more than a inconvenience. It even apologizes for hitting her, and constantly says that its "done having fun with her." It says it never wanted to be attached to her, and a higher power out of his control is forcing her to be with her. It constantly says things like "Im gonna murder you, I hate human beings" but hasn't been actually violent in many years. One time, it even spoke to me and said it wishes it was attached to me because it found me funny. Creepy..

But basically, she's convinced its not just a hallucination. She says it can perfectly repeat things she hears at the same rate that its being said, and can even make her dance sometimes, and dance good. She cant dance. It's all just very odd. Im not trying to say I truly think its real, and I don't ever tell her I think its real in fact I try to rationalize it, but man, sometimes it really does sound like she's possessed.

Also yeah, thats where the name elon came from, because it kept telling her things about elon musk, but claims it can't tell her its real name.

What are your thoughts? Anyone experiencing anything similar?