hi. Schizoaffective is a weird diagnosis. A lot of people who are diagnosed SZA at one point will end up with a different diagnosis later on. There's not all that much research on SZA, either. As I recall, it was once considered "good prognosis schizophrenia" or something, because the presence of affective symptoms was a good thing (?). Anyway, traditional psychiatric wisdom holds that SZA people don't do as well as people with Bipolar I, but the long term outlook is better than Schizophrenia.

I wouldn't worry about it, honestly. I'm in a similar position. My former doctors say I have "Schizophrenia, with a mood disorder" and my current doctor calls it "Bipolar I, mostly psychotic depression." Either way, the psych drugs are pretty much the same. I mean, I take Abilify instead of the Seroquel they seem to give to most schizophrenia and sza patients, but that's about the only difference I think.

Diagnoses aren't all that important. I think its probably best to just focus on getting better and moving on, no matter what labels are applied to you.