The title kind of says it. A while ago, Trace posted a thread about misdiagnoses and I didn't answer to my full capacity due to being in a very confused, disoriented and hypervigilant state. It has kept me thinking for some time now; specifically, about a key factor that has caused my multiple misdiagnoses: The presence of intermittent psychotic episodes and patterns of psychotic behavior.

My misdiagnoses have been: Bipolar disorder, intermittent-explosive disorder (IED), borderline-personality disorder and schizophrenia.

Luckily for me, a couple of these were caught before they became official labels on my record (schizophrenia and BPD). Regardless, every misdiagnoses sent my mind reeling from how they could even be possible for me, as I'd never seen myself fitting any proper criteria for any one of them. The common denominators behind each diagnoses has been: Psychotic symptoms (hallucinations and brief -- anywhere from hours to a few days -- delusions), abrupt mood shifts that would last days to weeks (stretching from major depression to a resemblance of hypomania), outburst of uncontrollable anger, self-harming behavior and persistent SI/suicidality.

PTSD is known to cause mood shifts, depression, SI etc.; however, is it relatively understudied and unrecognized to have psychotic symptoms/episodes (at least where I live). It is slowly becoming more well-known, though has only been researched in combat veterans. There may be a study out there that has civilian PTSD sufferers; if there has been, I have not found it during my own personal research. As far as I've learned, the presence of psychotic symptoms is being classified as a sub-type of severe PTSD.

I'll get to the question.

How many of you have experienced or still experience psychotic symptoms and/or episodes? If you do, how do you treat these symptoms?

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read this, let alone answer.