bipolar, schizophrenia or both

I have a Question I would like to ask. I have always seen shadowy like people in the corner of my eyes for as long as I could remember I thought I was seeing ghost until I got diagnosed with bipolar then schizophrenia and then bipolar again but I never told anyone this. I don't see them everyday and all the time, I just see them frequently I was wondering r they signs of bipolar or schizophrenia or both?

I've had similar visual hallucinations when psychotic. Psychotic features can be present in bipolar disorder during actual mood episodes. Psychotic features that are ongoing outside of mood episodes/during "normal" mood states point towards schizophrenia or schizoaffective. Schizoaffective disorder I believe is a combo of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. There is a book called Surviving Schizophrenia and also one called Surviving Manic Depression (author is Torrey, an MD) - very good reads. I highly recommend Surviving Schizophrenia - the author's sister is schizophrenic and it's such an informative book and really goes into symptoms of psychosis. I'm not a doctor, but hope this is helpful info for you. Antipsychotics have tremendously helped with my psychotic features - including hallucinations. Take care.

Thank you for ur comment @Rainyday it makes a lot of sense now but am just worried bcoz I live in a third world country. When I was diagnose in 2009 they said I had manic depression which is an old term so if they r using old terms do they even know what schizoaffective is?

Here's a good website with information specifically about schizophrenia and symptoms.
Schizophrenia Symptoms

Even if you have schizoaffective it's kind of like having both schizophrenia and bipolar, so that means you will probably have some similar symptoms to schizophrenia. Remember that not everyone has every symptom, just like with bipolar we all have different combinations of symptoms. But, it might give you some ideas what questions to ask the next time you see your doctor.

I hope you can get things sorted out with yoru diagnosis. It's confusing when it changes like that.

Hi, well I am in the USA so I can't answer your question specifically ... however, I can pass on info that my pdoc (psychiatrist) gave to me a couple of years ago. My therapist at the time was wondering if I was schizoaffective rather than bipolar ... he was not qualified to diagnose me as he is not a doctor, but he talked to my pdoc about it. My pdoc then talked to me and told me that he still stood with his original diagnosis of my having bipolar 1 with occasional psychotic features. What he also told me that I want to share with you is that he said [e]ven if you were to have schizoaffective disorder rather than bipolar disorder ... the treatment/medications would be the same.

If you can, purchase the two Torrey books via Amazon.com - I believe they ship international. It talks about schizoaffective, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. What I have taken from it (and I have read up on it fairly extensively) is there is a certain amount of "overlap" between the illnesses.

My pdoc conveyed to me that treating the symptoms of mental illness are the most important. Granted, a diagnosis is important - but treating symptoms is what helps us get better.

So, that is my unprofessional/layperson's opinion and my pdoc's opinion on schizoaffective vs. bipolar disorder. Can you ask your health care practitioner/pdoc about it? Tell him/her about your hallucinations? If that is a safe thing to do in your country? It sounds like there is a cultural stigma or misunderstanding about mental illness, though...that must make it difficult to get treatment.

Do you take any medications? Any antipsychotics? Take care.

As people said above, it depends on when the hallucinations happen. If you have psychotic episodes during a manic or depressive episode (for me it happens usually in the depressive), it fits the Bipolar criteria IIRC. If it happens when you're "normal," then it probably is a symptom of another disorder, but that doesn't make Bipolar invalid.
Schizoaffective Disorder has two types:

1. Bipolar type: there are manic or mixed episodes alongisde depressive episodes
2. Depressive type: there aren't manic or mixed episodes but there are depressive episodes

And besides the manic/mixed and/or depressive symptoms, there must be also symptoms that fit the Schizophrenia criteria.

As it has been said too, the medication for Bipolar and Schizoaffective Disorder is almost the same, so if in your country they don't know what Schizoaffective Disorder is and you're diagnosed with Bipolar and/or Schizophrenia, you'll probably take antipsychotics so that will work for psychosis anyway

I hope this helped to clear the things up!
Lana

My husband has been told corner of the eyes and in shadows do not count unless it becomes defined shapes, shadows where light is, or shadows with other colors inside of it.

Thank you guys for all the responses and thank you@Rainyday for the hug and yes I am on medication epilim and zoxadon!

Schizophrenia is a severe thought disorder (this includes hallucinations). Manic-depression is a mood disorder. If you have both you are schizoaffective which is a double-whammy (not to diminish the severity of the illness).

@Cool09 thank you for that definition of the two illnesses I've been trying hard to understand what the difference was between the two illnesses to no avail coz English is my 6th language so thank you!

I have been diagnosed with both bipolar and schizophrenia, but most of the pdocs I have seen lean more towards bipolar with psychotic features, as my hallucinations always follow my euphoric (and meteoric) rise into mania. And a few of my hallucinations can be down-right scary: people's faces disappearing into gaping holes, dead animals on the grass at the park, etc.

I hear you on the hallucinations. I've had awful ones with rotting corpses surrounding me and other terrifying stuff.

I have exactly the same kind of peripheral hallucinations and a few aural ones to boot. My psychiatrist said that as long as they don't stick around and they're not telling me to do things, it's not that uncommon for someone who is bipolar and nothing more.