[HALLIEBETH87]

SO turns out my human services class is easier than I thought. We had to write a paper on guiding values of a human service professional and how we would react to certain situations etc.

I thought it was in addition to chapter three readings and assignments but turns out its not! whew!

saw pdoc today and hes happy with my progress. yes ive been struggling but ive come a long way since I was in ip last month. I haven't heard anything since starting the higher dose of Latuda. also-he actually did officially change my diagnosis to schizoaffective bipolar type. he said im "mostly bipolar" lol but hear stuff so sza is my dx. nice to have everyone on one side. its confusing having different diagnoses lol ha!

im doing much better! now if I can just get motivation..

Glad to hear it!

[*Beth*]

Outstanding! The class sounds so interesting to me.

HallieBeth, may I ask...how much Latuda do you take and does it cause a tremor for you? Thanks.

[HALLIEBETH87]

I am
Now on 60mg of latuda twice a day and slight tremor sometimes

[~Christina]

I’m glad your class is easier than you thought, I bet that came with a big sigh of relief.

I’m glad your Pdoc finally decided which way to go with that. Sometimes it helps to get a solid answer.

I’m really glad your feeling better

[bpcyclist]

Super glad to hear things are steering in the proper direction now, HB.

You bring up a good point about the difference between scza d/o bipolar type and bipolar disorder w/ lots of psychotic features (what I supposedly have). What's the differencec? I don't think there really is one. It's all the same stuff wrapped up with a different color bow.

I think I am just gonna start calling myself schizoaffective d/o bipolar type from now on--I think it sounds cooler.

[HALLIEBETH87]

The way my psychologist explained it Is that with sza sometimes you can have psychosis and not be depressed or manic. You don’t HAVE to be in a mood episode

Originally Posted by HALLIEBETH87

The way my psychologist explained it Is that with sza sometimes you can have psychosis and not be depressed or manic. You don’t HAVE to be in a mood episode

yep, that's very much true.

I don't have schizoaffective, but I do get psychosis outside of mood episodes, mostly in the form of paranoia, but sometimes in the form of voices. Rarely, I'll become delusional.

I usually get psychosis when I'm highly stressed out about something, so I think it's important for people like us to mitigate the stress we endure. Of course, everyone has different stress tolerance levels, but deep breathing exercises and stress coping techniques (e.g., taking walks) are important preventative measures for psychosis. If you haven't worked with your therapist on breathing or stress coping techniques, I highly recommend you do that. The trigger for psychosis is, in my case, 99% of the time stress. I think the other 1% is sleep. Everyone is different obviously, but I would venture to say that stress is typically the culprit.

[HALLIEBETH87]

Stress is almost always my culprit