Schizoaffective bios... let's share.

Hey Mokie, hope you're feeling better yourself. The doctor has given me a short course of sleeping pills to get my sleeping rhythm back in a normal pattern again. Haven't started taking them yet, since I'm concerned about the hangover next day... can't risk having my son miss school and exams if I'm too conked out to get him sorted in the morning. Will try my first tomorrow, and see if I can wake up on Saturday morning.

I want to be able to come down, or off my meds ... though I imagine I will probably need a maintanance dose for the rest of my life. But hopefully it will be lower than what I'm on now. We'll see... the doctor is very sympathetic.

Hope your T is also listening to you.

mgran, well hope you get the much needed sleep tomorrow.

Hello everyone, I thought I should share my Schizoaffective bios with you all.

I was diagnosed with Schzoaffictive disorder at the age of 7, later I was given medication and a counselor. But when I turned 17 I started to have difficulty with my hand it would twitch and curl up, I ended up going to a neurologist who later diagnosed with Tar-dive Dystonia caused by my medication, it is very rare. I ended up getting brain surgery about a year ago and now I live on my own and have a wonderful boyfriend, and my cat is very happy. I go to support groups that mental health provides here in my home town and I see a doctor who is very open with me, I am very well known in the mental heath programs here in my home town for my story in the way of coping with my mental illness and my movement disorder. I love to help others who need it I am also known for that as well. I am also known to be a fighter I well not give up in anyway. My mom has been through a lot with me my brother is my best friend I love my family who support me in every way they can. My life is in no way easy but I believe that God would not give me anything I can't handle.

Hi Browneyes, what was the surgery for? Did the Tardive Dyskenisia improve at all? I'm glad that you're in a good place with your family and your boyfriend. It means such a lot to have a loving and supportive family!

Hello everyone, my first psychotic break was around 12/13 years old. Then I believed people were out to kill me and constantly heard voices threatening me and saw people chasing me. It all started as a result of severe bullying in middle school. People beat me up, put gum in my hair, called me horrible names and so on. I was constantly terrified of going to school so I had homeschooling for awhile. I had such a breakdown after going back to another school that I went to the hospital for the first time. All I would do in the hospital was sleep the day away not participating in the groups or talking to anyone. When I was 11 I had an attempted rape on me. That brought nightmares. Basically my childhood was traumatic. It caused severe stress and basically caused me to get psychotic in the first place. After awhile, the illness calmed down once I moved away from the situation. I had a few calm years in my life so I started flight school. The school system where I first was is horrible. They blamed me for all my problems and didn't help at all. When I was bullied it was my fault according to the school. The last year before I moved away I ended up in a special school meant for people with mental illness. Now as an adult its far worse when the illness came back. it gets worse each year and I hope it gets better when I am older.

The pills work only when there is not much stress in my life. When its calm in my life, I am fine with no symptoms. But mom's surgery is coming up and I believe its the most major surgery she's had in her life and she is very high risk. She almost died twice during less serious surgeries. I don't like taking my anti psychotic in the morning because i already sleep (when not having an insomnia attack) 12-14 hours a night. When I take it in the morning I sleep an additional 2-3 hours during the day. It is very unhealthy. So I didn't take my anti psychotic this morning and I am not as tired. Of course I am having some of the symptoms and that is just one day without it in the morning even though I still take it at night. I just can't sleep the day away with no energy to do anything.

I hear voices sometimes during the day but most of the time it is very soft. This particular episode I hear voices but in previous episodes with the exception of the one when I was 12/13 I don't hear things but I have visual hallucinations. It is my beliefs that get me in the hospital. I believe that I caused horrible things with psychic powers such as tsunamis, earthquakes, bombings, and even planets exploding with alien life. Recently there was this planet about 100 light years from Earth that had 100 billion life forms on it and was destroyed by this solar flare that I didn't change the direction on because the way was to hurt myself to release powerful energy that travels faster than the speed of light and can do anything you can think of. It caused great pain and suffering and incredible guilt. Good innocent aliens died. Of course the news didn't cover it because of a cover up by the government. They are after me as well and control me and my thoughts by inserting them into my head. I live terrified that people know my most private thoughts and will make fun of them. I know outsiders will call all of this part of the schizoaffective disorder. I know that. It doesn't make it any less true. They have told me even more bizarre things that sometimes make no sense to outsiders. I won't get into them here but to put in into perspective it is far more weird than destroying a planet with 100 billion life forms. It is extreme. I know I am not God but I do have godlike powers. I hate the power and want to get rid of it. I yell at the voices and thoughts, I walk in weird patterns to avoid a laser from a satellite, I sometimes talk and write incoherently, I don't look at people's eyes due to the fact it can connect and make a link to my thoughts, and other things that look weird. I realize it and have insight but to me its still real and its the outsiders that are not in touch with reality. I take Loxapine and Trileptal for the schizoaffective bipolar type.

I also have high functioning autism. The autism was diagnosed when i was 5 but had symptoms shortly after birth. Basically I have been weird my entire life. I also have severe anxiety problems and am now 28 years old.

It's called DBS Deep Brain Stimulation surgery and it was for my Dystonia'

It's Tardive Dystonia it started with Tardive Dyskenisia and became preeminent no it did not but the surgery was not a cure and it wasn't a sure thing that it would work, but it has improved to the point that I can walk after eight years of not walking I am able to but only a short distant s and I am able to live on my own with In Home assistance

I read your entire post and like others on here know what you are going through and I am sorry. It's hard to think that you have any schizo disorder when you go through the phases. I can spend years having a schizo episode only to feel 100% normal and hallucination free for months to years. But eventually I get triggered back into an episode. You can't hide from your past and it catches up with me from time to time.

Just enjoy the time you have where you are free of most of the symptoms and if they do worsen try and find the trigger that set you off and remind yourself over and over that it is your schizo and not reality

I loved reading these posts. They were all so beautiful written, so detailed and so raw and true! It was an inspiration reading each of these.

I love to write and like many others on this site I'm sure, feel the need to tell a bio sometimes instead of just pieces here and there since there is so much more than just a couple instances. So I will explain my own experience with my schizo disorder. Let me first add however that I was diagnosed schizophrenic when I was 14, my father and mother both as well. I'm not sure what schizoeffective is exactly but I have seen bipolar and manic in these posts many times, both of which I have also been diagnosed with (manic depressive is my manic dx) (also dx'd with Multiple personality but that's a whole different story of it's own)

I knew when I was younger that things were different for me. I had a rather traumatic childhood and everything around me was chaos and horror. One bad incident followed by another, then another... It continued. I can remember all the way back to when I was 6 with my paranoia. For as long as I can remember thoughts like these have haunted me but the first memory I have of this was when I was 6.

My aunt (who happens to only be 1 year older than me and a contributor to my lousy childhood) was experimenting with cigarettes for her first time in my bathroom. At the time I started to panic. I was sure that there were camera in my bathroom. That I was being recorded for the whole world to see. That my life was a TV show (like the Truman show but this really was before I saw the movie, years before but my family still doesn't believe me). I locked the bathroom door behind us and started frantically looking for a camera in my bathroom. I refused to try her cigarette and insisted she put it away because the camera would see her. This was my first vivid memory of such a irrational thought.

I wont go over every memory but for the years to come my paranoia worsened and my hallucinations began to reveal themselves for what they were. I had never known anything different. I've always seen shadows from the corner of my eye, flashes of light or flames of fare fly in front of my quickly. I've always seen tracers, I've always seen people standing in one spot one minute and gone the next. My family insisted that these were ghosts if anything.

Let me rewind for one second, when I was in the 4th grade I was convinced that there was a man following me in the woods and soon after followed me home and for years after I insisted to everyone that he stalked me and watched me from outside every day. We moved 2 1/2 states away. I'm in the 6th grade 400+ miles away and still seeing him outside. Eventually he leaves.

So I'm 14 now and seeing a psychiatrist for the first time since the paranoia got worse. I was terrified of school, the bullies were bad and more than anything I was terrified of being out of school. The walk to and from school was horrific. I was sure every car that passed would drive off the road to run me over and kill me, someone paid them, they hated me for some unknown reason, they thought I was someone else... The reasons changed but the fear didn't. When I would get home I would read, it was the only way I felt somewhat safe. Burried in the Dean Koontz sci fi novels but the fear got worse. I would have to lay flat in bed on my back because I feared stray bullets going through my walls, I feared people who wanted me dead shooting me through the wall, people watching me through the window, I wasn't safe in my room. This lasted through 17. Even at 17 years old I had my bed set up close enough to my door and angled just right to my private bathroom and closet (it was a large bed) that I could leap from the door onto the bed, from the bed into the bathroom and from the bed to my closet, the reason for this being the fear that someone was waiting under my bed wanting to pull me down there or cut me. No matter how many times I checked under the bed I was sure he snuck in the fraction of a second it took me to blink my eyes.

I was taking 32 pills at this time. One hospitalization later and a million alcoholic drinks later and I dropped out of highschool and was sent to live with my grandmother. The parties continued until one day things snapped into place. It was like I woke up and I was normal, I didn't need to drink or take meds, I didn't need to party or hide from under the bed. No one was out to kill me, I wasn't this supernatural girl who had more power than she knew what to do with, I was just a teenager. The visuals continued but as I said, I never knew any different. The audio as well never stopped but that is the same as visuals, in part due to my multiple personality disorder.

Fastforward to 5 years later and I found myself at the bottom. As noted before in a previous bio. When you hit a manic state, in my case that is, things seem OK, you seem to be doing well, you can be on top of the world in school or at your job but it's the mania causing this. It is a gift in a way but a curse because just as quickly as it came it can pass as well. When the mania receedes and you are left in the smoke and ash that was your life it's like the tazmanian devil came and destroyed everything. It was a good cover for the schizo symptoms however. And I should add though that I have had many manic episodes that end badly as well due to terrible spending, terrible in the moment decisions, lack of attention to things that need it, a complete disregard for anything at all unsettling... Those are my most unpredictable uncontrollable episodes I tend to go through.

Anyways the mania stops and the visuals, hearing, paranoia, loss of complete reality set in. I insisted that the world was my mind, that I was in my own mind and that an alter (multiple personality) was taking over my body and the world we live in now was just the world in my mind. My t wanted me in the hospital. I was also seeing spiders everywhere, feeling them. I was forgetting who I was, my alters were coming out more and I was in a bad place.

My ex husband was abusive and he set me into a horrible whirlwind of psychotic problems. The day I left on the drive across the country I watched as buffallo and people would step out onto the highway in front of a car, as the car would hit the person/buffalo would dissappear. This and the spiders were the hallucinations I wasn't used to as much, ones that would last longer than moments, ones that would move, that I could feel. The hallucinations were horrible but 3 days after I left and they stopped. I stopped my medication that day as well. The normal visual and audio are still in tact but 1 1/2 years later and no false buffalo or spiders. During all of these phases I have had these some would call them irrational thoughts. That I should be president, sometimes that extends to I should just run the world. This being in an adult perspective and not the childhood villian rule the world type deal. I believe that I would be better suited to decide how the country is ran than the president, that I would be able to solve the problems of world hunger, obesity, child abuse, finances, happiness, crime... All the wrong in the world I could fix if given the opportunity.

Not just this but I am convinced that I do have something wrong with myself that causes electronics to fail so frequently. I believe demons follow me, I believe an angel was sent to me as a child to warn me of the appocolypse, I believe others can read my mind, I believe others copy all of my ideas to prosper from them. I believe the world watches me for the next idea so I can never get on top and make a life for myself. I am terrified of being set up in a crime one day and I am terrified of my own self when I sleep because I am a sleepwalker.

I make my boyfriend go outside at least once a night due to a noise I heard, I as well hear classical orchestra style music sometimes. It's faint and far away though. I never heard a voice tell me to do something bad, only my own voice telling me what I wanted. I have heard many voices but non ever speaking to me directly asking me to hurt someone or myself. I think of myself as lucky for that.

This sums up my experience with a schizo disorder. I look forward to reading many more experiences of others!!!

PurpleFlyingMonkeys... thank you so much for sharing your story with us. It's revalatory the process you describe, as you're growing up, of the paranoia growing... in part no doubt as a reaction to the stress of your childhood environment. I wonder how many of us at some point "learn" to be fearful and, what role that plays in triggering illness?

I also think there's something up with me, because of how electronics react to me. Watches stop working on my wrist, I remember a woman who kept laughing at me because I would try to stand as far away from the photocopier as I could while using it. It was just logical to me to keep myself away from electrics, even if I had to use them.

It sounds as though you've come to a better place in your journey right now, I'm glad you have a boyfriend who cares enough for you to check your noises. Partners can really help us.

Thank you and he has been very helpful. He is very understanding of my insecurities, needs, emotions... The night that I met him my aunt (mentioned in above response) was with me and told him all about my meds, the fact that I had just left my husband, my schizophrenia and my multiple personality disorder and the fact that I was currently seeing and hearing things that were not real. This was said to him the night I met him, how many men would stick around after hearing that? But he tells me that he could tell what she was doing from the beginning (trying to sabbotage me) and if those things that she had said were true he would find out for himself and once he got to know me that those things were not nearly as horrible as she made them out to be. I was thankful that very large road block was out of the way in the relationship so I didn't have to tell him a few dates down the road but none the less it was done the complete wrong way. But he's still here a year and a half later. We have talked about marriage but are still taking it slow because I know I have more growing up to do and I want to be more content and undersanding of what is going on in my own head. So he's been incredible. Treats me like royalty and makes me smile all day every day still. But this thread isn't about boyfriends so I'm sorry, I just love talking about him since he's helped me so much.

The electronics things makes me laugh most of the time. Before I would get so angry always breaking things, expensive new things even if it wasn't a glitch in the system, somehow I was cursed. They would fall and break, someone would break them, water damage, soda damage. Then when nothing at all happens to anything, after trying to save things from insidents like that and they just stop working on me. Cameras start turning purple (I've had 2 in the last 2 years do this both different types and makes) when they take pictures and take no picture, than just stop working. GPS systems, my current laptop has 4 keys missing, the charger is broken, the battery is completely useless and every 20 minutes or so it turns off on me. Not to mention the countless virus and bug problems, the start up issues... I've broken the lamp 3 times now (same one) just unplugging or moving it but it was fixed. Ugh the list grows. I laugh most of the time now though because I'm so used to it now. I don't look for electronics that I will have for long anymore, I know my luck. I want an ipad pretty intensely since I love to read but I don't trust myself with one so I wont get it. That would be one thing I would not be happy with losing lol. I'm debating on getting another phone but my last 3 phones I had less than a month so I don't know if I trust it yet lol. Oh well...

I'm at a much better place at the moment, I may go into another hole at some point but I'm hoping the things I have learned thus far and continue to learn will help me out of that hole more quickly and with less bumps and bruises. Guess that's all we can hope for and I'm alright with that. I've come to accept a lot about life that I didn't want to. I didn't want to accept that some things were wrong that I thought were right, that not everyone is out to get you, but at the same time you can't trust most people even if you want to. I have hardly any control over my future in the little things and in some large events so the only thing we can do is try and stay calm and stable during the unexpected unwanted events of our lives. Just accept it and move on from it. I take a minute to feel my emotions but quickly put them to the side and pick up and move on pretty much. Acceptance has been a pretty big mountain I have been slowly climbing and it's getting there. I think it's a pretty big factor in my overall happiness and sanity. I've spent a lot of time picking apart my own brain and what all goes on within.

Sorry for always posting so long, gosh I have to stop doing that!!! There are a lot of people on PC who really need help and support and I understand, at one point I was that person. I lost myself and didn't know where to even start looking. Now I'm on a much better road and I can see pretty clearly. There are a lot of people on here that are in the same place, it's nice and inspiring to know others as well can overcome this and manage to find happiness in a world that takes it away in an instant. You seem to be in a better place as well, it's hard when you're deep in at the bottom. I look back on all of those days of running and hiding and being afraid and I am so thankful to be where I am right now.

The world may be mean and rough but I wont let MY world be mean and rough. I often daydream about creating a country in Antartica, a new place to start fresh and keep cleanliness, innocence, security, happiness, love and care alive. If only that were possible

well i am in bad shape. i don't really care right now. i don't want to even post here cause i don't think anyone should bother with me. so don't know why i am. i want to live and move on with my life but right now maybe it would be better to go to may past life in denial of this. sorry for posting.

I'm sorry you're hurting right now Mokie. I don't know the situation that you are in but I can relate to the feeling and it's horrible and I am very sorry. For whatever troubles you I wish you all the best and hope that you will find happiness soon. Do you have a therapist or close friend/family that you can call when you are feeling like this? Talking to others can help tremendously.

I just started to see a therapist. She said I could call her but right now I feel I should not burden anyone with my life. As for family I only have my husband and daughter and I feel if they can't see for themselves that I am in this right now I should not ask them for more help. I just feel like I have done my part of telling them what to look for in my ups and downs and if they can't seem to do it for me then why should I bother in telling them. It's me that is not normal and they need to live their normal lives with out having to be concerned of mine. Friends I have three but the only one from there that truly can relate is in DC. We check with each other daily but right now I just need someone who can physically be next to me. I am drowning in depression which I am not used to. I have always been manic with depression when night falls and I just drink and take meds to fall asleep and wait it out till the next day which I am fine and ready to have a great day. Not manic like before so now have nothing to look forward to at all.

Sorry for the long reply and thanks for understanding and saying sorry. That really does help.

i want to thank you all for sharing so vividly and openly the things you have experienced. it helps me feel less alone.

i want to apologize for being absent for awhile. i was hospitalized due to command hallucinations telling me to do certain things, but i did not act on them. instead i told my sister and she took me to the hospital. i think the stay was helpful. my meds got tweaked a bit and there is lots more to do with my regular psychiatrist and therapist. but at least i am finally home.

i am feeling rather scattered and having difficulty focusing right now or i would comment more on the things you have said. but please know i am thinking about you tonight -- even though you are virtually strangers to me -- because i know we have a good deal in common. i wish we had other things in common and perhaps we do. i'm sure i'll find out as i begin to spend more time here.

Mokie, I've been offline for several days, and I'm really sorry to see that you're so depressed. I can't be next to you, but pm me if you need to talk... we could meet up in Chat.

I am out of the depression and seeing things better. Now I just don't know where I am. I am not depressed with feelings of depression, yet I don't have motivation like when hypomania. I don't feel the racing thoughts bothering me but my husband says they probably are cause I keep questioning myself on where I am. One question after another. I don't like it cause there is no feelings at all.

I'm sorry you're feeling like that. At the moment I'm also feeling numb... not at all ill, though I've had some troubling symptoms. But the numbness is SO annoying.

((((((Mokie))))))
I'm really sorry you are suffering this terrible nothingness. At one stage I thought I was exempt from that absurd experience. Then it hit me, and my pdoc thought he had struck gold and all his meds were working perfectly on me. ....um.....no... flat line does not always equal feeling right.
I hope you get to feel a whole lot better and alive soon.

tsunamisurfer, Hi! Thanks for sharing and for being here for me too. How are you?

mgran, so to hear you too are feeling numb it is an awful feeling for me and am sure it is for you too. I too was getting the troubling symptoms. How are you doing now? Hopefully better or getting there.

Well I have not been here for awhile or at least I think cause I have been going up towards the bad mania. I finally today come back to an even level but at least have feelings back. I am not sure but know I have to take meds but I don't want to feel numb and I did with only cymbalta. So now I am nervous to see new pdoc in thinking that when placed on meds to stablize my ups and downs I will be left numb. I have memory issues right now worse then ever like black outs. So please forgive me if I can't remember sorting things we may have shared recently or if I have shared things here. Thanks for being here my friends.

Hi Mokie, thanks for asking how I am,

I've been reducing my antipsychotic, and it seems to be working... I mean, I haven't gone bonkers or anything. I'm sticking where I am for a little bit, since I've had some hallucinations (the television has been showing me subliminal images, which of course I know aren't real, but it's still annoying. And they've been giving me nightmares, so I'm not watching telly at the moment.) I've been exhausted, not wanting to do anything, just sleep, and if not for voluntary work I'd be in bed at least twelve hours a day. I hate this, because it makes me feel so lazy and such a blob, but I can hide the worst of it from my son.

(((((Mgran)))))
I don't think I've got it as rough as you, but I know the feeling of needing to cut out some stimuli that are associated with troubling hallucinations and triggers of other problems. I seem to be coming out of the need to sleep 14 hrs a day, but this neuorleptic is keeping me feeling like a drooling zombie most of the time.
Hang in there.

Thanks Tsunami... I'm glad you're coming out of the need to sleep... if I ever get off the antipsychotic I think I'll be on the mood stabiliser (also an neuroleptic... anti convulsant), but just getting off something which makes me so tired will be a major step in the right direction. I hope you keep heading in the right direction.

Just got back from my pdoc who is delighted with my mood progress. She only wants to see me in 3 months. I feel less excited and less depressed than before, and I haven't had strong hallucinations or paranoid thinking.

Sounds like I'm ready to take on anything, huh?
Here' why I'm less ecstatic:
My hands shake enough to make writing difficult to read (my bank won't accept my signature).
Photography (my job) is tricky due to camera shake.
I have a lot of difficulty judging my position relative to others which makes driving unsafe.
I sleep between 12 & 15 hrs per day. Not exactly productive.
My speech is slow, my Tongue feels thick and I I drool 24 hrs a day.
Zero sexual ability or interest.

No, I'm not depressed - not much - I laugh easily, and even have occasional gems of genius (measurable in milliseconds).
We're going to take me off the antipsychotic Invega and hopefully see the slobbery retarding symptoms vanish, leaving me with volition, even temperament and .... um ... well I'm not sure how we are going to solve the shaky problems because those are probably caused by Lithium and Valproate.

So hopefully I will be back here soon.

Gosh, I'm sorry that the shakes are affecting your work and signature! That must be awful. I get the occasional twinge of nerve spasm I think you'd call it, but very rarely.

Finally! I have never heard of this disorder before, but now I understand what I have been experiencing. I hear doorbells, phones that aren't ringing, huge noises that sound like a bomb going off and not knowing where it came from. I have stopped getting up to answer the door and the phone because I know there will be no one there. I just check caller ID to see if someone actually called. I also have sleep apnea and never seem to get into the deep REM sleep, cycling 3-4 hours to waking state. I talk, act out, laugh, and feel as though I have actually touched certain objects that seem so real - all of this as I am either falling asleep or waking up. During the day I no longer trust what I hear or see, but don't feel like this would be full-blown schizophrenia. I don't think I've had a major break from reality, just glimpses here and there. Can anyone tell me more about the symptoms and how you approached it with your doctor? Also any specific drugs that you recommend or is it best to just stick to what meds you are taking. I am diagnosed bipolar/chronic depression...anxiety disorders, paranoia, and lack of coordination with a twist of vertigo every now and then. Any feed back is greatly appreciated!