[supportu]

Has anyone been diagnosed with both? How do you tell the difference?

[Atypical_Disaster]

Hallucinations can't come out and control the body. Alters/parts can. That's one way to tell the difference.

[worthit]

You can't touch a hallucination. Its not there just the brain makes it so real.

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[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by supportu

Has anyone been diagnosed with both? How do you tell the difference?

here in NY treatment providers do not go according to whether a person can touch their alters or not because in both schizophrenia and DID some people do have the psychotic/delusion /or have been raised in a cultural belief system where they can touch their dissociative alter and can touch their hallucination type alter or that their dissociative /hallucinatory alter ca touch and do harm to them.

usually a person with both disorders can tell the difference by how they feel during one situation vs the other and how they perceive/think about and refer to their internal systems with each of the disorders. if the dissociative symptoms are dominate its most likely a dissociative problem they are dealing with at that moment, and if the psychotic symptoms are dominate then its usually the schizophrenia problem they are dealing with...

example feeling numb is a dissociative symptom, but add a psychotic element to it....feeling numb because there are aliens crawling under the skin changes it to a schizophrenic symptom.

the only other way to tell the difference is through diagnostic testing and talking with your own treatment providers. each case is different therefore how to tell the respective disorders apart is going to be different for everyone. A lot of factors go into it such as the persons medical and mental health history, genetics, medications, how they perceive and think about their self/their alters, the type of voices they hear, amnesia and other issues too.

my suggestion if this continues to bother you contact your treatment providers they can help you discover which symptoms you are having belong to which of your mental disorders.