I guess this is where this goes...

A couple months ago I was dx'd with Schizophrenia: Paranoid Type
for my sporadic auditory hallucinations along with my debilitating paranoia.

So altogether I ended up with: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Type I, and Schizophrenia.

Now, after seeing 4 more professionals, they narrowed my five diagnoses down
to: Psychotic Disorder: Not Otherwise Specified.

Has anyone recieved this DX?

It's such a ridiculously large umbrella diagnosis that I can't help but laugh at it.
It's like they've given up trying to figure out what the actual issue is and couldn't figure out a way to medicate me.

I am paranoid sz and also Clinically depressed.

I have found after listening to all these doctors that sz is when you hear/see/paranoid all the time, irrespective of your mood. If that is not the case, and you have Psychotic episodes when you are upset/stressed/depressed, then you wont be a sz, but some other, like xyz + psychosis or Bipolar etc.

Are your hallucinations and paranoia there all the time?

yeah i got the dx of major depressive with psychosis
was very hard to grap, but my symptoms are very similar to yours,
the anxiety and paranoia with hearing things and i became very delusional too,

My son has been given the dx psychosis, nos in the past. I assumed it was to avoid giving him the heavy label of sz. (Too late, he'd already been so labelled. )

Personally I think psych labels are mostly nonsense.

costello again you are right. A doctor said they try to hold of from labelling young people, because it can ruin their lives. But and Im only saying but, not saying you are wrong, sometimes do you not think it might be better if a correct dx is given and a label given, so the person can then try building from that. At least they know where they stand.

My paranoia is 24/7 and applies to every single thing I do.

I forgot to mention the delusional part.

I agree with them being nonsense, but it's still bothersome to not be able to be labeled properly.

oh right, its just that you said 'sporadic' so I thought you meant that for your hallucinations and debilitating paranoia. I see what you meant now.

No problem, I reworded it a bit Thanks

I can understand about the paranoia. I am the same. It does ruin everything I do. EVERY single thing, or action is packed inbetween paranoia. I hate it. Before I begin, during and after. Basically makes doing the smallest easiest tasks impossible.

No one wants to take me in the car with them. I am always saying stop, let that car go past, or turn left, take a different direction. A small journey becomes a very long anxioous one, not just for me, but whoever is driving.

I only ever heard psychosis.
Then my new nurse told me what was in the notes - delusional disorder.
Just so they don't have to listen and can give me meds.

Delusional Disorder is meant to be really rare - so obviously I don't have that.

There were only two people who came right out and said 'sz' about my son. Everyone else tiptoes around it saying 'bipolar,' 'psychosis, nos,' etc.

The first to say it right out was a screener at the state hospital who told me that my son was her very first screening. She talked to him for about 30 minutes (he was really delusional and paranoid at the time) and wrote down sz. The pdoc who saw him after he was admitted said 'bipolar II.')

The other was a student doctor in a hospital in another state. She was rotating through the psych ward to get experience. She called him a 'chronic paranoid schizophrenic.' When she saw him he was just off a two month drinking binge. Then they put him on a very high dose of Risperdal, so he was really slowed down. He seriously wasn't like himself at all. You'd ask a question, and about 30 seconds later he'd start to answer. (They said they couldn't release him until the medication worked. They said the medication wasn't working, because he was still paranoid. I told them he's always paranoid. You aren't going to totally eliminate that with meds. So they had him on this incredibly high dose, and he was still paranoid. Idiots!)

Exactly!

Same issue here. Everyone isn't giving up until my paranoia is gone. I keep explaining to them that even on 450mg of Seroquel XR I was still extremely paranoid. There's no way to completely eliminate a personality trait/flaw.

costello that is pretty much what happened with me, but the paranoia hasn't really gone away and they just keep upping my dose, should i be worried i was mis dx'ed

You're right JD meds cannot eliminate what is part of you. When I told my doctor that how exactly are they going to get rid of Him, by murdering Him with meds, cos thats the only way to get rid of someone real. If I wanted to get rid of a voice, I would put bloody loud music on, I dont needs meds for that, so He isnt just a voice, He is real! Same with my paranoia, its just the way I am. Meds will do what exactly, make me feel like a zombie, so yeah I wont be so paranoid, but I wont also be a lot of other things too!

Ayep, exactly. And that's precisely what pdocs will argue against to the death.

when i was teen i up until i was 17 i got major depression w/ psychosis. at 15 i got schizoaffective but they changed it back to MDD w/ psychosis. at one point when i was 19 a pdoc gave me bipolar I and said all the symptoms about voices and paranoia i was lying about. but i wasnt. that was just one time and he was a horrible doctor.

but
since i was 17 its really always been schizoaffective until i turned 21 and my doctor put schizophrenia - paranoid.

my paranoia is always there too. has been for years. since i was 9.

Sometimes it's an age thing. True sz is diagnosed in early adult years, 18-25 or so. Docs avoid diagnosing a 14 year old with sz because of age. So they will diagnosis with something else. It has a lot to do with diagnostic guidelines and medical coding books.

The medical field doesn't like to diagnosis until all symptoms are happening, especially in teens.

psychosis covers such a wide base of symptoms i think they hand it out too easy,
but it's confused with other things easily one doc might say bi polar and another psychosis and a third could say schiz, its very frustrating

my problem with that one doc was not my symptoms. he wouldnt even listen to me. he had extremely bad reviews anyway. he wouldnt acknowledge anything i said - so i quit telling him after 5 months or so.

i had all symptoms.
reason why they put schizoaffective. but yea it can be an age thing.

although i wouldnt say true schiz. i would say its more properly diagnosed around that age. i mean whos to say someone doesnt truly have sz in their teens. i was diagnosed by 4 different hospitals and a Residential Treatment Facility as having schizoaffective by the time i was 17.

any younger than that makes since about the age thing yes.

The first thing I was diagnosed with, was PTSD.
Then came MDD, and they said that I could possibly have Schizophrenia as I get older.

Least to say that I'm 16, but for some reason I hear that kids younger than me have Schizophrenia. WTF?

I was said to have paranoia along with the psychosis though.

I agree, Turtle. Sometimes these definitions are so vague. Sometimes these diagnoses become " the flavor of the month" as do certain medications. Seems lately that the drug Abilify is being handed out like M&M's. Abilify is pharmacologically classified as an anti-psychotic.

Turtle you said that you had an episode of psychosis. I think it is an individual thing-- that term. I too have had a true pschotic break. My reality was skewed. Thankfully it did not last. By the way it is considered rare to have a brief psychosis.
When I try to explain my psychosis to my b.f. he doesn't understand. He seems to think that psychosis means not knowing the difference between right and wrong. That if a person appears to know what they are doing, then they must be in reality.
I wish people would and could educate themselves. I was in a psychosis, but to others maybe they thought I was in reality. I was a paranoid, suspicious remnant of my former self. I didn't sleep, had lost about 30 lbs. and was hostile and mean. I felt I was being watched and surveiled. I was sure "they" were coming to take me away HA HA!
I was agoraphobic, so getting to a Dr. or Mental Health Facility was impossible.
That was 9 mo.s ago. Things are better now. I am now mostly just really depressed. I never want to go through that again.
Perhaps my experience can help others.

thanks for this i agree wit you

yeah mary i agree, i put down brief psychotic disorder because im not sure what else to say, i had a huge breakdown that i ended up in hospital and things were awful, but now i have the odd episode from time to time, i should prob change it but i dont know the official term i was so bad back then i dont remember what they said to me at all if that makes sense