psychosis vs. schizophrenia.

is psychosis and schizophrenia basically the same thing?

Psychosis is a symptom of schizophrenia...it's like the hallucinations delusions and cognitive difficulties etc but for schizophrenia there are more criteria...you have to be impacted for at least 6 months although you only need 1 month of psychosis. You just have to have reduced functioning at school work or social life during that 6 month period. Some people get psychosis and never develop schizophrenia. If your psychosis is less than a month it's brief psychotic disorder and if it's more than 1 month but less than 6 it's schizophreniform. There is also schizoaffective or bipolar with psychosis if you also have mood symptoms and even psychotic depression. If you don't really hallucinate but have delusions there is also delusional disorder but that is considerd a type of psychosis as well. These days they simply refer to all of these as the schizophrenia spectrum just like the autism spectrum ...

I find this to be very interesting. My first episode started after taking adderall but i always thought there was something different about me when i was younger. I hsve not been in pychosis since november and i never see or hear things that arent there. Im sitting here just so confused as to what im going through. My pychosis always comes after i use or drink. I remember everything i do. Im usually more delusional. Like i could heal people, or the tv was sending me messages, the whole coding thing i do and i sit here right now thinking how the hell did i even think that. I cant laugh it off because some of the stuff i thought was just insane. I isolate, i feel like someone looks at me and they can see that im trying to hide something. Its like i have post pardum of my delusions. I get flashbacks because of the stuff i thought. I think my paranoia is my eorst sympton. Like i caught myself the other day when i was driving i thought someone was following me. I wrote down the license plate but when ingot home i was like what a stupid way to think. I always talk to myself in my head, my racing thoughts are so frustrating. Its so confusing. I just cant get a base diagnoses because i always used to start drinking or drugging. I just want to go a year with no delusions. Im on no meds, going to see my therapist tomorrow. Maybe its guilt,depressive delusions or maybe im just a paranoid schytzo or maybe im just thinking its paranoia when its just anxiety. So so confusing...

So there is something called drug induced psychosis...it isn't necessarily a mental illness because it happens only when you use...there are also potential medical causes like epilepsy brain tumors etc those aren't mental illnesses either...everything I went though above was a psych condition...so you probably don't have a mental illness yet if it only happens when you use drugs or alcohol...stimulants like adderall up regulate dopamine which contributes to psychosis...the early models actually used amphetamines to trigger it...

If you are having active hallucinations is that automatically considered psychosis? Or does that count under the reduced functioning?

I'll be honest and say I don't know. I think you can have hallucinations as a symptom independent of psychosis. So like if you have simple hallucinations like spots or auras or something I don't think those automatically count as psychosis but once you get up to something complex like a person or an animal I think it counts right away but I think implied in the definition of psychosis is the inability to distinguish reality from your hallucination at least initially so if you saw a cat walk up to you you might try to pet it until realizing it wasn't really there. The thing is this gets complicated because you might later realize its the same cat and therefore not real or you might realize that there probably isn't a dragon hovering 6 inches from your face---so some of that aspect is gone later.

As far as reduced functioning as far as I can tell that's primarily social and occupational so do you have friends and can you do your work or school work...my understanding is if you can do both of those things to full capacity your don't have impairment and therefore have no mental illness.

I'm just wondering because I was hearing voices (external) and seeing things for 2 years before I had to be hospitalized, and I would go through phases where I got a little better or a little worse, and I don't know if that ALL counts as psychosis or if it only counts as psychosis when it gets really bad. When it gets really bad I get disorganized too but that doesn't happen as often.

In terms of other impairments, the social impairment was/is a big thing for me. Part paranoia, part lack of motivation, and part anhedonia...

I think that most of the part that happens before you see a professional is lumped into the prodrome because it's a little different so you're beginning to have psychosis but its not necessarily the full thing and the only thing I know designed to measure the conversion are these sips ans sops surveys. The seeing things part is less common but there are between 5% and 25% of people that have different degrees of auditory hallucination and don't necessarily have a diagnosed mental illness. I actually saw this one guy on I think it was the agenda---a Canadian program on this week long series on mental illness and there was a full panel of pdocs and he outright said you know I hear voices but I do fine I'm just wondering what you guys might think of that if it's you know the "S" word or not and they were like nope nothing wrong with you across the board. So if someone hearing voices can get no diagnosis from a shrink I think it argues that what we consider psychosis is more than just the hallucinations...

I have this feeling hallucinations need to have a certain intensity and format along with that whole "disruption" quality.

Example:
If you hear voices in general it's nothing major

If the voice are telling you a lot of negative things it's a bit more troubling.

If you hear voices and you firmly believe / act on the things they tell you then perhaps it's going to raise some red flags.

That's just my opinion on it from my observations, not scholarly or anything.

My voices were usually critical or narrating. Some commands some of which were distressing. I was also super paranoid to the point that I thought people were poisoning me and thought people could read my thoughts. So I guess that falls under psychosis >1 month. But a lot of the time the voices were the main problem and I think that would fall under poor functioning >6 months... along with the social issues, flat affect, and other negative symptoms...

You know this reminds me of the first rank symptoms which they got rid of in the DSM 5...supposedly if you had any of these you automatically had schizophrenia---I just don't think there are any clear cut lines because everybody's experience is so different...of course I also had a few so I'm glad they got rid of them.

copied from wikipedia

• Auditory hallucinations
  • Hearing voices conversing with one another
  • Voices heard commenting on one's actions (hallucination of running commentary)
  • Thought echo (a form of auditory hallucination in which the patient hears his/her thoughts spoken aloud)
• Somatic hallucinations
• Passivity experiences e.g. made volition, made feeling & made impulse (delusions of control / of being controlled)
• Thought withdrawal
• Thought insertion (thoughts are ascribed to other people who are intruding into the patient's mind)
• Thought broadcasting (also called thought diffusion)
• Delusional perception (linking a normal sensory perception to a bizarre conclusion, e.g. seeing an aeroplane means the patient is the president)

What did they change it to? Do you know?

I agree, having less of a check mark list of symptoms may be better in the long run. Everyone is different and not everyone fits into neat little boxes (we all know how I feel about boxes. )

They just eliminated that section so you have to have two of the three symptoms hallucinations, delusions or cognitive impairment for at least one month with functional impairment for 6 months or at least that's my understanding of it...

Not really, no. Say if someone starts talking to a tree once.....and the tree talks back that is a form of psychosis. The fact that they just took a hit of acid an two hours ago makes no difference, the experience is still deemed psychotic by pdocs. Of course, the tree talking was caused by the acid, but the fact that it was from drugs does not make a difference to shrinks. You might be a totally sane person, but the experience was insane. If someone has the same experience once without taking acid, but it never happens again then the experience is still deemed psychotic by pdocs whether you are sane or not. However, if this happens all every day for at least 6 months and you cannot function, then your deemed schizophrenic. If the same guy who took the acid keeps conversing with trees 6 months later then he has drug induced schizophrenia

Yes it's all psychosis but there is a separate dsm category for drug induced psychosis. If you only have one event without acid it may or may not be psychosis. If your cultural beliefs suggest that you can talk to trees perhaps by entering a trance state and you talk to trees it's not psychosis same as hearing God speak to you...any sort of cultural belief can cancel out the label of psychosis. There are also common hallucinations like hearing your phone ring as soon as you get in the shower when it didn't really ring that aren't considered psychotic. Apparently people sometimes also feel their phone vibrate when it's not happening. As far as the acid guy 6 months out depends if he's still using, if he is it's still drug induced psychosis but if he's abstained and still psychotic then yeah schizophrenia. But an awful lot of this depends on the pdoc a lot of them take the dsm as sort of a rough guide and sort of sort out how they think about a person by gut feeling so any one person can get like four different Dx's from different pdocs.

thank u guys so much for all these informations! learned alot! thanks!

Still so confused. I would do drugs because I can actually help clean the house. Kinda like a mania because when im clean and sober im just useless. This is why im not sure about the bi polar aspect. Dont people like the mania because of the high energy levels? For me, I never have high energy levels, I mean I def think im manic depressive, but i also have these bouts with paranoia. Maybe im confusing the paranoid feelings with anxiety. But people with anxiety dont write down license plates like ive done in the past. I never hear voices that are not there. Never see anything thats not there even when im in a pychosis. I just always have conversations with myself, where im second guessing myself all the time.I think ive isolated for such a long time that i just dont know how to deal with the outside world. I hate myself, the guilt ive caused my family, these are all major factors and when the stress hits, I start to go downhill. Like last night I was in the chat and asked someone if it was safe to post a pic of yourself on this site. When I woke up this morning I was like, why did I do that, now someone can find out who I am and set me up. Stuff like that and it drives me crazy.

I would consider my experiences as more delusional. I mean it was insane too but since november im not delusional. Still depressed and isolated and at times paranoid along with anxiety. I am so hoping that it is drug induced. But even the alcohol did it, I know alcohol
Is still a drug but its either drug induced,bi polar, depressive, or full blown scytzophrenia, which scares the **** out of me. My doctor told me not to worry about it so much. The labeling but its hard. I mean sometimes I cant look in the mirror because of how insecure I am. And just 6 years ago I was engaged to be married. How life can change like that is crazy. Maybe im so depressed that it drives me into delusions.

Have you heard of delusional disorder...its what you get with only delusions and no hallucinations or cognitive impairment...its possible you could have that in addition to some sort of depression...you don't have to have just one thing unfortunately...

Oh no see I def have multiple things going on. But i never heard of delusional disorder. Im gonna look it up. I def have some sort of bdd symptoms too. I cry very easily at sad movies sometimes so I def have depression or manic depression. My luck I probably have all these diagnoses. I was looking at paranoid personality disorder. I find myself having to role play or practice what im going to say in any social situation. This sucks really.Plus i was also diagnosed with adhd in high school. This is never gonna get better.

I'm not sure you should be pathologizing all of these behaviors... The reason some things are considered disorders is because they cause significant disruption in your life. Crying at sad movies is within the range of normal and healthy. So is practicing conversations with people to a certain extent. It can be a symptom of something else, like ASD, but it's not a disorder on its own...

EDIT: I just realized that I sound kind of rude here, so I just want to clear up that it's not intentional...

It can definitely get better....and thinking that it can get better is actually an important part if it getting better. It's not like a cold where your immune system will eventually fight it off no matter what you do...for this stuff you have to fight either by getting the right meds or by getting therapy and changing the way you think at a core level. I always used to rehearse social situations too but I don't do it anymore unless it's something big like a doctors appointment...the shrinks always make me sort of cautious I'm afraid to say something that ends up taking up the whole time period so I have to rehearse. For me I am actually recovered. Around three years ago I starting seeing and hearing things that weren't there but also believing untrue things like a secret organization wanted to recruit me etc. I got meds and I got cbt and like five months ago I finally got off the meds...so it can be done albeit there is only about a 25% recovery rate. I feel like it's sort of like being heavy weight-wise...in order to lose weight you have to diet and exercise and that will work for some people but not everybody....but if you try something passive like just hoping it will pass it will just get worse. So talk to your doc or better yet a psychologist about what is normal or not. Mine was highly reassuring that basically there were a lot of people who thought like I did but she would provide alternate ways of thinking that were less negative. So for example crying as movies might not be depression...maybe it's just sensitivity....also why not see more upbeat films if you know you'll end up crying. A friend of mine stopped seeing sad movies altogether she was just like I'm not going to pay someone to cry...

Also regarding drugs read up on something called paws it can make you feel like garbage for like a year after you get off.

Sp pretty much u gotta put in the work. Running actually felt good to me the other day after taking my dogs out i jogged with them a lil and i def felt good afterwards. Its just getting up to do it thats the problem

Yep that's it exactly.... Good luck!

Wow thats gonna take so much for me to actually get out there and run. I dont remember that last time I really exversised. I mean im not obese or anything im around 5 10 178lbs but in the worst shape of my life.