[sanity's eclipse]

Hi, I apologise if this is the wrong place to post this, I am just worried about something at the moment and this seems like the right place to get advice (any advice would be great ).

As part of one of my college courses I am studying about mental health and this has led me to find out more about schizophrenia. Yesterday I was browsing the NHS pages on schizophrenia and its symptoms, most notably the negative symptoms and the prodrome. This is an excerpt from that section:

"Negative symptoms experienced by people living with schizophrenia include:

losing interest and motivation in life and activities, including relationships and sex

lack of concentration, not wanting to leave the house and changes in sleeping patterns

being less likely to initiate conversations and feeling uncomfortable with people, or feeling there is nothing to say

becoming more socially withdrawn and experiencing an increasing lack of care about your appearance and personal hygiene."

I find that I have been experiencing most of these recently, especially part about social awkwardness which I have been experiencing for a couple of years. However I also find that I am still interested in a lot of aspects of life such as sports and some sexual aspects, and that concentration has always been a problem (I think I have ADHD). Despite this I have been worried about schizophrenia for a few months now and I got extremely worried upon reading the NHS page a few days back.

I should also mention that I have smoked cannabis for a while and think this has led to the onset of a lot of these symptoms. I have stopped now, but the symptoms still remain. I am not delusional and do not hear any voices or see hallucinations, however random thoughts pop into my head quite often and sometimes I will hear something random from someone else, but I always think it is me just remembering something, or making something up in my head. Also I have recently developing this ringing in my ears, or static sound that I attributed to tinnitus, but now I am not so sure... I am a bit paranoid sometimes, to the extent of checking my room for stuff, but this is mostly only when I smoke. Finally, I know it is not an indicator but my score on the quiz was 0 and sanity score for schizophrenia was 5%, but I know I do not have it yet; just may be developing it.

I would like to know if this will lead to me developing schizophrenia in the future and whether any people with schizophrenia has experienced these same things? I have no stigma against the disease but am just anxious to find out if I may be developing it.

Firstly, welcome to PC!

Secondly, the features you mention in your post could be any number of things, the big one being depression. I'm not saying you do/don't have anything, but it's very vague at the moment, and we can't diagnose you here anyway, nor can we predict whether you will develop anything in the future. Really, the best thing to do is to see your GP and tell them what is concerning you. If they decide it's necessary, they will refer you to a psychiatrist or psychologist or whoever they think is most appropriate.

Eta: I've had all of those symptoms, and yet don't have any psych diagnosis at all.

All the best

*Willow*

[sanity's eclipse]

Thank you for your lovely reply

I used to suffer quite badly from depression in my mid teens, and broke up with my girlfriend a year ago so you may very well be right. I haven't really been sad per se but have been feeling down sometimes and maybe those symptoms are related to that.

I was already strongly considering seeing my GP about this and will definitely make an appointment with him now to describe my symptoms and see what he suggests.

All the best with you as well

[junkDNA]

everyone has random things that pop into their head. for schizophrenia u must have positive and negative symptoms. i think you are worrying too much about it.