English is not my mother tongue but I'd like to know what this is called in English.

I'm not-quite-psychotic. In my country they call it (literally translated) "border-psychotic" or "on-the-border-of-psychotic". What is this called in English?

Could it be borderline personality disorder?

No, it's not. I don't have borderline. I have symptoms that you often see in people who are on their way to having a psychosis or have residual symptoms after a psychosis. I have disorganized thoughts, hear voices although I can't hear what they are saying, sort-of-hallucinate (I see notebooks all the time, can't read what's written in them but it looks more like math than it looks like words, and I know they aren't real and I have never thought they are real), and they say I'm paranoid.

Perhaps a more fitting term would be near-psychotic. But what I'm looking for is the term other people use, the name it's diagnosed with in English-speaking countries.

[junkDNA]

i dont know if there is a word besides what u called it.

[waiting4]

Could it be schizoaffective disorder?

I think my psychiatrist would have said so if he thought that was the case. From what I read on the internet, you can't have schizoaffective if you meet the full criteria for MDD? Which is my primary diagnosis.

[Sometimes psychotic]

So there is the prodrome for people developing psychosis and like you said residual for people who have already had a full break. Also there is something called psychotic depression. Some of the things involved in the prodrome are things like magical thinking and limited hallucinations but being in the prodrome is not really a diagnosis here..

There is also something called either attenuated psychosis syndrome or psychosis risk syndrome....these are for people who are early in the course. It not fully psychotic but it's not a real diagnosis either they just ended up putting it in the appendix of the DSM 5 because they thought it shouldn't be considered a mental illness yet it was just too poorly defined and a fair number of people never went on to develop psychosis.

[Atypical_Disaster]

Originally Posted by waiting4

Could it be schizoaffective disorder?

Schizoaffective disorder is a form of schizophrenia with a mood disorder component.

[waiting4]

Originally Posted by Atypical_Disaster

Schizoaffective disorder is a form of schizophrenia with a mood disorder component.

Yet another reason I am not a P or a T and never claimed to be. It was a guess.

Thanks

[Atypical_Disaster]

Originally Posted by waiting4

Yet another reason I am not a P or a T and never claimed to be. It was a guess.

Thanks

Hey take it easy, I was trying to be helpful/informative.

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

So there is the prodrome for people developing psychosis and like you said residual for people who have already had a full break. Also there is something called psychotic depression. Some of the things involved in the prodrome are things like magical thinking and limited hallucinations but being in the prodrome is not really a diagnosis here..

There is also something called either attenuated psychosis syndrome or psychosis risk syndrome....these are for people who are early in the course. It not fully psychotic but it's not a real diagnosis either they just ended up putting it in the appendix of the DSM 5 because they thought it shouldn't be considered a mental illness yet it was just too poorly defined and a fair number of people never went on to develop psychosis.

So if I understand correctly it comes down to there simply not being one word for it the way it's in my country. Thanks a lot for your information!

[waiting4]

Originally Posted by Atypical_Disaster

Hey take it easy, I was trying to be helpful/informative.

Again...thanks

[nbritton]

Originally Posted by Breadfish

English is not my mother tongue but I'd like to know what this is called in English.

I'm not-quite-psychotic. In my country they call it (literally translated) "border-psychotic" or "on-the-border-of-psychotic". What is this called in English?

Slightly off your rocker. :-)

[blackwhitered]

Schizotypal maybe?

[waiting4]

Originally Posted by nbritton

Slightly off your rocker. :-)

I would go with what Sometimes said, which is the psychotic prodrome.

The At-Risk or Prodrome Phase – 'Something is not quite right'

Psychotic illnesses rarely present out of the blue. Almost always, these disorders are preceded by a gradual change in psychosocial functioning, often over an extended period. This is the period during which the individual may start to experience a change in themselves, but have not yet started experiencing clear-cut psychotic symptoms. This is the prodromal phase of the illness, which is known as the "at risk mental state" phase.
Changes in this phase vary from person to person and the duration of this phase is also quite variable, although it is usually over several months. In general, the at risk phase is a fluctuating and fluid process, with symptoms gradually appearing and changing over time.

Some of the changes seen during this phase include:

Changes in affect such as anxiety, irritability and depression
Changes in cognition such as difficulty in concentration or memory
Changes in thought content, such as a preoccupation with new ideas often of an unusual nature
Physical changes such as sleep disturbance and loss of energy
Social withdrawal and impairment of role functioning, which can include deterioration in school or work performance

The person may also experience some attenuated positive symptoms such as mild thought disorder, ideas of reference, suspiciousness, odd beliefs and perceptual distortions which are not quite of psychotic intensity or duration.
These may be brief and intermittent at first, escalating during times of stress or substance abuse and then perhaps subsiding, before eventually becoming sustained with the emergence of clear-cut psychosis.
Clearly many of these changes are quite non-specific and can result from a number of psychosocial difficulties, physical disorders and psychiatric syndromes. However, it is clear that persistent or worsening psychological changes in an adolescent or young adult may herald the development of a mental health disorder such as psychosis and this possibility needs to be kept in mind, particularly if other risk factors are present.

Phases of Psychosis | eppic.org.au

*Willow*

[Crescent Moon]

Since depression is your primary DX, maybe it would be Depression with Psychotic Features. Or, if you have swings between depression and mania, it could be Bipolar Disorder with psychotic features.

Originally Posted by Crescent Moon

Since depression is your primary DX, maybe it would be Depression with Psychotic Features. Or, if you have swings between depression and mania, it could be Bipolar Disorder with psychotic features.

Don't think it would be that, because I've been depressed for almost four years and I've been hearing voices at least for about 14.. since I was three I think.

Thanks for thinking along, though.

[Mysterious Flyer]

You say that you are a survivor of abuse and torture. In that case, your brain may have developed abnormally and there is no name for your disorder because it's unique to you. When I was a kid, I would sometimes hear people calling my name. I would look around, and there would be no one there. I was being abused at the time. I also had severe insomnia and recurring nightmares. I did not have visual hallucinations. I was aware the auditory hallucinations were not real (it only took a couple times to figure that out).

I have always thought that my auditory hallucinations were related to the extreme insomnia and nightmares. Like a part of my brain still needed to process the thoughts that should have happened during dreams, but couldn't. Recurring hallucinations while awake are not so different from recurring dreams, IMO. I grew out of it, but if your abuse was more severe, you may have grown into it.

Are you completely away from the abusive situation now? If so, for how long?

Originally Posted by Mysterious Flyer

You say that you are a survivor of abuse and torture. In that case, your brain may have developed abnormally and there is no name for your disorder because it's unique to you. When I was a kid, I would sometimes hear people calling my name. I would look around, and there would be no one there. I was being abused at the time. I also had severe insomnia and recurring nightmares. I did not have visual hallucinations. I was aware the auditory hallucinations were not real (it only took a couple times to figure that out).

I have always thought that my auditory hallucinations were related to the extreme insomnia and nightmares. Like a part of my brain still needed to process the thoughts that should have happened during dreams, but couldn't. Recurring hallucinations while awake are not so different from recurring dreams, IMO. I grew out of it, but if your abuse was more severe, you may have grown into it.

Are you completely away from the abusive situation now? If so, for how long?

As far as I know the notebooks and voices started before the abuse got bad, not sure when the abuse started exactly. Might have been before that, I don't know. The torture was about 4,5-3,5 years ago, when I was 13 and 14.

No, I still live at home but I figured out a few years ago that as long as I make sure my parents don't get angry they won't physically hurt me, so I spent all my time walking on eggshells now. But it pays off because they haven't physically hurt me since.

When I think about some of the traumas I went through the notebooks and voices get really really bad, though. So it might be related. Thanks for your input!

[junkDNA]

i have trauma related psychosis. when i think about traumas or get triggered it gets worse for me too. hope u can find some coping skills to deal with that. i found a few from working with my T. do u have a T??

Yeah I have a T, I get treated for MDD and PTSD. I'm also seeing a pdoc.

[Mysterious Flyer]

What steps are you taking to separate yourself from your parents? Is your education good enough to procure a job that will support you? You can continue to pursue higher education on evenings and weekends. Some companies will pay for further education if they think it will make you more valuable to them.

My CPTSD symptoms (including insomnia and nightmares) did not start to go away until I was completely separated from my entire family. Your hallucinations may be similar, especially if it's a spillover effect from ineffective dream processing.

I'm in the process of finding a place for assisted living (I'm only 17 and not ready by far to live by myself). I'm still in secondary school.

I hope you're right and they'll go away either with me leaving or with trauma therapy.