what do you think it means if i have family members with schizophrenia and i have every single sign of schizophrenia but psychosis?

i have been in and out of the mental health system most of my life, no proper dx... i think i just inherited all the characteristics of the disorder without the full on disorder... but i am definitely abnormal...

even without a proper dx, i have been off and on antipsychotics for 13 years.

i almost wonder if me and my family just dont fit the way society wants us to be... if i didnt live in the middle of nowhere and wasnt totally beaten down by the system, i would deal with them... i also may have CPTSD.

[joshuas-mommy]

Originally Posted by somat

what do you think it means if i have family members with schizophrenia and i have every single sign of schizophrenia but psychosis?

i have been in and out of the mental health system most of my life, no proper dx... i think i just inherited all the characteristics of the disorder without the full on disorder... but i am definitely abnormal...

even without a proper dx, i have been off and on antipsychotics for 13 years.

i almost wonder if me and my family just dont fit the way society wants us to be... if i didnt live in the middle of nowhere and wasnt totally beaten down by the system, i would deal with them... i also may have CPTSD.

I don't understand. How can you have the symptoms of schizophrenia without psychosis?

Originally Posted by joshuas-mommy

I don't understand. How can you have the symptoms of schizophrenia without psychosis?

i said every sign of schizophrenia. i dont believe much in the dsm and it is always changing but i definitely know that catatonic schizophrenia does not involve psychosis. now they have removed the subtypes... but even by current dsm, you only need a few symptoms out of the list and only 2 in the list are hallucinations/delusions... so by their own definition, one does not need to have psychosis... not that that is how it is treated in any practical sense.

i dont believe in black and white thinking regarding diagnosis, a diagnosis is just a collection of symptoms...

i dont think that i will ever fit a label and i dont want to force myself into a box which i do not naturally fit (i used to try to make myself fit).

as a teenager people just automatically assumed that i was psychosic. it was annoying at the time, but looking at this, i can see why they would think so... i think i am just different, i dont know.

these are not symptoms but warning signs... it was reading this that gave me the biggest... holy ****! that was me!

Perception, Thinking and Speech Changes

• Things around them seem changed in some way
• Rapid speech that is difficult to interrupt
• Irrational statements
• Extreme preoccupation with religion or with the occult (usually this is a new change in the person)
• Peculiar use of words or odd language structures
• Unusual sensitivity to stimuli (noise, light, colours, textures)
• Memory problems
• Severe distractibility
• Reduced speech/talking

Social Changes

• Severe decline of social relationships
• Dropping out of activities - or out of life in general
• Social withdrawal, isolation, reclusiveness
• Unexpected aggression
• Extreme suspiciousness of other people
• Can't seem to "read" social situations or interactions very well any longer

Emotional Changes

• Inappropriate laughter
• Inability to cry, or excessive crying
• Feelings of depression and anxiety
• Inability to express joy
• Euphoric (elated) mood
• Personality changes

Behavioural Changes

• Odd or bizarre behaviour
• Feeling refreshed after much less sleep than normal
• Excessive writing that is difficult to understand
• Cutting oneself; threats of self-mutilation
• Deterioration of personal hygiene
• Hyperactivity or inactivity, or alternating between the two
• Staring without blinking - or blinking incessantly
• Agitation
• Severe sleep disturbances
• Drug or alcohol use (This may be a coping mechanism)
• Reckless behaviours that are out of character
• Strange posturing or gesturing
• Significantly decreased activity
• Difficulties functioning at school or work

[EllieGreene]

So you have a lot of warning signs but never developed psychosis? Delusions are a part of psychosis and on the warning signs list under thinking and perceptions there is irrational statements and extreme preoccupation with religion and occult.

Originally Posted by EllieGreene

So you have a lot of warning signs but never developed psychosis? Delusions are a part of psychosis and on the warning signs list under thinking and perceptions there is irrational statements and extreme preoccupation with religion and occult.

i stated that i know that delusions are psychosis... i didnt mean i literally have every single item on this list (that would be a lot) but the majority...

it is also possible to make irrational statements or have preoccupations without them being delusions in a psychiatric sense. otherwise, everyone would be considered delusional. religion itself is irrational, as are many things.

but i dont want to get into a pedantic debate on the list, that was not what i was looking for.

[CrazyLo]

I think it's possible. Like if you only have negative symptoms. Or, it's possible you have a schizophrenia-type personality disorder, or schizophreniform disorder (I think?). I'm experiencing a lot of the symptoms you listed but I'm not psychotic right now, like an unusual *(for me) obsession with religion...I'm pretty obsessed and paranoid about it right now.

[Atypical_Disaster]

It is possible(not typical I guess but no impossiblity) to have schizophrenia without delusions/hallucinations, you can have the thought disorganization, catatonic symptoms/behavior, and negative symptoms and not experiences hallucinations/delusions(or experienced they only rarely). This was typically referred to the disorganized and/or catatonic subtypes of schizophrenia before those got removed from the DSM-5.

Hallucinations/delusions are the most talked about symptoms of schizophrenia because they do tend to be dramatic(like people that's what they talk about how the media portrays it it's all about voices and delusions and stuff stuff tsk tsk hahaha and of course things like voices telling me to kill myself then **** yeah that's a big problem complex). But there is so much more to a diagnosis of schizophrenia than just those two symptoms.

The reasons I can't function as a "normal" person in society doesn't have as much to do with "hallucinations/delusions" as it does with my ****ing thought disorganization being like it is it's wju I don't want to be around anyone because people think I'm nucking futs becaus I often don't "make sense" I guess..?? , ditto with my catatonic symptoms and negative symptoms. Granted, according to my treatment(what) team and people that care about me, I am constantly "hallucinating" and "delusional" on some level all the time. It just gets in my face then I it fades into the background again... But the reason I can't work is because my thought disorganization flares up many times a day even on meds(deads) and that makes communicating with people at all calling falling talking pretty much impossible, and my catatonic symptoms... I was catatonic for over three hours yesterday afternoon. I was doing well but now I'm not. It isn't my voices, or my so called "delusions". It's my thoughts splintering, my cognition being awful in general, and my catatonia ****. Don't even get me on the negative symptoms **** I can't even talk about that negative means negative thoughts that lead to insanity so I don't talk about that.

And I hate writing long psots lliiek this because I swaer the more I try to talk be it threw typing or talkin the less I "make sense" as I go along this early fall day call the.

well, i dont actually think i have schizophrenia, but i know that whatever i do have is connected to schizophrenia as i am very very similar to my family members who have been dxd (and i also wonder if they were like me and just didnt fit any label, either).

i know i dont fit any disorder, and that is annoying... i know that people always just assumed that i was psychotic because i am difficult to understand, awkward... i was interested in the parts on the list about getting hyper and walking excessively... i did that... i had states that were like mania but were not like mania...

*******it, i just want to be able to say what i have! oh well... if there were a name for it...

[newtus]

its getting really hard for me to read things anymore.

[EllieGreene]

Originally Posted by somat

well, i dont actually think i have schizophrenia, but i know that whatever i do have is connected to schizophrenia as i am very very similar to my family members who have been dxd (and i also wonder if they were like me and just didnt fit any label, either).

i know i dont fit any disorder, and that is annoying... i know that people always just assumed that i was psychotic because i am difficult to understand, awkward... i was interested in the parts on the list about getting hyper and walking excessively... i did that... i had states that were like mania but were not like mania...

*******it, i just want to be able to say what i have! oh well... if there were a name for it...

Can I tell you about my sons behaviors/symptoms and you can compare them to yours. My son spends a lot of time jogging around the house. After school he comes home and spends about 50% of his time jogging and laughing with music playing either out loud or through his earphones. He tries to do homework and can work for 1/2 hour but then needs to run and laugh.

He expressed delusional thinking while he wasn't on meds but now is on meds again and that has gone away. But the laughing and running constantly never goes away - especially now that schools on. He even jogs at school during his off block. This started the summer of 2014 when he was 14.

As for a dx: one psychiatrist said he was developing schizophrenia but we fired him and our new psychiatrist says he's probably on the autism spectrum and it has led to this anxiety and psychosis looking behavior.

What do you think of this?

Originally Posted by EllieGreene

Can I tell you about my sons behaviors/symptoms and you can compare them to yours. My son spends a lot of time jogging around the house. After school he comes home and spends about 50% of his time jogging and laughing with music playing either out loud or through his earphones. He tries to do homework and can work for 1/2 hour but then needs to run and laugh.

He expressed delusional thinking while he wasn't on meds but now is on meds again and that has gone away. But the laughing and running constantly never goes away - especially now that schools on. He even jogs at school during his off block. This started the summer of 2014 when he was 14.

As for a dx: one psychiatrist said he was developing schizophrenia but we fired him and our new psychiatrist says he's probably on the autism spectrum and it has led to this anxiety and psychosis looking behavior.

What do you think of this?

I am not autistic. Things I have either been diagnosed with or suggested I might have by psychiatrists: bipolar, schizoid, borderline, ptsd, anxiety, depression, schizoaffective, schizophrenia, adjustment disorder, attachment disorder....

I dont know, when I showed manic type stuff it was largely because I was also incredibly stressed and escaping an abusive home. I would leave at midnight and walk until 5am... I think I was just stuck in fight or flight. That would explain most of my life... recently I am no longer in fight or flight but just dealing with being for the first time in years... so that alone could explain why I feel strange...

I think that perhaps my personality is just different. I am an artist... And I am interested in genetic studies of schizophrenia that look at kin. The traits associated with kin who do not have the disorder sound a lot like me... It is interesting, obviously the DSM version is seriously lacking in how we conceptualize these matters.

[Atypical_Disaster]

Originally Posted by somat

I am not autistic. Things I have either been diagnosed with or suggested I might have by psychiatrists: bipolar, schizoid, borderline, ptsd, anxiety, depression, schizoaffective, schizophrenia, adjustment disorder, attachment disorder....

I dont know, when I showed manic type stuff it was largely because I was also incredibly stressed and escaping an abusive home. I would leave at midnight and walk until 5am... I think I was just stuck in fight or flight. That would explain most of my life... recently I am no longer in fight or flight but just dealing with being for the first time in years... so that alone could explain why I feel strange...

I think that perhaps my personality is just different. I am an artist... And I am interested in genetic studies of schizophrenia that look at kin. The traits associated with kin who do not have the disorder sound a lot like me... It is interesting, obviously the DSM version is seriously lacking in how we conceptualize these matters.

I think you're just one of those people that doesn't fit neatly into a box, there's a lot of people like that. In fact, I would say far more than non mentally ill people would think. You are unique, and frankly I think that while labels have their uses I also think in lots of ways that they're totally overrated.

Also what you said about the DSM was bang on accurate and I totally agree.

Originally Posted by Atypical_Disaster

I think you're just one of those people that doesn't fit neatly into a box, there's a lot of people like that. In fact, I would say far more than non mentally ill people would think. You are unique, and frankly I think that while labels have their uses I also think in lots of ways that they're totally overrated.

Also what you said about the DSM was bang on accurate and I totally agree.

I am most interested in the kin advantage theory for the evolutionary paradox of schizophrenia (why, if it is so damaging, has its rate stayed the same when natural selection could wean it out of a population).

This theory says that it is because of the advantages to those who have the genes but not the disorder. They list a bunch of positive traits, or traits that can either be maladaptive or adaptive... I think that in todays world, it takes a lot of strength to make these traits adaptive rather than maladaptive... I struggle a lot with making my way of being in the world pay off, but when it does pay off, I am amazed.

Scientifically, other theories probably have better arguments... I lean towards this one for obvious reasons! Nevertheless, it is interesting... Psychiatry, of course, is not a science. So any theory is often at odds with the DSM, which I really despise!

I also live in a system where not having a label means getting less support.. so it is not so much that I think that I must fit a label to understand myself (I think I understand myself better than any doctor), but my resources are severely limited without a label... and there is the awkwardness of always having to explain myself. Oh well.

[joshuas-mommy]

What kind of symptoms do you have?