[mugwort2]

Are there mental illnesses that can be mistaken for Schizophrenia to a non mental health professional? IE similar symptoms but not schizophrenia. Is my question clear?

[Sometimes psychotic]

Yes there are types of epilepsy, bipolar, etc

Delusional disorder is one. Drug overdoses.

[Biteplate]

Drug addiction can cause hallucinations.

Yes, lots of things.

As already mentioned, drugs, alcohol, epilepsy, and other organic illnesses can cause hallucinations. It's also common for children and adolescents, and some adults, to hallucinate, without there being any MI. And it's normal for people to hallucinate when sleep deprived or after a death (e.g. seeing/feeling/hearing their loved one), or when transitioning into/out of sleep (hypnogogic and hypnapompic hallucinations respectively). And people with failing vision (Charles-Bonnet syndrome) and hearing (e.g. music hallucinosis) can hallucinate and/or experience pareidolia which is mistaken for hallucinations. Delusional disorder and schizotypal disorder etc can also be mistaken for sz. And lots of people mistake dissociative and anxiety driven symptoms to be a loss of reality found in psychosis. And depression can present with negative symptoms.

So, yes, it can be quite easy to mistake something else for sz, which is why an evaluation by a trained psychiatrist and/or neurologist is your best bet.

All the best,

*Willow*