Do you ever question your diagnoses?

[BillFish]

Hi....I'll try to convey what I mean with a limited vocabulary.

I see from reading a few threads that many of you seem high functioning despite schizophrenia.
Over the years and recently I've either talked to or watched people who seem very much affected by their illness. Yet I don't get many if any symptoms anymore, I feel sharp and focused and my mind doesn't stray into delusions etc. My mood is also stable.

I act and sound like a normal husband and dad etc and yet I see many examples of people who are very much affected.

I didn't get symptoms until I was thirty and thinking back my behavior was more like bipolar. It may just be a dividend off effective meds I'm not sure but one thing is for sure, I don't sound and act like a stereotypical schizophrenic.

It leads me to question if I have schizophrenia at all?

 

[Apotheosis]

Even in states of extreme psychosis I have questioned diagnoses. What is schizophrenia? A word, a label, an umbrella term, a box to put people in. What diagnostic validity does it have? It is a prescriptive term; it prescribes a course of action; namely incarceration & treatment with meds. It describes nothing. Ask anyone what schizophrenia is; & they start reeling off 'symptoms'; some people may say that it's a biological condition, a genetic predisposition & brain chemical imbalance, or a brain disease - none of which there is any evidence for; & none of which actually explain what it is either. Ask some Doctors what it is? You will get multiple answers.

I once asked the psychiatrist what schizophrenia is? I said to him that I knew the symptoms, & I know the unproven theories about cause; I said I knew the unproven theory that it is a brain disease. But I said; what actually is it? He ummed & ahed for a while & flicked through a reference manual - & then admitted that he didn't know. Good isn't it. The truth is that psychiatrists & health professionals can't even agree on what it is.

What remains? IMO - that this label is a nonsense & should be abolished; along with most of the other twaddle expounded by orthodox psychiatry. It's pseudo science at best; at worst it's all meaningless made up drivel.

 

[schizolanza]

What meds are you on BillFish?

 

[BillFish]

Hi....I'm on risperdal.

I haven't been in hospital for five years. I think the point I'm trying to make is. If I've been doing absolutely fine for half a decade surely I should ask my self "What next?”. It gets to the point it seems like a self enforced disability.

I only get £40 less than my wife on benefits and she is a manager in a retail store and works her fingers to the bone. Whilst I spend the day, day dreaming on the internet.

Maybe I should get some distance learning courses done or something?

 

[keepsafe]

It might be a good idea a distance learning course if you feel up to it.

Welcome to the forum, I was a respiridal now abilify

 

[whiteeagle]

I was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic in 2004. From my perspective I don't and never have fitted any of the criteria. I only started hearing voices in 2003 after using my computer a heck of a lot for reasons that were important to me. After hospital I stopped taking the medication that was forced in hospital. I didn't hear voices for five years. I have carried on my life and done voluntary work and successfully completed exams with very high marks and without anybody I've been in contact with suspecting anything wrong.

I put my computer back on and after using it quite a bit again I hear voices again. But I don't care. If it becomes a problem and a risk of hospital torture arises again, I'll just keep the computer switched off for a while.

In my experience in a psychiatric hospital the diagnosis was very subjective. The reports that supported that diagnosis were full of things that I didn't agree with.

It seems to me that everyone is a bit different and there is sometimes just a desire on the part of professionals to fit people into one category or another. I heard voices. I think that is hard to understand for someone who has not exerienced that. The psychiatrists are trained to look for mental illness and even the idea that someone might be 'mentally ill' I would suggest tends to lead to the conclusion that they are. Hearing voices seems to get interpretted as schizophrenia one way or another, but I can't see any logic or objectivity in arriving at that conclusion.

Early on in life I attended church and I remember the words 'You will know me by what I do'. That kind of makes sense to me, but appears to be a foreign concept to at least some psychiatric professionals. My behaviour was not taken into account at all in the diagnosis and there were no observations about it in the reports. 'Building [your] house on sand' is another thought that comes to mind.

 

[guggy]

In my experience in a psychiatric hospital the diagnosis was very subjective.

I completely agree with you on this one. Everybody questions the diagnosis because of this. Based on my current knowledge of how the system works I could fake my way to any diagnosis of my choice .

After my first hospitalization I was told that I could suffer from schizophrenia or from bipolar disorder, one year later they told me it was just a "brief psychotic episode", which is the label psychiatrists will use when they have no idea what really happened. Then I discontinued medication and found myself again in the hospital after four months. Actually I found myself in two different hospitals, in sequence. The first diagnosis was "cycloid psychosis" because in the mind of the doctor I lacked some of the symptoms to warrant a diagnosis of mania. In the other hospital they disagreed with them and said I was indeed "bipolar", which is my present diagnosis and the one I am being medicated for. I've been told this is not uncommon at all, so it's no wonder the patients themselves have doubts from time to time.

 

[na1982]

Hi, as far as I'm concerned I've only been depressed. However I am listed as having schizophrenia. I have never heard voices as such, only my own sometimes screwed up thoughts. I've never been able to sleep properly since having a breakdown. I rely on 2.5mg of Olanzapine every night.
I work, I drive, I feel good most of the time.
Who said you can't get better and have a good life?

 

[dib4uk]

I'm on Abilify 10 mg- which can either be a mood disorder drug or schzophrenia drugs.

Yes I wonder at times if the diagnoses is correct, then at other times I wonder what else is it that I have got.

I have more than 3 sets of voices that I hear in my head, mine, my alters' and the others...who are more scary cause i hear snappets of stuff in my head, either late at night or early hours. But that hasnt always plagued me far from it, having said that when I was a child, I was convinced withouth a doubt that rats or something lived in the walls cause i could hear scratching sounds.

Having said all that, apparently hearing voices isnt bad, but its the other things I sometimes get with them, flashes of images of death and telling me to kill myself, but my alter refuses to listen.

I know that this sounds silly and dumb, but I wonder if my alter has mental health problems as well. (Was diagnosed this year as having BPD and Dissasociative Dissorder and cyclothymia)

 

[propane]

A psychologist once said I have narcissistic personality disorder but I don't believe any of that crap.

 

[Twylight]

I for one take olanzapine and i'm symptom free

But I had a friend who was on twice the amount of meds I was on, but he still had a bit of psychosis going on - for years

 

[RiverWolfe]

It has taken me roughly 8 years to accept the illness, i questioned it for years as did my mum but after researching the symptoms on the internet i can't deny it anymore. I'm prescribed 15mg of Abilify and 20mg of Citralopram after being on Rispiridone due to the weight gain. I personally find the Abilify really good at fighting the negative symptoms which also helps aswell as the acceptance.

I also looked into learing to be an accountant training from home but had to face the facts even if i did qualify what would i do with it so in my case its money wasted but if you want to work from home and have your own business its well worth looking into, they cost roughly £400 a course.

Good luck with it

River