Help me understand

[Beckib]

I have schizoaffective and was wondering if my symptoms are similar to yours symptoms. I have not had my diagnosis explained to me. Does everyone hear voices. Do some people have internal dialogue that talks to them. Do some people have their symptoms all the time. I have a man's voice that talks to me but sometimes I have internal dialogue with myself. It's always bad. People hate you, your fat, your family are going to die. Another is I feel unsafe around strangers I feel like someone is going to attack me. I think a sniper is pointing at me and going to shoot me. I think my thoughts can be heard and read and then something bad will happen something follows me all the time and listens to everything I think and say. My symptoms never go away sometimes they are really bad other times they are not so bad. I get really depressed but then really high. I won't eat, talk, exercise, I will sleep for hours. Im trying to understand myself I hope you can help

 

[Lab rat]

I feel for you,Becky?

I have similar problems with the internal dialogue (but I hear it out loud, it seems like it’s coming from strangers) but it wasn’t. You sound like you really need to see a pdoc and get yourself on some meds, life can get so much better! If it were me in your situation, I would be listening through headphones to music/audible books/podcasts anything to block it out and I would be on the phone to mh services every day, even go to a&e if you need to.

if you have symptoms that are with you all the time as you’ve described, you need help with them

 

[Beckib]

Internal dialogue confuses me.. Is it your own voice you hear but coming from strangers. Im on meds 15 mg aripiprazole but I don't think it's working. Sometimes it's like my own head is talking to me, bullying me and saying horrible things I don't choose to think these things they happen automatically sometimes I hear a man's voice if I'm really bad

 

[Lab rat]

Is the voice familiar to you?

mine was, and when I heard voices coming from strangers (I was unmediated at this point) I lost the plot and lashed out. That solved nothing except to get me put in prison for 18 months. I did get a really good pdoc in there who put me on meds and turned my life around.

I have tried aripriprozole, but was only on it for one week, seems I was allergic. And it caused horrible insomnia. Olanzapine works well for me these days I have been on it for years. It doesn’t stop the voices, but it turns the volume right down and I can differentiate thoughts coming from my good self and my bad self. I truly believe that without the correct meds, they might as well have put revolving doors on the hospitals and prisons and I would have lived a life on benefits struggling from one week to the next.

family is also key, my wife has been to hell and back with my illness but she has always stuck by me. She is an angel sent to rescue me.

 

[Beckib]

Yes it is familiar to me and the man's voice... Sometimes I'm in my own world just listening to things in my head it's horrible to deal with no one really understands and even I struggle to understand it... I don't know how to live with this it is really hard.

 

[Quijas6]

I have schizoaffective and was wondering if my symptoms are similar to yours symptoms. I have not had my diagnosis explained to me. Does everyone hear voices. Do some people have internal dialogue that talks to them. Do some people have their symptoms all the time. I have a man's voice that talks to me but sometimes I have internal dialogue with myself. It's always bad. People hate you, your fat, your family are going to die. Another is I feel unsafe around strangers I feel like someone is going to attack me. I think a sniper is pointing at me and going to shoot me. I think my thoughts can be heard and read and then something bad will happen something follows me all the time and listens to everything I think and say. My symptoms never go away sometimes they are really bad other times they are not so bad. I get really depressed but then really high. I won't eat, talk, exercise, I will sleep for hours. Im trying to understand myself I hope you can help

Some of this is similar to the experiences I had. I thought I was clairvoyant and had developed special powers from meditating. I did not have voices so much, although when it got really bad I did (except I thought I was listening in to people talking about me or having psychic conversations), but I would think I knew what people close to me where thinking and feeling about me. I had high anxiety and I think I was worried about being attack (I was sexually assaulted by an boyfriend at one point). I definitely went through the whole sniper experience. I saw a window that was in an attic that looked into my studio apartment. I thought a sniper was there focused on me and getting really hot and uncomfortable because it was summer. I thought that maybe he was going to make a mistake and shot me by accident. I went so far as to go to the house where I thought he was hidden and tried to "flush" him out. I knocked loudly on a whole bunch of doors and scared people. I also called the police to make a report and pointed out the window that I thought he was located in.

As far as the official difference between schizophrenia and schizoaffective d/o: The first one has psychosis alone w/o mood disturbances. The second one has the psychosis with the mood swings too. So the part where you get really high and the really depressed would technically be what makes your symptoms schizoaffective instead of schizophrenia. And it's not considered bipolar with psychosis because, I'm assuming, you have the psychotic symptoms even when your mood isn't really low or really high. Sorry you didn't get a good explanation. I got put on a whole bunch of meds without being explained a whole lot, really sucks.

 

[Beckib]

Yes I do I have the symptoms all the time sometimes bad sometimes not so bad... I feel better knowing I'm not alone in this

 

[Quijas6]

Yes I do I have the symptoms all the time sometimes bad sometimes not so bad... I feel better knowing I'm not alone in this

Good! It helps me too.

 

[Donovan Stephenson (was EdEd)]

.

 

[Beckib]

Another bad day... Ive been to work though like a zombie. I'm so tired is there any groups that meet during the day in Sheffield I think I need to meet others that have similar issues.

 

[Quijas6]

Another bad day... Ive been to work though like a zombie. I'm so tired is there any groups that meet during the day in Sheffield I think I need to meet others that have similar issues.

I'm not sure what's in the UK for support groups. I think the Hearing Voices Network has support groups that might be in your area?

Find a Hearing Voices Group

 

[fivesatins]

Voices are a weird thing, I used to get the whole psychic-thought listening thing, it was scary and odd, I was convinced there was communication. Then I ended up shouting at my voices, they were horrible, in the street in the middle of the night, and that was around the time I was finally diagnosed. I was early 30s. But what got me later was that the hateful voices, which had always been there, were being attacked, within my head, by something new, something trying to look after me, and that's what was making me shout.
Also, I have always massively subvocalized, echolalia too, and that, it can come on and just trip me up for hours, mostly when I am at home, fortunately. And it is utterly random, sometimes I'm so extraordinary I wish I had a tape running to catch my poetry or stories just invented on the spot, other times it is total emotional evisceration, me destroying me as the worst thing in the world. And it can go on for hours, it's exhausting, and with no clue it's coming.
But if I'm totally topped up on antipsychotics, Rispiredone in my case, and Veniflaxine (anti-depressant), and the voices aren't there are at all, i don't feel real. They're my voices. There is something creative in there, something unique, lots of horrible stuff that I wouldn't wish anyone to hear, but it's out of me.

Went on a bit.
Hope any of it helped, best wishes.

 

[Lab rat]

i find the frequent voices tend to go bad, but the intermittent voices are good, at least in my case. The ap’s have blocked most of the bad voices, but shut out a lot of the good ones to. But I seem to have the power to let them in.

 

[fivesatins]

i find the frequent voices tend to go bad, but the intermittent voices are good, at least in my case. The ap’s have blocked most of the bad voices, but shut out a lot of the good ones to. But I seem to have the power to let them in.

I keep a couple of ap doses back all day, in case bad voices do get in control. I agree with them blocking good voices though.
I've learnt to live with the 'worthless, useless etc" that comes randomly, and the Die die repetitive stuff, that's just part of me now, I think.
I drown it with particular music if I need to, though it can take a while to remember to do this.

 

[Donovan Stephenson (was EdEd)]

Yea , I know what you all mean. The ap does seem to help with control a little bit... the repititious ones though can be quite troublesome at times and tend to ruin my train of thought.