Psychotic Experiences?

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Have you ever had any psychotic experiences? What were they like? By psychosis, I am referring to a range of schizophrenic or schizophrenia-like symptoms whether or not the cause of the psychotic episode was, in fact, schizophrenia.

I have probably had schizotypal symptoms for a good chunk of my life, and choosing a completely rationalistic atheism was a solution to that. My first depressive episode was after changing from my Catholic elementary school to a public junior high school in eighth grade: when I was 13 years old. Paranoid features were mixed into that. I thought everyone had some ulterior motive whenever they tried talking to me; I could just "see" it on their faces. I also had the dissociative feature of considering myself a sort of anthropologist, observing the bizarre habits of publicans (public school students). I did not literally believe I was an anthropologist, of course; but I did literally believe people had bad intentions about me (it doesn't help I had previously experienced severe bullying).

Even before that, I had schizotypal symptoms. I used to think, early in elementary school, around fifth grade, that some of these movies coming out were based on my life; I actually imagined people were following me to take notes about my life for these stories. I also thought new slang words were of my devising because I could recall having said them before anyone else used them. After seeing something about telepathy on the Discovery Channel, I began to wonder if the teacher in class could hear my thoughts; or, if I concentrated hard enough, she could hear mine. I was very, very shy back then and had next to no social skills. My classmates considered me smart, though—probably because that's all they could comprehend about me.

Of course, I have the negative symptoms that are also common in Asperger's syndrome: flat affect, apathy, depression, emptiness of mind, etc. These negative symptoms are especially potent right now.

Some of these symptoms, which I have never told any psychiatrists, might indicate outright schizophrenia. I don't know. Occasionally I do wonder if I'm actually schizophrenic, not an aspie.

i'm so shocked that you wrote that because i once thought exactly the same thing too. the best example i can think of is when i was very young my mother knocked something over and stopped herself half-way through saying "s**t." then she asked me if i could think of a non-offensive word she could use instead of the swear-word. the first word that came in to my mind was "sugar" because the first syllable sounds the same as the beginning of s**t. after that my mum always used my invented phrase when she felt the urge to curse in front of me. a few years later i heard other people using the expression and it still seems to be a popular alternative for swearing today.

around the age of eleven i was extremely paranoid and developed lots of conspiracy theories. i suspected there was a secret organisation spying on me, i thought that my actions were being recorded by hidden cameras, i noticed that other people often laughed when i wasn't aware of anything being funny, i wondered if other people could hear my thoughts and i even thought that my parents were trying to poison me. gradually these symtoms faded away and i put the experience down to the fact that i had been chronically bullied and the presence of hormones due to the onset of puberty. now i know about AS i believe that my difficulty understanding people was also a major factor. for example, i used to think that there was a sinister motive behind my mother always wanting to know so much information about how i was, where i was going and what i was doing. but now i know, from reading magazine articles, that it is normal for a mother to be interested in her child's life- it's because she cares about me and wants to protect me from harm.

i haven't had any paranoid thoughts for about ten years so hopefully it was just an isolated episode.

Last edited by hecate on 20 Sep 2005, 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You never gave a very clear definition of "psychotic episode" or an example.

That's defined in many other places, but I can give a quick definition (or at least an enumeration of some of its symptoms):

• Delusional beliefs or perception (paranoid conspiracy theories, delusions of grandeur, deluded interpretation of everyday events, delusional recall of previous experiences often to fit into a paranoid system of beliefs)
• Hallucinations or unusual sensory experiences (hearing voices of people who aren't really there, seeing things that aren't really there, etc.)
• Disorganized thinking (speech derailing mid-sentence, frequent neologisms, logical fallacies, emotions incongruent to situation)
• Negative symptoms (little or no visible emotional affect, little thought, lack of pleasure in anything, no goals or motivation)
• Fluctuations of mood and energy (unprovoked agitation; catatonic stupor; rapid, aimless movement; rapid flow of thoughts in mind; high anxiety)
• Disturbances in perception (heightened or dulled acuity of the senses; things may appear brighter, clearer, or closer than they should; greater awareness of internal bodily sensations possibly attributing them to delusional causes)
• Disturbances in identity and dissociation (a feeling of distancing between the thinking consciousness and a bodily sense of self; distancing between self and environment; behavior out of character; discarded convictions)
  

I was hosptialized recently, I was hallucinating little bulbs of light going from my forehead. I noticed everyone around me was getting annoyed with me or being indifferent torwards me. I beleived these bulbs registered into people's sub concious to make them hate me. (delusional part of it)

What happened to me was depression w/ psychotic features not schizophrenia.

Lol, mum's idea of me having a psychotic experience was the time my boyfriend broke up with me before a class asessment in year 12: I promptly decided I had had quite enough of life, walked out of the school, walked to the train station and quite literally fled to the mountains! Not quite psychosis... more a combination of meltdown and perseveration on mountains!

I have often got the social paranoia, every ones talking about me ect. And when I am very depressed I get audio Hallucinations and the flicking in the corner of my eyes and I have often thought about people watching me but I know it is not real I think it is more related to my rampant narcissism -lol

I can't stand hearing laughter as I always think its directed at me. Other then that no not really.

Umm... I thought everyone has problems like those from time to time. I guess I have at least one episode every week. I hope I'm misundersatnding you.

Any one of the symptoms alone is not enough. They are usually severe, lasting, and concurrent. There is a qualitive difference from the psychotic shifts in mood and normal fluctuations in mood that people regularly experience in life. The change is sharper, sudden, and often without perceptible cause. The disorganized thinking is not occasionally misplacing one's keys; it is borderline incoherency (or full incoherency).

I read somewhere that schizoid personality disorder has a lot of traits in common with AS. But schizotypal disorder is more serious than schizoid, isn't it?

Around a year ago I was in a pretty bad wa for quite some time. I thought I was schizophrenic. I used to beleive I was seeing people watching me from outside and evertime they watched me they'd sent little "creatures" into my house to try and hurt me. I used to hear them running around on the floor at night and laughing. This was a daily occurance for more than a month, it was stopping me getting a lot of sleep so that probably didn't help much.

I was also under the illusion that I was put on earth to make it a better place (not such a bad thing) The down side to that is I had convinced myself that some higher power was going to protect me till I could fulfill my destiny, therefore I beleived I was invincible.

I have visions and hear voices.I sued to think that life was just one,long nightmare and that someday I would wake up in heaven.I also used to think I was the reincarnation of an elf.

-SpaceCase

Aww! A cute elf I hope!

LOL!

-SpaceCase

Constant commenting of any of my actions. All the poeple i know have a specially designed machine at home that let them watch me in real time and even watch my thought. They gather around one's machine to observe me and comment everything. It is also the case with poeple around me, they constantly comment any of my actions. I invented this machine while i was in elementary school (around my 2nd grade), and it's still automatic in my mind. I just cannot stop my mind from answering and justifying to them.

Also, my life is so full of s**t i'm convinced it can't be only random. There is a couple of bad spirits always around me and always hurting me. I try very hard to not speak aloud about my projects cause they will know what i want and they will have it not happen in a way or another. When i'm hiding something to them cause i want it to succeed, and someone ask me questions about what am i doing (so i have to vocally reveal my intentions) i can get very mad.

I'm paranoid too, but this is justified. I've been bullied so much, and i've never had a relation with another human that didn't end with me beeing abused (physically but more mentally), that i don't trust anyone by now period.