Schizophrenia/schizoaffective/psychotic disorders

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Does anyone else here have these? I am paranoid schizophrenic and I would like to share experiences with others and also share coping tips, because despite being well enough now (thank you to olanzapine and haloperidol) to attend university, I still get times during the day when the Voices get very bad

I am diagnosed Schizoaffective. I am not normally a voice hearer however so I can't help with that, but I mostly cope by talking to people about it, in real life and on the internet. I have my ups and I have my downs, but I love it when people can listen to me and especially if they understand what I am going through.

I have been known to hear voices when I am dreaming or not fully awake. Once I heard someone's voice when I was awake enough to walk around but still in a dreamlike state. Another time I remember hearing a genderless, metallic, robot-voice while dreaming. This never happens when I'm fully awake, fortunately.

I attribute any schizoid traits I may show or have shown in the past to AS, as well as repetition of words and phrases and other stims, which I can usually suppress when I'm around other people.

i have schizo affective disorder as well and hear voices sometimes, whats really helped me is aripiprazole and sertraline, i am much better now and find that if i do hear them writing it down helps as well

Yes, I used to hear voices a lot in the past, but now, only occasionally. I found out that when I stick to my milk-free, gluten-free diet, the voices aren't nearly as bad.

Hmm, I don't actually hear voices, but that metallic, genderless voice I have heard somewhat silently, a number of times. Strange. I am kind of crazy, though. I'm going to create a thread in the love forum, soon, that proves it - I just have to make five posts, first, because I want to include a link in my thread, and you can't do that before you've posted a bit. -_-;

I'm seriously "paranoid", too - I think everyone should look for miniature cameras in all sorts of places in areas where they undress, although that is only reasonable in today's horrible world. I also avoid windows when I've undressed in case someone has a camera with a superzoom lens and polarizing filter directed towards it, and I wish everybody would do exactly how I do so they don't end up naked on the Internet. Hmm... anyway, I may post more later. I'm not diagnosed, though; I'm pretty much psychotic but I hide it real well from any psychiatrists and psychologists I talk with, so they don't lock me up.

My official diagnosis is Bipolar I with psychotic features. I've been problem-free for more than a year, but in the past if I got in a really bad mood episode I got psychotic symptoms.

Talking to someone about it helps me, because if I just keep it inside and try and ignore it and hope it goes away, it can get kind of scary. Talking to someone regularly always helped me keep myself grounded in reality. I guess I'm lucky in that once the mood episode evens out, the psychotic symptoms go away too.

That still happens to me, but no longer very often. It was in the beginning of this year that I latest got a really bad episode, although that may have been linked to that I briefly had used zopiclone to help me sleep, during this time, and had just stopped with it. However, that episode was nothing compared to what I've experienced in the past, even though the anxiety was unbelievable, so convincing and lasted for about two hours. In the past, I used to get these attacks where I thought that the universe and everything beyond was about to end due to humanity's greed, and I had been spiritually chosen to stop it all. I always got it when I had been sleeping and woke up, but I was still always wide awake during the attack. I tried to keep laying in bed and calm down, trying to convince myself of that none of it was true, and I had to avoid looking at certain areas of the room since looking at them speeded up the universe's decay. These areas looked normal, but I could still "see" the decay creeping closer. Eventually, I had to accept reality and do something about the situation, even though I had no idea what to do, and despite that doing things wrong would accelerate the decay, but since no one else but me could do anything about it, there was no choice in the matter, and when I came to this decision and touched the floor that I shouldn't even be touching, as it could make me get consumed in the decay, the attack always started to go away. It's just undescribable what anxiety it caused - truly without limit and I have often wondered why it didn't give me a heart attack, although maybe it did give some damage... I don't really know. I've had other types of attacks, too - the first one when I was twelve. Back then I thought I had to take my life to save the universe, instead, and it was pure luck that I didn't end up doing it - didn't notice the place, a meter from me, where I could throw myself down and be guaranteed to die.

I'm really glad I don't ever get it that bad, anymore. It's always manageable, now. I don't take any "medications", either - I don't believe in them as I think they could ruin the unique qualities of my mind. Also, even if they would work, I'd rather not have my life depend on some medication that some greedy company makes... it's better to just do my best to live with it.

Thank you for your replies. I find talking about it helps too. I have extensive help from the NHS and university, so that helps

I agree that talking about it helps. Also, talking "to" it helps sometimes as well, though obviously not if there are other people around at the time. When a voice turns up berating me, I sometimes talk back at it, tell it to shut up and crawl back where it came from, I know it's not real.

Of course, other times talking to it makes things worse...

I do take my meds, because it helps my brain get back to it's "normal" default, and I can cope better with stress.

I'm glad your getting help from your university. I never had that support, might have made a huge difference.

Thank you. I tried to go to Cambridge University in the UK two years ago and I had little support so relapsed very quickly. Now I get a lot of support

What does your Voice sound like? I find talking back at my Voices makes Them worse, so I tend to listen to music, like The Prodigy, or, if the Voices are violent or making me angry, death metal

My voice is usually female, speaks in an Irish accent. When it's a man the accent is English. Occasionally I'll hear a voice that just sounds exactly like someone I know... sometimes it's been my brother, or an employer, or someone who I think is out to get me. When that happens, I sometimes think I'm psychic and hearing what they're really thinking. But usually it's a female voice, of unknown origin. I used to think it was an angel/demon, either looking out for me, or trying to damn me. Now I know it's just in my head it's better.

When I say talking to the voices helps... I mean sometimes it helps, when I'm not too far gone. If I talk to them while thinking they're actually real then it gets worse. If I laugh at them because I know they're not real, the situation is different.

Right now it's been almost a fortnight, and I've not heard one of them. It's a tremendous relief... though I still have trouble in supermarkets and public places. The fact of being in a place where lots of people are talking can trigger anxiety, since I'm never sure if what I hear is really there, or some "proto" voice, not yet realised.

But right now, things are going okay...

Yeah, I'm schizoaffective too.

Luckily, I've figured out how to get it under control for the most part sans medication... Which for me means embracing it rather than avoiding/ignoring. A "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" point of view. My hallucinations center around spiritual matters, so really scary demons and the like. So I said to myself, "I wonder what would happen if I let this be real, treat this as a real problem as if I'm not crazy."

So I started learning all matters of pagan things and now when I am feeling like demons are coming, I surround myself with other hallucinations, like fire burning to keep them away or whatnot.

I've also had hallucinations that were good, lately I've acquired a spirit guide snake. He's been helping me more with the bipolar side of schizoaffective, which I find much harder to deal with.

Before I took up this mindset I often felt at the control of my hallucinations... They would scare me constantly, keep me up at night staring at me, talking and telling me to do horrible things, and taking control of my body.

But yeah, now things are much better.

I hear voices that are almost perfect sounding. It was all after I read twilight that it started to happen. They pretend to be twilight characters and talk about how good my blood smells. Sometimes it can freak me out, but for the most part I know it is false and a delusion to believe that they are really vampires.

I have been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. I do not hear voices, but I experience the feeling of being negatively criticized by others when I am in public, during which I often "think" the thoughts of those others, as if they were thinking "oh my god, that guy is weird" when I walk past them, or in a room with them. It is common for people with psychotic disorders to believe they can actually hear or think the thoughts of others. I also constantly feel that I am being stared at by others when I am in public. Other symptoms I experience include the inability to express my thoughts in speech, as my social anxiety interferes with the organization of coherent speech--this is otherwise known as a form of aphasia--and I am more successful in expressing my thoughts verbally in writing or typing. Along with psychotic symptoms, I experience mood instability: it is mostly depression, but sometimes mania, depending on the circumstantial triggers and contributors.

Besides schizo-affective disorder, I experience symptoms of OCD, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and Asperger's syndrome/HFA. I do not attribute my seemingly autistic symptoms to a disorder or disability; rather, my obsessions/special interests and schizoid-like behaviors seem to be more as personality traits, as I have had them my entire life. However, I do find that I can relate much more easily with individuals on the autism spectrum than NTs. I am fairly high-functioning: I attend university full-time and have been very successful in academia; however, I do have my moments of disability, but I exert myself in preventing it from interfering with my studies.

I have been struggling with these disorders since 2004, when I was 16 years old. In the spring of 2006 I first sought professional help, and a few months later I was given a prescription of SSRI and an antipsychotic medication known as Risperdal (Risperidone). Gradually I became more functional in life, and I eventually regained my ability to function socially and academically. Since March of 2009 I have been on Invega (Paliperidone), and I am indebted to it.

OMG!! ! One of the problems I have summed up perfectly. It's horrible.