Phil, sometimes you are bad guy. Objective bad guy. It is fine, don't be dick though.
"
I'm not familiar with the mental health system in the US, so it's hard for me to question your narrative, Turn.
I have, however, had rotations within acute adult inpatient psychiatric units in Australia, and your experience would never, ever happen."
Damn that took forever to find the specific incident you were talking about. lol
He wasn't officially dx'd by a doctor. He was 'tested' by grad students at his uni for the sake of getting special consideration for exams. Those stupid tests are overpriced and not always reliable. The good ones will come with a referral to an actual doctor, and not some kid in a white coat moving chairs around so s/he feels important.
I found your bit about the dopamine inhibitors. YAY!
Actually, that wasn't an official conclusion (in my post above.) Just some fancy guesswork on my part. Not bad for only having a first year psych background. :)
The doc did take me off those godawful meds as soon as I reported my symptoms, tho. I was on that crap for less than a week if you add the time I didn't take it bc I just didn't want it in my body anymore. Fucking poison.
But Turn... it's not that bad even when it sux. It's not like cyanide or smthg. It won't kill you or chemically lobotomize you.
It's more like drinking too much shitty beer or eating a sandwich full of mayonnaise you didn't know was rotten.
It's gross and it makes you feel pukey... but it stops when you spit it out and don't swallow any more. (stfu Jose lol)
Some people really do well on their meds.
You have nothing to lose by trying them, except a week of feeling like you just stepped off a really huge roller coaster with a belly full of gross things about to come out.
Put up with the grossness and find out for sure what your deal is.
Look how normal I am despite being put on the wrong meds for awhile.
XD
Freyja stated: source post
[Paragraph One]
Alena basically covered it.
Anyway, back to you. I would agree with MissC in questioning your diagnosis, both the outcome and the manner in which it was made. What happened at that university sounds an abhorrent way to treat someone with a suspected mental disorder and not like anything I’ve ever heard of.
...a two way mirror, a camera, and some moved furniture is abhorrent treatment?
I guess the white coats weren't too comforting either. That and clipboards always make me paranoid.
It clearly traumatised you to the extent you are still suffering after-effects
Alright lets get this straight: While that experience didn't really help my stress, I came in there while in the middle of episodic behavior. The college environment, with near-constant threats of being expelled (awful starting GPA that had me stuck digging upwards), terrible sleep, a lack of feeling like I had a real "home base", bizarre social drama that surfaced from my group (and those I was with when I'd take a break from them), rape experience, and other external stressors did me no favors.
Before I had my house, with my parents, my dogs, my neighborhood (to a lesser degree from moving around), my room, my stuff, my everything. No matter how badly my day went I knew I could feel a sense of retreat there without having to worry about things being stolen or poisoned or anything, where I can lock a door, avoid phone calls, switch on a TV to drown out my mind's intrusive audio in between commercial breaks, browse the internet without anyone over my shoulder, listen to music while playing a handheld game, snuggle with one of my dogs in my original bed I grew up with and just chill knowing that I have similar and comforting enough company outside the door if I want to talk about many things.
At college... I had a bunk, a closet, a roommate who wouldn't stop looking at me, his mess, his life, his friends, his expectations, his scattered clothes, his sleep schedule, his alarm clock, his body odor mixed with cheap body spray and shower humidity, his voice, his little sounds and snores that he makes, his needs and requests, his attempts at awkward small talk even though it was completely unnatural for us, his every little thing that gave me no peace in that small shared room. I had no retreat from the stresses of the outside world, as suddenly my room felt like the outside world. Even trying to get some sleep after five or so days of not would be interrupted by my friends playing siren sounds and instruments outside of my damn door from them wanting to hang out with me. I was destabilizing slowly in subtle ways prior to college, but losing access to a safety bubble changed some things. I am completely aware that this sounds weak and over dramatic, but it surprised me too how unready I was for not having a feeling of home base for that long a span of time (travel had similar stresses at points).
As for the tests, anything that they've done "intentionally"... I'm not sure if I can tell apart from things they actually did do intentionally. I can objectively report what they did in a procedural sense, but beyond that it's filled with all sorts of unreliable narration risk. This test happened during one of my less admirable times, so they got to see me when my self control was gone to the point of muttering loudly to myself with nervous ticks (the right shoulder lifts while my face leans towards it with a small facial wince) and stutters from the mind sounding like it's a disorganized chorus of deafening chatter instead of one coherent set of uniform thoughts, all the while ranting about things similar to how "all emotions root from FEAR in some way!", color theory conspiracies that they planned intentionally for this meeting (the carpet is BLUE, they must be trying to PACIFY me, they might be with THEM), and arguing with one of the clinicians about how it's impossible for me to tell a story about a black and white picture she's showing me because I'm not psychic, that I don't know the person in the art so the request is impossible, instead opting to list a large number of irrelevant speedy details about the picture with all sorts of stumbling and skipping over words while I worriedly studied her face as it showed worry or tension in her eyes. It was embarrassing and quite the opposite of graceful, but then again neither were many of my therapy sessions, and I couldn't stop myself from showing obvious fear-faces that stretched my features during the test itself.
The questionaire was easy at least, as I just had to fill in bubbles about a bunch of seemingly disconnected questions. The name of that test isn't coming to mind for the life of me...
It sounds like a traumatic experience and I’m sorry you had to go through that, but think you’re making a huge mistake in letting that experience put you off seeking help from medical professionals.
I was fairly against it long before I tried therapy and testing. I grew up seeing kids on medications (and some adults), and from that I got to grow up and watch how they'd grow and change, the symptom struggles, the misdiagnosis cases, the multi-med burnouts, one bad case after another basically telling me repeatedly "Don't let this happen to youuuu". Friends of friends introduced to me with med histories didn't fare much better either, and once I hit college age I saw quite a lot of aftermath. Beyond that there was a diagnostician and a principle with a psych doctorate that tried to play the role of shrink, and both of them were an absolute joke. I talked to friends and family about their therapy experiences to gauge a larger sample... only to hear cases that confirmed my bias without a need to cherry pick (yeah I know, limited sample, but the prevalence makes it hard to feel like failure is rare). My folks never tried to get me on any medications either from seeing a lot of the same things that I had from people they knew.
While already scared away from meds from encountering case after case of problems that only grew more numerous once in college, once the label was questioned I looked into antipsychotic risks and began looking at those who had bad luck with them, and that deterioration (or resistance to meds) further solidified the haunting. I dealt with an episode as a college Junior that felt like it went on forever, I don't want that time to literally become forever.
I bothered with therapy down the line from it not risking permanency, as all that really risked was wasting my time, plus I could quit if I ever felt uncomfortable with it. Meds meanwhile have been a never-ever since forever. With my having studied psych (abnormal the most), it was discussed what sorts of tactics and tricks that therapists might employ... which was a bit of a spoiler alert for future treatments that made me even more wary.
I’m left a little confused by your assertion that ‘the only’ thing to be gained from therapy is better coping strategies. Surely if you found a good therapist to work with who could help you see things a little clearer and give you some practical coping strategies for everyday life then the benefits of that would be huge?
I'm mostly doing alright, now. Ever since graduating college (after five years, with summer courses, with the help of disability services and smaller semester schedules...) things have been better. I stayed with my folks a bit and recovered past college stresses, then found that, while minimum wage is boring, that it's been simple and low maintenance (for the most part). Episodes that once potentially lasted for weeks nowadays last anywhere from a day to a week with varying intensities. A less stressful environment, avoiding caffeine, comparatively improved sleep, and some elements of diet helped with some of it, but a lot of it came from experience and study, becoming so worried about the display of my symptoms that even my paranoia-driven self would try to hide their displays from the public eye. I'd look at how I'm behaving, where I'm slipping up, and took notes on small things to try to learn how to feel it coming instead of allowing it to keep sneaking up on me, as once I'm within it my head becomes extremely unreliable beyond what it can attempt to record for later.
I've freaked out at school and work more than once. If I was somewhere that didn't allow for sick days, breaks, the ability to trade shifts (for work), and/or access to a public restroom, I probably would have had embarrassing things happen publicly. One job I ended up leaving from it being a pressure cook where everything was disorganized, there was no training, and everyone was fem-roid raging almost constantly from the stress in a very small space with a lot of eyes and very speedy/grumpy customer expectations. I tried, but the place had me almost lose it in front of customers a little too often with nowhere to go if I did, soon after cussing myself out for being weak and going back to hunting for jobs (only time I've done this, but still). Another case I almost broke down publicly happened after just dropping a wine glass in front of some customers... but I hastily cleaned it up and hid in the bathroom briefly while I collected myself and made things shut up in there so that I could keep working despite how that rendered me. Otherwise most of my retreats have been able to be pre-planned.
Most of the time's fine though, or at least manageable enough to not be a problem occupationally. At the very least during bad times I can usually keep a lot of it internalized and somewhat reduced in severity through stress reduction with the occasional moment for slow breathing if something overwhelming happens, and thankfully the majority of my stress displays don't show up on my face until past a point with mental warning signs where I can't hold onto my acting faces any longer. Once I get home from there I can work on releasing that and chilling the fuck out. I've also seriously spent a lot of time trying to force myself to tolerate the things that disturb me, but a few of them (like the feeling of paper mache) I still haven't gotten past.
The worst ones are the ones that happen independent of existing stressors. Those ones make their own stress, and working on reducing it does next to nothing.
You seem to think that because your disorder can’t be cured completely then there is no point in trying to make your quality of life better.
I am trying, and am better off than when it first surfaced, but it feels like it might be getting somewhat worse even while I'm in my comfort zones.
That is a childish perspective, rather like saying, “if I can’t have exactly what I want then I won’t settle for something similar, I’ll just have nothing at allâ€.
It feels more to me like betting my sanity and aspects of my identity on a dice game.
Medical professionals are there for a reason, and I’m sorry if your experiences have made you paranoid, but very few, if any, of them have bad intentions.
...the US is surprisingly corrupt in this field, but even beyond them the well intended ones still make many mistakes.
Schizophrenia is an extremely serious illness, and if you are determined to cope with it alone and not gain help from the professionals then how do you expect things to get any better?
Bouts of research and experimentation every so often, harm reduction through reducing stressors, forcing myself to develop a tolerance through controlled exposure towards the things that disturb me, and keeping my mind sharp with activity's what I've been going with. All of my problems grow in severity from stress, so controlling that factor makes it comparatively more manageable. It's not perfect... but it's better than not.
You say you are trying and do want your life to get better (as opposed to sitting around complaining and demanding sympathy whilst using it as a get-out clause for taking personal responsibility for your life), but what are you actually doing in a practical way to facilitate this?
I want to find another way. I know that they'll just try to convince me to take drugs, but there have to be other ways.
Full-blown schizophrenia is a debilitating illness and not something that can really be coped with just by willpower alone, as you seem to suggest you’re doing.
While the problems might be growing worse, containing their display has grown easier through repeated efforts.
If I am a bit off but no one notices, then to them it's as if I'm not aberrant at all.
You’ve come here on an almost daily basis for a number of years and seemed consistent, lucid, able to express yourself and not completely delusional.
I try to express myself at least a little bit here on my bad days with something normal-looking so that I don't seem absent, but I have otherwise taken multiple breaks from the place. This website is actually comforting to me anyway, as at this point it feels familiar, it has it's share of expected characters, it's like my own personal sitcom, and the individual subtexts between each user clashing is a wonderful distraction.
Schizophrenia is not something that you can switch on and off, and if you have managed to achieve this level of functionality without the help of meds or psychological support then that is quite simply remarkable.
Hah, I'm not Turquie94. 
You say you’re afraid of ending up like a lower-functioning schizophrenic, but when you compare your posts to, for example, MrDelta’s, you can surely see that you’re nowhere near that level, to the point where you have to question whether it really is the same disorder.
There's multiple subtypes, and mine at least is the paranoid variant which tends to have a generally increased likelihood of better functioning. Even so though, I'm not entirely optimistic when I can see the familial similarities as a somewhat predictive map of where I might go.
I’m not a psychiatrist, and nobody online is qualified to advise you without meeting you in person, but I’d tentatively suggest you look into the possibility of schizotypal personality disorder rather than full-blown schizophrenia.
Schizotypal doesn't hallucinate.
You talk a lot about labels and seem very concerned about finding a ‘label’ that fits you. I have to wonder why this is so important to you. Especially seeing as you have chosen not to go down the route of therapy or medication, what does it matter if your problems don’t fit into a neat little category as outlined by medical professionals?
Labels make it easier to do research, find others who fit within that niche for cross-comparison, and it saves time when talking about it. As a series of symptoms I had trouble describing it was harder to know what I was working with, and there was no way to find out why. The label gives an explanation and a means of reference that's otherwise absent.
I wasn't a fan of the mystery until I found what I was looking for. Who wouldn't want to try to figure out why they're hearing shit?
Would it not make more sense to treat your collection of symptoms independently and for what they are, rather than lumbering yourself with a label as daunting as schizophrenia? Surely that is only causing more harm than good, in that it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I can't get to the acceptance step if I don't deal with how much it sucks.
You say you have literally no examples of people living successfully with schizophrenia… Have you tried using Google? Elyn Saks, Erica Camus, erm, John Nash? I don’t have to introduce you to family members to show you that mental illness is not an excuse for failure in life.
I know of Elyn Saks at least. Her talks about older psychiatric practices were quite enlightening.
For some reason I felt compelled to give examples from the pool of people I know.
You’ll prove yourself right, of course, but don’t expect any sympathy here, or indeed anywhere.
I don't come to this forum for sympathy, I'm here for discussion and entertainment.
Holy Shit Three Posts Long WTFHOW?
Xena stated: source post
He wasn't officially dx'd by a doctor. He was 'tested' by grad students at his uni for the sake of getting special consideration for exams. Those stupid tests are overpriced and not always reliable. The good ones will come with a referral to an actual doctor, and not some kid in a white coat moving chairs around so s/he feels important.
Actually, part of the purpose of the cameras was not just review, but to have doctors oversee it. When I got my diagnosis back there were two other people present that I hadn't seen. The quality and cost was less, but it'd be pure insanity if they just unleashed them onto mentally ill people without supervision.
Look how normal I am despite being put on the wrong meds for awhile.
XD
Edit: 
Xena: I'm out again. All done concern trolling Turnedout Coat XD
So... your goal was to trick me into getting sick, or what? 
Sourced the B3 yet?
Looks like 3 grams / day....spaced out over the day and up to 18 grams ( that is a butt load of B3!) water soluble, easy enough to slap into your vitamin water, but will taste bitter.
B3, two common forms 1) Niacin, 2) Niacinamide. Both apparently effective, however niacin appears prefered for SZ, yet each will cause different reactions in the body which may/ may not be tolerable to you. ( it will convert in your GI tract due to pH, so either will do the job)
"The starting dose of niacin for adults is 1,000 mg three times daily. In our opinion, the daily dose should be slowly increased to 4,500-18,000 mg to achieve the best possible outcome. Patients must be educated about the flushing, heat, itchiness, pruritis, redness, and tingling that they will transiently experience. These benign cutaneous reactions usually begin 15 minutes after taking niacin for the first time, and are first noticed around the forehead, then descend to the thorax, and sometimes to the feet. These reactions typically abate 1-2 hours following the ingestion of niacin"
Yes...it can feel pretty wild....lol...but nothing too horrific. Niacinamide is the non flushing form, however, same as niacin over 3000mg can lead to liver toxicity ....so...you will have to consider availability and preference.
You can get 500mg X100 caps for less than $5.00....and in the USA the shipping is cheap for you.....lol....no excuses!!!
Xena stated: source post
You should have seen the shit that happened at my uni when the wrong person found out I was homeless. Yuck.
yea but had you stolen anything from them?
