Hello,
ok so first of all let me list the symptoms that I have.
- Paranoia - I always think that something could happen. for example I think I would die because of the boiling water I put one stove. somehow It could jump on me and I will die. this is just a simple example I have ton of example to give.
- Delusion - I don't always feel this way but If someone don't give me exact reason why do they doing something I would assume they are doing that to harm me. I am not that delusional that I would not believe if they explain me why they are doing certain things.
- Hallucination - This is the main symptoms of schizophrenia. I don't have it. really! I could explain why my psychiatrist thinks I have auditory hallucination. I talk to myself a lot and keep replying to my thoughts not voices thoughts. sometimes it feels like those thoughts are coming from someone else like they are talking to me. and I know it's inside my head. I doesn't even feel like normal voice. I won't try to find that person around me since I know that it's not real, I know all the conversation going on inside my head are imaginary. the problem it creates is when I am talking to my family members and at the same time I am also talking inside my head that renders me unable to pay attention to my family member who is trying to talk with me.
- Delusion of reference - I kinda feel like everyone is watching me when I go to some public place. however it isn't that bad that I couldn't even go to public places. I do go to public places however It makes me uncomfortable since I keep thinking about scenarios in which something would go off or something bad would happen or I would do something that will draw everyone's attention. again it's not that bad since I can go to public places and do whatever business I have to do there.
maybe I should show this post my psychiatrist so he could better understand however he always say that you don't have to explain the symptoms to me I already know you have schizophrenia and I always argue that I don't have schizophrenia. I don't know I am so confused :/
I have seen a lot of videos about schizophrenia and I don't even have all the symptoms of it. maybe I have one or two symptoms but that's it. I am cognitively fine and you might even call me clever on some occasion.
If you don't think you have schizophrenia, then that's something you may want to think about and/or discuss with a healthcare professional (same one or different). But I'd like to bring up some other things that might be relevant: psychological adjustment to a diagnosis, there should be patient benefits to a diagnosis, and that daily functioning may be more important than a diagnostic label.
Something I hear in your post is that you're not very happy about being diagnosed with schizophrenia. As a separate issue from the validity of the diagnosis, maybe you're having difficulty accepting and/or adjusting to the diagnosis. There is some stigma unfortunately around mental illness and schizophrenia.
How else is the diagnosis impacting you? Maybe you're receiving meds, maybe you have community or disability support or resources (eg, work program, support group). For a doctor, a diagnosis helps them with billing and clinical decision-making (eg, prescribing meds). There should be some benefit to you. Like, I have an asthma diagnosis, and that allows me to get puffers so I can breathe better.
Diagnosis doesn't define any one of course, and daily functioning may be more important. E.g., Are you working? Do you want to be?
Your symptoms don't sound very severe but on aggregate they do sound quite specific to schizophrenia. As someone else said, you do have a lot of insight into your symptoms. Unfortunately, I don't think that matters much in terms of whether you meet diagnostic criteria. The evidence of you having other symptoms is based on your own self-report and therefore kind of weak. But if you're losing focus having a serious conversation about your health due to thoughts in your head that grab your attention in front of a psychiatrist, that is something that I think might lead many Western healthcare providers to diagnose as schizophrenia or something pretty quickly. So, if you can exert more control in those situations, you might want to, at least in some settings. At the same time, Western psychiatry is not the only source of perspectives on the meaning of our inner monologues. You may want to explore other schools of thought that regard those thoughts as less pathological. You might get personal significance from less pathologizing perspectives.
Finally, check out Daniel Mackler, a former psychotherapist with a large swath of videos on youtube, who has a very different understanding of schizophrenia than mainstream psychiatry.
first of all thank you for the detailed and informative comment.
yes, because even after diagnosed with schizophrenia I see no difference in my day to day life. I still get nervous/anxious while talking to someone and think they are plotting something against me. my psychiatrist always ask if I am hearing voices or not anymore and I always get confused since I have insight I don't know if the voices are just my subconcious. however after taking meds those "talking inside my head" has significantly decreased.
You're welcome :) If I may, it sounds like you want and/or need to be able to socialize more comfortably (to live a meaningful life), and your current meds may be helping to some extent but clearly aren't achieving that desired result on their own.
You could ask your doctor to try a different med (or more), and/or ask for something for anxiety specifically. Maybe you could access some kind of psychotherapy to discuss talking to people and that paranoia or access another kind of individual or group support. You may also want to hear more about living with schizophrenia from people who are themselves living with schizophrenia. I think the experience of controlling 'hallucinations' with medication yet having persistent uncorrected social deficits (ie, unmet needs) is unfortunately pretty common for people with schizophrenia (in large part due to a lack of adequate healthcare). Some of those perspectives might help normalize some of what you're experiencing and/or provide some applicable wisdom or advice (eg, for socializing). Some people with schizophrenia are thriving socially and otherwise despite living in a sane-ist society that unfortuantely has a long way to go in terms of inclusion and acceptance.
Meds may be one piece of the puzzle for being able to socialize comfortably and leading a meaningful life. My advice would be to focus on the whole puzzle - however you define wellness and whatever is meaningful to you. Loneliness can broadly mean "not getting one's social needs met' - which are basic human nature. Depending on how lonely you're feeling and how long you've been feeling this way, you may want to try one or more strategies. Again, people with lived experience might have some of the best recommendations there, at least to get started. I don't know if any of this is helpful, but I've appreciated the interaction, I wish you well, and you're welcome to reply or message me
I do want to talk with people who don't have severe schizophrenia just a mild version of it that's why I made this community however I am the only one posting here which is kind of sad.
I try to talk with people in real life but I couldn't since I start thinking about negative stuff :/
I might request my psychiatrist to connect me with someone going through the same situation as me.
I really wish people start posting here often so I could get some feedback from people living with schizophrenia.
If you're in Ontario, this is a good tool for finding resources: https://connexontario.ca/
Yeah, Lemmy's still pretty small, unfortunately. That sounds like a good idea though! Maybe some kind of group for people with mild schizophrenia (and are around the same age perhaps). Asking your psychiatrist is a good idea. You might also want to do a little online searching to see if you find anything of interest locally, so you can ask for a referral to that specifically - just an idea. There might also be mild schizophrenia forums online outside of Lemmy that you might find with an online search. You might be able to check posts out without creating an account