schizoaffective

Not sure if anyone will find this interesting, but I sometimes have moments of lucidity into what it’s like living with schizoaffective disorder. I’m not up to date on the latest research, but from my experience, I believe the "split" in schizophrenia is actually a survival or coping mechanism in response to extreme duress.

When I’m not split from myself, I’m much more sensitive to pain. I notice how my skin can feel like it’s burning, and how each passing moment carries a suffocating gravity with it. It’s difficult to sit with these sensations, but meditation has helped me find ways to channel and understand the pain and discomfort. In a lot of ways, it’s helping me come back to myself — one little step at a time. Acknowledging and understanding why the pain is there, and then integrating it into my life, rather than numbing it out or splitting away from it. It’s agony sometimes, but it’s worth it to feel anything again.

I think the disorganized thinking often seen in schizophrenia is a symptom of that split. When you create a second self that’s numb to what your authentic self is experiencing, you lose your true anchor. It becomes easy to get caught up in the whirls and eddies of other people’s consciousness and motives, without realizing you’ve become completely detached from your own values. (This is actually what my children’s book was about.)

When the second self gets corrupted, it’s understandable that the personality loses its integrity and becomes fragmented and disorganized.

Those of us with schizoaffective disorder are a small subset of the population — but in some ways, I think this happens to everyone, just to different degrees. I’m grateful I’m making progress in navigating this disease. If sharing this helps someone else who’s struggling, even better.#SchizophreniaSpectrumPsychoticDisorders #schizoaffective #Schizophrenia

I'm tired. Restless, tired, frustrated, and possibly more than a little crazy.
First thing first, my husband is 39 and refuses to properly care for himself. He can do basic daily activities and go to work, but his ability to actually Care about himself outside of that is non-existent. He's a diabetic and an alcoholic. He eats fast food every day if I let him. He can't take care of animals and he doesn't know how to pay bills. He's always been like this. His entire life. I'm trying to teach him to be independent. He doesn't care to learn. His only goal in life is to stay drunk as long as possible. (Please don't ask me why I married him or stay with him, as it's not your concern.)
Second, I took in someone I love dearly who is 19. He was in a very bad spot and needed a place to go. He's also #schizoaffective , has #BPD , #Anxiety , and #PTSD . He has no manners and is very aggressive towards my husband.
I am stuck in the middle of the war between the two of them, always trying to find the compromise and explain each side to the other. My husband understands that #BPD is challenging to say the least and that he sometimes needs to tread lightly or be more understanding than usual from dealing with me. The #schizoaffective though, he doesn't understand and, despite my best efforts, I cannot get him to grasp.
The situation is just making me tired. Neither of them will grow up and TRY to understand the other. I don't know what to do.
Meh. Thanks for letting me vent.

I've been sick for a long time. Long enough that I can't remember a time when I was healthy. I can't picture my life before all my health problems kicked in. I can't remember what I was like. What my hopes and dreams were. What I did for fun. How I spent my time. But this life has not been kind to me. #Migraine #CrohnsDisease #BackPain #hippain #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #CPTSD #schizoaffective has all been all I've known for so long. The constant daily stress and struggle... The not knowing if my day will go ok. I'm exhausted and feeling so lost and afraid that it will never get better than this. There's got to be more to life than suffering.

Holidays can be a tough time for anyone, but for those of us living with a mental illness it can be harder.
I live with schizoaffective disorder. A serious mental illness that combines symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder, in my case bipolar.
Even though I'm well medicated I still can get symptoms especially when I'm stressed and the holidays can be stressful.

I sometimes have a hard time making eye contact due to feeling like people can read my thoughts, this makes people think I'm being rude if they don't understand. This can make socializing uncomfortable for me sometimes. One way I deal with this is to say in my head "if you can hear me blink twice" this reassures me that they can't read my thoughts because they never do what I ask them to.

Another symptom that makes holidays gatherings tough is I can hear voices when I get stressed. In crowded places it can be hard to tell the voices in my head from the chatter of the room. This is harder to deal with for me, but I find if I focus completely on one person talking I can quiet the other chatter both in my head and in the room. Another thing that helps is to step outside or to the bathroom.

When I get anxious or overwhelmed just stepping away to the bathroom helps I usually splash my face with cold water to ground me and bring me back to reality. I also have a small stuffed sloth that I bring with me in my purse. Holding it helps ground me.

Also, having a plan helps when getting ready for holiday get togethers. I plan how long I'm going to stay, bring my as needed meds in a pill case so they don't stand out if I need to take one, and know where I can "escape" to like knowing where the bathroom or back yard is.

What are some ways you cope with holidays?

#SchizoaffectiveDisorder #schizoaffective #schizophreniaawareness #Anxiety #Holidays

Have you ever had to change careers or quit for your mental health?
If so, Was it worth it?
#schizoaffective #bipolartype #mentalhealthmatters

I’ve never been able to communicate really. It’s always been small talk, casual responses, I’ve always obided by sit down and shut up, don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. I’m 22 years old and finally have made a major breakthrough in my anxiety and self confidence and want to have an actual conversation with someone about something that wants to conversate back. Anyone, let’s just be friends? #Anxiety #SocialAnxiety #Depression #BipolarDisorder #schizoaffective

So, like Lyndsay Wagner in the Bionic Woman I have a remarkably attuned sense of hearing that can pick up frequencies that others can’t, catching voices upon the wind even though they are some distance from me. This being so, oh how I am loathed! I wonder why anyone could have the inclination or the time to trip around someone else’s life, picking it apart so meticulously. It’s deeply disturbing to accept the notion, that I have no true sense of privacy because people who are completely alien to me and are hell bent on my downfall have ravaged through it and ripped it to shreds.

Or, my lucid imagination repeatedly sparks into creative overdrive bringing me a most unwelcome manifestation. Of course I’ve know such a thing for most of my life, although nothing as complicated as this - one voice after another with yet more and more still, all engaged in detailed conversation regarding me, all much to the negative I must add. Why my brain would play such torturous trickery upon me is a mystery.

They’re real! They can’t possibly be! No, they are, and the threat is real. Shhh, all you need fear is your own shadow.

I don’t know. I simply don’t know! #schizoaffective #Voices #Hallucinations #Reality

Was super depressed and suicidal, mainly from PTSD stuff. It was attempt suicide, go to hospital or try ketamine. I picked ketamine. It was amazing! I went in thinking it wouldn’t work! Unlike ECT (over 20 treatments) the Ketamine actually helped!! The Crying stopped. Agitation went away. I was excited to do things. I wasn’t sleeping All the time. I did a deep IV treatment. I’ll do another in 2 weeks when I get back from family trip.
I’ve been battling mental illness since I was 5 years old… I am now 41. Tried over 30 meds. Finally got On clozapine and that saved my life but it can’t make the trauma go away…I take only 4 psych meds daily (when I’m and out of hospitals I was on 7-9!). After 41 hospitalizations, so many years Of treatment and therapies, ketamine has been most helpful.