Posted by Mystia on November 20, 2002, at 22:47:41
In reply to Diagnosing Schizophrenia, posted by Michael D on November 20, 2002, at 21:19:00
I'm no doctor, but....your writing was very comprehensive and sometimes you can pick out schizophrenia from someone being VERY confused, like making up words, piling all kinds of things together where they don't belong, etc. As far as the hallucinations, NO, not ALL those people have hallucinations. There are so many different symptoms! The reason schizophrenia is so hard to diagnose is because of the way symptoms are shown. There are two kinds of symptoms... negative and positive. The negative symptoms are things that are missing that SHOULD be present (inablility to feel pleasure and a lack of personal hygiene are just 2). Positive symptoms, on the other hand, are things that are there that SHOULD NOT be there, such as hallucinations, "word clang," delusions, paranoia, hearing voices, and thought disorders.
It is also very likely that you have a less severe form of schizophrenia. There is a group of personality disorders that are less severe forms of schizophrenia. Paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal are the names.
Paranoid people will show very distrustful tendencies and think people are "out to get them." Schizoids are detatched from everything and they show very low emotions. Schizotypal people generally affect a person's social attitude and they may become disconcerted and have odd perceptions.
This is just my personal opinion: If you are able to REALIZE you are having these problems, you probably aren't schizophrenic. Like I said, you might have a personality disorder related to schizophrenia but not schizophrenia itself. I hope I have helped in some kind of way :) Keep everyone posted on how you're doing!Mystia
poster:Mystia
thread:128549
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021116/msgs/128561.html