Posted by falconman on March 17, 2003, at 23:49:44
Hi,
I have a friend who has schizophrenia which seems completely managed by the AP Zeprexa. I don't know much about this illness. Today he was telling me about what he felt when he'd forgotten to take a dose or two.
He described feelings of detatchment from the world around him, as well surreal feelings of unreality and feeling he was in a dream. When this happens his intellect and 'reality testing'is fully intact, in that he realises this is not really happening and knows he better take his meds keep smart.
He went on to say that if he stopped the medication completely he would return to psychosis, and experince one of his full blown schizophrenic episodes. In this scenario he would be unable to distinguish fully between what was reality and what wasn't. In other words he would lose his 'reality testing'.I find this extremely interesting as under my diagnoses with depersonalization disorder, I can draw many parallels between the beginnings of a schizophrenic episode(i.e. when my friend forgets to take meds for a day or 2), and myself.
Obviously there are varying degrees in the severity of schizophrenia, but can someone suffer from a extremely mild form, in which their not fully psychotic (i.e.intellectually they know the difference between what is and isn't reality) but are continuosly aware of the fact their conciousnes has slightly changedpeace y'all
poster:falconman
thread:210230
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030314/msgs/210230.html