Posted by xbunny on May 11, 2005, at 8:48:31
In reply to Voices in the Head/ maybe not so bad?, posted by Zanzibar_inJanuary on May 11, 2005, at 2:52:29
Hi there,
> not so bad? Or are they indicators of a predisposition to psychosis?
> 1) Does anyone with mild psychotic symptoms, ie auditory hallucinations (not conversing,) and bouts of derealization, depression and anxiety, fail to respond to atypical antipsychotics?when Im not over the top psychotic I have symptoms like this. They are pretty resistant to antipsychotics. Given a scale from say 0 to 10, for me antipsychotics reduce symptoms to a 3 or 2 on a good day.
> If so, what is your diagnosis?
My dx is schizophrenia so I guess Im not the target audience for your post I just though I would post anyways.
> Do older antipsychotics work for you?
Yes, better than the atypicals.
> What about benzodiazapines?
no affect.
> Have you had to learn to simply *cope* with the psychotic symptoms?
Yes. I did this CBT for psychosis thing last year which dealt all about coping with and managing psychosis.
> 2) If you have actually been diagnosed with Schizophrenia, or have developed psychosis, did you have any precipitating symptoms like those described above?
Yes. For me when Im not actively psychotic, and I havent been for some time, I straddle the symptomology of Paranoid, Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disorder, I was that way from way before my first break. Often these disorders can be a precipate of proper schizophrenia. However not every one with these disorders will develop sz. The term for the symptoms that occur before one develops an illness proper is prodromal. In fact there used to be a subtype of sz whereby you only ever had prodromal symptoms, cant remember what its called.
> I don't have a Schizophrenia dx because I've never had bizzare delusions, and the hallucinations are mild, and are usually precipitated by stress. (Possibly caused by anxiety?)
> I don't *feel* like I could ever be delusional, I always have much insight and am reasonable even whilst hearing things and being agitated and depressed..are your hallucinations in theme with your depression? or just random?
>
> But I'm young- according to all I've read,younger than the average age of initial psychotic breaks. Are these "sub-syndromal"? symptoms? Could they someday develop into fullblown psychosis?They could, but they dont sound like prodromal symptoms to me. To my knowledge sz prodromal symptoms are usually sz like, ie paranoia, off the wall ideas, strange but brief hallucinations etc. Theres an overview of prodromal psychosis here if you like:
http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/scz/sb-prod.html> Yes, I'm absolutely aware the voices arent real, and I never lose myself completely when I dissociate. But who knows how fine the line is that I'm walking?
my advice would be not worry about this label or that label. If your hallucinations are bothersome see about treating them, same for the depression and anxiety. Since you have good insight feel blessed about it, keep an eye on yourself, be proactive if you think things are changing for the worse seek further help.
> If youve made it this far- I commend you.no, YOU have made it this far I commend YOU!
Regards Bunny
poster:xbunny
thread:496295
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050510/msgs/496344.html