I got discharged 5 days ago and started up 4 sketches, none of them are done. At the psych ward I'm more organized. Glad to be out but my meds are not working. No structure or schedule. Living on coffee and either 14 hours of sleep spread throughout the day and a bit of night or either no sleep and walking 10 miles...

As the title says, it’s really scary. Sounds so real that i genuinely believe im either crazy or literal demons are reaching me. I hope im just crazy. I have no one to talk to about this because i dont even want to put such energy into the air by speaking about it through my mouth.

Just curious

It's a good feeling when you realize you're handling your battles better than you were before. It does get better.

Never give up! 💪🏼

acrylic on paper 22x30

My last episode ended in like April? I’ve just been diagnosed. But for months I’ve spent my days laying around not doing anything. I shower. I cook for myself when I can. I go out and see friends. But I have no ability to do my hobbies. Nothing brings me enjoyment it’s just all flat. It’s like I have no motivation to do anything other than lay around and think about whatever it is I’m thinking about. Even when I used to suffer from depression I’d find something to watch on tv. But I just simply cannot engage with stuff anymore. I think the most enjoyment I feel is when I’m with friends or I’m listening to music. Wondering if this is possibly negative symptoms?

Met with my new therapist for the second time. Part of my homework is to ask what people do when they feel hopeless or despairing. I thought this would be a good place to ask. What do y'all do when you feel hopeless to feel better, even if just for a little while?

Where should I go??

Moments ago, I was just chilling in my bed and the sun popped up outside my window, warming me. And I thought "I'm so lucky to have a star in the Cosmos be alligned so specifically towards my window and let its light travel all the way to me". A true miracle.

Please, be grateful for this amazing world we live in. Much love! 😄 ❤️

I began my treatment back in 2018 when i was 23 years old, and from 23 to 29 i didnt have this many hallucinations but now that i'm 30 its like i've hit rock bottom, i started having recurring and often auditory hallucinations and i completely lost the trust in myself to a point i cant say that what i seeing, hearing or feeling is really real or not, this year i isoled from my friends because i kept telling myself that they hated me for some reason.

but at least i'm keeping a journal, reading and cleaning my home which is more than i could do back 2021.

i try to see the good side of things but its really hard since my psychologist retired and i dont have anyone to speak on that level and most of my family is dead and the brother and sister i do still have in my life i cant have such conversations.

what can i do meanwhile i dont resume with the sessions in order to just get a bit better? like not medical advice but activities and such i can do.

Do any of you guys drink on your antipsychotics if so is there any interaction you notice I am on 6mg of invega my doc told me I wouldn’t die if I drank on it but I thought I ask you guys to see what your experiences are with it

My mom has it, my brother and my sister had schizoaffective disorder w/ bi polar 1. I live with them and watching them all and their behaviors is so alarming. None of them are willing to take medicine nor believe they’re actually sick. My sister is 29, brother 32 and my mom is 55. They all have auditory and visual but most auditory. I’m assuming it’s paranoid schizophrenia. They think they’re cursed, being hunted, that people and babies are the food they’re eating, my mom showers with clothes on cause cameras, people are in the walls. Brother thinks chip is in his head, sister thinks she’s poisoned and on the news etc. they all also seem to be developmentally delayed. My mom can’t read or write, my brother has always been special ed and my sister is delayed. Not sure what’s going on with all of them exactly but this skipped me, and my oldest 2 brothers. I’ve had a very difficult life due to all this, I’m 30 now and most of my childhood was dealing with my moms mental illness and her fighting people calling her a witch etc. she had a lot of delusions about me that she still believes. I moved in to go to school full time and save them from homelessness. No one’s willing to try and get a disabled status they’re on public housing and now you need a job etc so I just pay their rent. I don’t know how I can sustain them. My mom talks all night to herself and walks around with weapons outside. It’s just a lot. How do you guys deal with this? Anyone in this situation?

What type of work do you do?

Do you just power through even though the symptoms are strong?

A bit about me:

• I have paranoid schiz, had it since 2014.
• I have tried many different jobs, most of which involve customer service.
  
• Customer service is incredibly hard to manage with this illness. I find working with a lot of people around is hard, cause the voices increase from 10% to 110% with exposure to people for prolonged periods.
• I go from being able to function normally (at home) and ignoring the voices when they arise to not being able to tell the difference between people's voices around me and the voices in my head. The content can be very painful, usually some outlandish claim about my character and why i should be avoided or prosecuted by my cowokers.
• I believe most are trying to conspire to humiliate/in prison/murder/torture me. This will happen within weeks of starting a new job. I think they all know who i am because i "overhear" them talking about how they know a friend of a friend of mine from highschool and they got updated about all the crazy shit that's been happening and why they all want to bully me until suicide.

I am at the point where i don't want to work. I have tried for so many years. i have worked/studied at uni/graduated the whole time i have been in psychosis. I had to be hospitalised a few times. I have always felt i have been out running gang stalking which is why i have tried so hard to pull myself "out of trouble".

So again, i am on payments, but i don't have disability atm. I have medical exemption with unemployment. I don't know what i am supposed to do.

Does anyone have any advice/job ideas/ insight/empathy?

I'd appreciate input - sorry the post was so long.

I’m stuck. My therapist today told me, start packing your bag and go tonight. My psychiatrists office staff told me I should go. But yet I’m over here panicking for alternatives. Thinking ok what if I restart my meds? Does that mean I don’t need to go to the hospital? When I’m lying to myself, I don’t want to restart the meds am I really going to follow through with that? And I think ok only go to the hospital if you truly need to go and how do we know that I truly need to go maybe I don’t maybe I’m fine and I don’t need to go and this is all something that will blow over so just stay in your apt. I guess I just kind of don’t want to go.

To those of you that have had success holding a decent job down: how did you go about testing your limits or what lines did you draw prior to starting a new position? I think I have a more mild version of sz which mostly consists of negative symptoms, and in the worst times, has included psychosis. I want to try something again (maybe corporate) but I’m worried ab becoming psychotic again.

Just some random pictures from the past several years

Just a lighthearted check-in for the community:

If you had to define your current quest in recovery or daily life right now, what are you working towards?

For me personally, my current quest is a mix of three things: learning to respect my brain's energy budget when it enters low-power mode, untangling scary predictions from who I actually am, and keeping a bit of humor when walking the absurd walks of daily life.

What about you? What is your current focus?

(Image credit: Monty Python and the Holy Grail / Columbia Pictures)

I was doing really "well" for a long time,

But in my relationship I think I'm struggling to accept that I don't feel all that loved. So much cute and sweet talk from her, but still, everything is about her.

I feel that she also is more upset than happy for me when I'm successful. She comments on things she wants more than things I'd like.

And maybe I'm feeding my own feelings by constantly going "Im never like this to you..."

And I don't know how to respond to the fact that me giving anything else like my career or friends or family attention doesn't take away from how much I care about her.

I'm beginning to be afraid of making plans with anyone else

And I feel like I'm being watched again, I haven't felt this way since I was a child

Sometimes she knows what I'm doing despite I haven't told her.

, I'm really afraid to make this post too.

It never helped that I don't think she understands, I've been open about schizophrenia, but she thinks we are the same. She thinks I am just like her, she thinks she understands all mental illness because she suspects she has one

Everytime I explain it to someone or on paper, it seems awful, but I don't know how everytime I talk to her I really cant disagree. I feel wrong, I feel shes right

Thats why every talk, people keep telling me we have to talk, it always ends in me apologizing, I can't help it, I can't explain it, I really genuinely feel wrong in the end and a strange sense of "I know what to do now! It was my fault!"

She got really upset with me because 2 days before we were meant to meet, I made a mistake, and realized I had an unavoidable event on that day. I admitted it to her and she reprimanded me for not being more organized. She said "Never promise me anything again."

I can't help this anger that "I would never get this upset at you for an honest mistake." I feel bad. So bad

But it's been so hard to be organized... It's been so hard not to freeze and be afraid... Hard not to miss school and work when I wake up feeling like I'm in the wrong building for hours

Personally I have experienced a lot of hallucinations that can touch, push and pull me and use objects around me. I haven’t heard too many people speaking about it and I wonder if its just my bad luck or is it far more common than I think.

(Little warning for violence by hallucinations 👇)

I am getting currently diagnosed what I have and the psychiatrist seemed to at least be a bit suprised when I brought up that I can see, hear and feel mine and that I once almost got pushed forcefully out of a window and choked by a rope by another.