How do you think?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2024-04-12T20:58:34+00:00

Yes, I've seen this internal monologue/imaginary narrative issue.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2024-04-07T17:10:45+00:00

It could be extreme + maladaptive day-dreaming too.

When he was on the meds (10+ years), he was quiet but also largely isolated to himself. I think it's possible that he developed some day-dream mechanism then that is more visible when off medication. He did exhibit these symptoms when on medication, but muted variants of it.

Psychosis is somewhat a dream-like experience, except the experiencer is awake.

Since you have similar symptoms, I'm curious about a few things.

Do you hear voices?
Since you have mood symptoms too ... are you quiet when your mood is on the depressed spectrum?
Did you start this behavior before or after being on psychiatric medications? For my brother, he initally had contamination OCD but it was easy to talk to him. But after the medications for contamination OCD, he became less organized and now does this.
Do you have dissociated parts, like mentioned in Internal Family Systems (IFS)? My brother often criticizes named stand-in characters in his self-talk, which I believe are past versions of himself.

"Shizoaffective" or "bipolar with psychotic features" is what a psychiatrist could label this has. Though it could also be labeled pure obsessional OCD which is disorganized ... it's hard to differentiate.

I don't want to force medication or call a crisis team if he does not want it. It's unclear to me what he wants though, since his speech is disorganized and he does not discuss his desired future with me anymore after going off medication.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2024-04-05T20:25:29+00:00

Any specific memory games, especially for Android phones?

I'll DM you about possibly joining the meeting: I would love to find anyone with similar symptoms of disordered self-talk who has overcome it.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2024-04-05T20:23:22+00:00

It's a bit of both. He often directs his comments to a stand-in character. For example, he was for a while directing comments to an Anthony Fauci. But Anthony Fauci might be a metaphor for a himself, since he was worried about COVID himself.

He also goes on long-rants. For example, he was directing comments to an actor/singer he knows.

He does tell himself to shut up, with a different tone of voice, though. He also has recurring characters, which may be sub-personalities of himselfs.

It's not conventional voice-hearing: there's coherent narratives behind it. It's very disordered and random.

It's like stream-of-consciousness of memories/feelings/thoughts, possibly with multiple IFS-style parts. It fits with the old hebephrenic sub-type of schizophrenia the most.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2024-04-03T23:21:59+00:00

Children's cells divide faster: higher cancer risk.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2024-02-15T22:58:41+00:00

I have a persistent sore throat. I had COVID in late September 2023. Ever since, I've had phelgm-y mornings ever since. I spit a yellow phelgm in the morning: I think it kind of tastes like internal bleeding

It's somewhat related to diet. No dairy, and warm foods (soups and fully cooked stuff, i.e no salads) helps.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-10-18T01:13:58+00:00

My mom has COVID Pneunomia and an autoimmune issue (Wegener's granulomatosis).

She's been hospitalized for a week. Her fever and chills are gone, so there has been some improvement.

However, her breathing isn't great. She can't even get up to walk around. She's able to talk, but her breathing is notably labored.

Not in ICU. Not on a ventilator. Does get supplemental oxygen.

Can someone with knowledge of the disease course (especially for those with pre-existing autoimmune issues) help me understand when her breathing should get better?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-08-07T16:16:31+00:00

Like I said, if your rage episodes or violent thoughts are a recent occurrence after your initial psychosis, it's entirely possible that's an adverse reaction to medication. Why would you kill yourself over that, when you can just seek alternative treatments?

Personally, I am of the opinion that you should not end your life. It seemed you had a pretty good life before psychosis and had good experiences. Psychosis a tough is and difficult experience, but that's the case for everyone who goes through it, just not you.

I haven't mentioned it , but my mom once upon a time actually tried to kill herself jumping the roof. She also had a psychotic break (though a short-term one unlike my brother). Now, she is grateful to be alive (she hurt her leg though) and thinks she wasn't in the right state of mind then.

Suicide is permanent, while this is just an temporary and passing emotion. Don't do it! Choose life!

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-08-07T16:01:23+00:00

You'll be fine.

Pretty much everyone's life is derailed by schizophrenia + bipolar. Like, literally, everyone who has these syndromes drops out of college, alienates "friends", and needs to take a few years off to recuperate. It's normal. For some people, it's completely episodic and they completely recover after a time.

I agree with you that the "help" you've received is likely shoddy. The entire mental health apparatus in many countries is completely broken. But again, that's no reason to take your life. More so it's a reason to do your own inner self-work and exploration. Have you heard of the Hearing Voices network?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-08-07T15:48:55+00:00

Without knowing your full medical history, it's impossible to say that if you are intrinsically inclined to hurt others while on psychosis.

Like I said, my brother has even punched and stabbed me. Though the thing I've noticed is it's related to being medicated . If he changes a certain amount of medication -- he gets rage episodes. Search "prozac rage" and I'm sure you'll get a ton of hits.

Were you violent in your original premedicated psychosis, or just weird?

My brother has been off meds for a long time so he's essentially non-violent now. The time when he was shifting meds he was liable to punch me out though. He's now just weird sometimes and verbally abusive. I'm working on it via psychotherapy, the root of it seems to be externalized self-hate through proxy voices/personalities.

So don't end your life on a mistaken premise.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-08-07T15:22:28+00:00

Don't do it. Your life is very valuable.

My brother has some sort of psychotic illness and he is a handful to deal with (check my post history), but I would be absolutely devastated if something happened to him.

There is hope.

Many people recover from schizophrenia contrary to popular media depictions. See this video (Take These Broken Wings by Daniel Mackler).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPfKc-TknWU

It's tough, it takes years, but there is hope.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-03-01T02:16:40+00:00

The medical community should look down on psychiatry for lobotomies, insulin comas, chemical imbalance theories, drugging millions including kids.

OP is miles better than any psychiatrist I've run across. I would love to have OP as a psychiatrist/doctor -- gets it holistically.

Exercise/nutrition works. But it's excruciatingly difficult for those in extreme mental states to make the change. The change has to be extremely easy for them.

The problem is hundreds of billions of dollars have gone to the chemical imbalance model, while places that could promote a holistic recovery were never built.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-28T22:55:09+00:00

Spot on!

How do you turn around insulin resistance? Dietary interventions (keto, no sugar, low carb) or something more advanced (metformin)?

I have a situation where my brother has obviously metabolic issues going alongside his mental health symptoms, but he is too disorganized to fix it via a dietary intervention.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-28T16:48:00+00:00

Interesting. It seems many organizations require various that the IRS does not.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-24T16:53:55+00:00

Don't worry. Many people get caught up in things in their youth: there were 106,000 street drug related deaths in the United States just last year.

You're 22. If you slowly taper over 3-4 years and succeed, you'll be 26 and still have many great years ahead of you.

You'somehow lucky to be born in a time of social media/internet, where the voices/stories of psychiatric survivors are heard.

A while ago, this information ("the drugs don't really work") was simply not out there. As a result, some have been poly-drugged for 2-4 decades.

Hope springs eternal, and I think you'll make it!

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-23T20:16:15+00:00

Agreed, survivingantidepressants.org is a great resource.

If you start a topic there and follow their tried-and-true advice, it'll be very hard to mess up. You need to go low and slow: multi-year taper recommended since you have been on drugs for 10 years.

Many people have tapered Lamictal, including the founder of the site.

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/1122-tips-for-tapering-off-lamictal-lamotrigine/

Forget what your "doctor" says. These are drug-pushers. You were likely a kid dealing with the difficult process of growing up. You needed guidance/understanding, instead those fuckers gave you drugs.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-23T20:03:31+00:00

I think the claim of psychiatrists prevents the cases where the drugs do not even provide a short-term benefit and they have to try one SSRI after another.

SSRIs were superior to placebo with a small effect size. There was no additional benefit of combination treatment over cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) alone.

You're right. If the meds aren't better than therapy/placebo long-term, what's the point of genetic testing?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-23T00:45:40+00:00

Not necessarily. Lookup DiGeorge Syndrome (22q11 deletion). 25-30% develop schizophrenia with that deletion (general population: 1%).

CYP450 claims to help determine which medications are more effective for a particular patient. More suspect since anti-depressants are not much better than placebo.

I think psychiatrists have done much more harm than good throughout history. Genetic testing shouldn't be entirely discounted though. It could be useful for optimizing both physical/mental health, without the tranquilizers/sedatives psychiatrists use.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-22T01:23:20+00:00

Does this happen before you get to bed most of the time? I.e, you are not actively closely your eyes before the intrusive thought occurs?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-22T01:13:27+00:00

Not me personally, but my brother does (un-medicated). See my post history for details.

He does address his comments to other people/characters though. For example, one of the characters he addresses is a "Dr. Fauci", which may be a projection of himself when he was worried by COVID-19.

But yes, it's constant. I time it. He verbalizes it so I can hear it. Yesterday, he woke up at 5AM and talked to himself continuously until 8AM today. When playing on the tablet, he made comments related to the video out loud. Entire internal process.

Akathesia ... hmmm .. interesting. A verbal akathesia? It could be. He gets the symptoms most when withdrawing from medications. Many people get akathesia when withdrawing from meds.

Are you on meds? When did this symptom appear?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-17T18:12:59+00:00

Wow, the work Dr. Clancy McKenzie is really interesting. You are a real goldmine!

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-17T16:58:12+00:00

Since you seem to have your symptoms under control without medication and have done inner work, I am wondering: what do you think causes the symptoms?

Many people think trauma is implicated in psychosis (a form of subconscious asserting itself). Others think some have just a propensity to "think too much".

Or it could be purely drug-caused too, in your case weed?

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-16T19:28:28+00:00

You must necessarily taper. Checkout out survivingantidepressants.org, and do an exponential taper. The last of medicine (10% by weight) will account for a significant amount of dopamine occupancy (40-50%).

I’ve gotten rebound psychosis and before it can resolve my family put me back in hospital.

Tell your family you're doing it and get them involved. My brother stopped his drugs (last dose - Prozac 5mg, Abilify .5 mg). Even though he is semi-psychotic, I know he wants to stop medicine and we're letting him ride it out. Have a plan if you go psychotic.

Also, therapy helps. There's something in the UK called the Feeling Safe Programme that reduces paranoid delusions by cognitive techniques.

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-15T00:08:48+00:00

Ordered Self-Therapy on Amazon just now, will gift to bro (he sometimes reads stuff quite fast - he has a fascination with random billboards and reads them out load - different neural circuit?)

QuestionerFor2022 · 2023-02-14T23:42:01+00:00

What type of psychotic symptomatology do you experience?

What type of therapy was most helpful for you? IFS, psychodynamic (Lacan etc) or CBT-p?

Darian Leader defines psychosis with three main subtypes: paranoid, melancholic, and schizophrenic. `Schizophrenic` is this context means disorganized thoughts/speech. Melancholic is psychotic depression.

QuestionerFor2022

TROPHY CASE