Editor’s note: this is a continuation of Fuck. Schizoaffective?
It’s been two months since my diagnosis. Two months to process the psychosis, the diagnosis. Two months to adjust to new medication.
delusions Archive
15 Aug 2012
An Interesting Hypothesis
In the early 1950’s, a well known Canadian psychiatrist named Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron developed the concept of “psychic driving.” The idea was that mental illnesses could be cured by reprogramming new narratives into subjects. He recruited from the local community to participate in his studies. Most of his volunteer subjects suffered from relatively minor psychiatric complaints, such as neurosis or depression.
07 Aug 2012
New Experiences
A few months ago, I saw someone who was not there. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a woman with long hair and a long dress leaning over the bed. She was not frightening or threatening in any way. I gradually realized that I was seeing her features more clearly than I should be able to, given how dark the room was. Then she faded away. I am as certain that I was awake then as I am ever certain that I am awake.
03 Aug 2012
Fuck. Schizoaffective?
The last few weeks have been chaotic for me. I’ve been in a mixed episode, and starting last week, I’ve been hearing voices. Whispers, chatter, and someone calling my name. All either alone, or only with my partner nearby, and she’s confirmed that they aren’t things that she’s heard. I’ve also been feeling like the crows that wake me up in the morning are mocking me. I’ve known for months that something like this was inevitable, but it’s still jarring to experience a psychotic episode for your first time.
05 Jul 2012
My Experience with Psychotic Depression (Micah)
I am not sure where to start. There is so little I remember. I’m not even certain of my exact diagnosis now. Is it psychotic depression or schizoaffective disorder? Or something else? It doesn’t really matter.
04 Jul 2012
Shaming my Food Stamps: EBT and SSDI
I grew up a white, middle-class, cisgendered, femme bisexual. These are the labels and privilege that I am willing to claim. When I reached 33 and went on SSDI, I went on food stamps. The transformation from Daddy’s Girl who just had to get another temp job to actual psychotic starving schizophrenic who had to take anti-anxiety medication to take out the trash was a process but has landed here. With me, today. Taking a handful of pills so that I can be brave enough to go use my EBT.
18 May 2012
My Experience with Schizoaffective Disorder (Ava)
Trigger warning for description of psychotic hallucinations, mentions of drug addiction & alcoholism
Schizoaffective Disorder, a fusion between Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia, combines the symptoms of both. I was diagnosed with it three years ago after a lifetime of Bipolar I with psychotic symptoms. I could say the results were shattering, but in a way the diagnosis was a relief: to have a name for the paranoia, the white vans following me whenever I left the house, an explanation for the voices, the dialogue constantly critiquing my actions. The schizophrenic break came that terrifying summer after graduating from an MFA program with no prospects and huge debt, but perhaps I should begin at the beginning.
06 Feb 2012
DSM-V Criteria for Sexual Identity-based Delusional Disorder (Satire)
Remember when homosexuality was in the DSM, listed as a mental disorder? Remember when being trans was in there, too, listed as Gender Identity Disorder? (Oh yeah, that last one is still in there!)
16 Jan 2012
My Experience with Schizophrenia (Coda)
Trigger warnings for description of psychotic episodes and a suicide attempt, in detail, and violent imagery.
I have Schizophrenia. I find certain words can lose their sting when we just come out and say them. So I’m saying it. I live with Schizophrenia. This is my story.
04 Jan 2012
Paranoia Paranoia, Everybody’s comin’ to get me…
triggers: suicide mention, delusion, paranoia, hallucination, mania, depression, historical abuse of mental health patients and queers
I am somewhere in the more manic fray of things. And I am paranoid. Probably delusional. It’s so much easier said than actually believed. I can say “It is delusional to think that everyone is against you, that even the people closest to you are hiding deep and damaging secrets, that everyone is only pretending to like you when they are around you…” But to truly believe that these thoughts are wrong is a gift.
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