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What Do My Hallucinations From Schizoaffective Disorder Feel Like?
After 13 years of living with schizoaffective disorder, hallucinations are a somewhat normal part of my life. They are neither constant nor always terrifying, but they do occur even with my treatment regimen. Everyone’s experiences are different, but here’s a look into what my visual, auditory, and tactile hallucinations are like. Do you know when you’re hallucinating? This is called insight, but it’s not universal to all with psychosis, and it also may come and go. For me, sometimes it’s easy to brush a hallucination off as just a symptom. But at other times there’s a tidal wave-like rush of emotions and my fight or flight instinct has me ready…
- Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, Hallucinations, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, PTSD, Recovery, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia
Do you get used to having a mental illness?
“I still get nightmares. In fact I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares.” – Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves Do you ever get used to having a mental illness? For some, mental illness can be treated and resolved. For others, it comes and goes. And for the rest of us, it’s life long and it’s just a matter of does it get worse, better, or remain the same. The course is determined by numerous factors like genes, trauma, and whether or not treatment works. The outcome is as unique and individual as we…
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The Trauma of Experiencing Mental Illness
Trauma is often a trigger for mental illness, but experiences had due to mental illness can also be traumatic themselves. I’ve had near death or serious injury experiences. I’ve been threatened, manipulated, and emotionally abused by an ex-boyfriend. I’m a rape survivor with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While my PTSD is triggered by things that remind me of my traumas, I’ve also discovered that I have a similar response to fears about experiencing symptoms and actions related to my schizoaffective disorder. For much of my life, I have battled depression At certain points in time, beginning at a very early age, I would think about suicide. Sometimes it was just…
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Life as a high functioning person with schizoaffective disorder
There are a few different ways to define what high functioning means for someone with schizophrenia – the ability to work full-time or function as a stay-at-home caregiver or as a full-time student, good interpersonal skills and relationships, and just generally being able to function in society the majority of the time. Throughout the course of my life with schizoaffective disorder, I have always been considered high functioning. But high functioning doesn’t mean my life is normal or even symptom-free. There still may be symptoms Residual symptoms are common in people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder even with medication and can occur frequently. For me, this occurs as disorganized thoughts…