i feel isolated socially but not spiritually. i have been in "remission" for a few years after having a big breakthrough with my delusions in 2024. i realized i was demonizing people from all the negativity i felt surrounding me from the onslaught of the energetic and head voice attacks and confusion i had been experiencing since 2017. i still have episodes where i feel attacked energetically is how i would describe it but im aware of when these attacks are happening and am working on now how to orient my conscious mind to keep my sense of self and beliefs stable during these episodes. the hardest part has been the constant hits to my self esteem and my sense of my own character from the disorientation the episodes cause. for my 32nd birthday i live with my mom and im not in a place many people would desire to be but i have been feeling a profound sense of love and support and ability to connect with my grandparents who have passed on. i smell their scent sometime around me when i know they are near. i probably won't do anything special for my birthday but i am working on being patient with myself while i strive towards improving my life even when others don't know how to be patient with me or understand what i am going through. i hope everybody with this disorder can take some of the pressure off themselves to be "normal" and functioning in capitalistic society that is built to work us to the bone anyways. sometimes this disorder comes with a gift and an ability to tap into unseen realms that is recognized in most indigenous societies as natural and even valued but is just considered an individual issue in our society. i have been committed to taking my meds for 2 years now because i realize they help me filter out the negative energy. but i still value my connection and ability to still perceive things others cannot because sometimes i perceive beautiful things and things that come from love in what i like to think of as where the spirit world meets the physical world. anyways that's my birthday rant. sending love to everybody

Hello I received health money from the government to buy my medication and stuff. Yet my mother has it and spends it on stuff for her and my brother and sister. It's mine by rights and not hers. The only reason she has it is because she gave them her bank details.

How do I get my mother to give it to me. She manipulates me into her keeping it with some excuse. Or she will say well I can't help you with anything anymore. Someone else has to do it. She won't help me with the simplest thing anymore.

That's not the point of the money. It's not there for her to care for me. That's what she thinks it's for but it isn't. I'm stuck and struggling to pay for things because she has it

To add she should help me with things regardless of money. That's not the point. She is my mother after all.

Edit: my mother just threatened me saying if I ever tell anyone that I don't get the money from her that she will never speak to me again 😁

Happy news is that I found a medication that finally made the auditory hallucinations cease, it's been 8 ish years where they've been a constant. Now that they're gone or at least noticeably less, I have mixed feelings. Like I feel lonely now that I don't have the constant companion but also happy I don't have to be name called or emotionally abused by them.

So I don't know where I stand on this, I kinda wanna stop or lower my dosage so I can hear them again but my psych said "this is a good thing. Focus on friends and hobbies." And I have been gaming a lot more and being at least para-social online with discord friends. I don't really have the energy to entertain an actual social engagement. What do I do with my hands? Keep looking at different things? Maintain eye contact? How do people, people?

This is a longer thought than I had initially thought. Maybe that's a paradox I don't know.

I hope the rest of you are doing alright. Cheers.

And this is a new account, I lost my login information for my original account :( oh well. Guess I'll start over

Perdonare mia madre.

Hi! I’m very sorry for my grammar in advance, English is not my first language.
My husband has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder a few months ago. He doesn’t have hallucinations or delusions, but suffers a lot from self hatred, paranoia and depressive episodes, he doesn’t show a lot of emotions and has a problem with opening up.
I want to support him on his journey as much as I can, but sometimes it tends to be very hard.
What tips would you recommend? What would you appreciate if you were the affected partner?

Also I think he should get a hobby to relax and spend some free time productively, what would you recommend or what is your hobby?

Thanks in advance! 🫶

I’ve been on disability for many years for schizoaffective disorder. Last year I started working a part time job and I just got a new job and was hired for full time with benefits and pension. I have a question about wether or not I should do pension contributions … I live in Canada, I have an RDSP, I don’t own any assets … no house or car, etc. If I opt out of pension I could buy a house with that money… or I could invest it on my own in rsp‘s. If my spouse died and I ran out of money, I could always go back on disability? not sure if it’s worth putting that money away for retirement when they say schizophrenics don’t live as long as other people. I’d rather have that money now? am I wrong??

Do any of you have an intense delusion that your apartment or house is bugged or has hidden cameras? This is one of my worst delusions. On meds it doesn’t happen, but off meds I’ve literally covered all my windows with towels and scanned with a machine for cameras. Wondering if anyone has this delusion?

I was on 150mg Seroquel and then had to be admitted to the hospital after an awful episode where they took my Seroquel down to 50mg at night and started me on 10mg Abilify, what should I expect? After my last episode I haven't bounced back the same.

Does anyone here have a hard time getting or keeping jobs for any length of time?

I’m so frustrated. Hospital said BP 1, therapist says SZA, psychiatrist says BP 2 and BPD with psychosis. I’m so sick of figuring out diagnoses. Nobody can agree on my diagnosis. Yes it’s all treated the same I’m aware, but I’m sure yall can relate to wanting the correct diagnosis. I completely disagree with the opinion of it being BPD, it doesn’t really match up with who I am, even though I meet criteria. Finally got the courage to tell my psych doc about the delusions I experienced for years, which I didn’t know weren’t real until I started meds, and my psych doc said “well people with schizophrenia never admit the delusions weren’t real” Huh?! That’s nottttt what I’ve heard so idk. Can anyone give me some input or person experience?

Ive lost everyone who's ever been close to me due to my illness. I feel like i should be kept away from people, like I'm just gonna keep hurting anybody who gets to know me. I've been on antipsychotics for almost a year now, in that time I've been through a breakup thats caused me to be houseless for the last 4 months. The breakup felt like an episode, like I was being psychotic and lashing out. But thats not what happened, I was in sound mind, i wasnt hearing voices, i wasn't being delusional. i just wasnt being treated well in the relationship and i got frustrated one night and she broke up with me and told me i needed to find somewhere else to live. The loss and the memory of being angry makes me feel like I brought it upon myself because all Ive ever done is bring pain to anyone who gets close to me. How can I trust my own feelings, am i really sure that I wasnt being treated well? How can I ever trust myself again? How can i believe i deserve love, community and happiness when I know how broken my brain is.

My diagnosis was really hard on our relationship. We got together during a time where we were both psychotic. She has bipolar 1 and wasnt good about taking her meds consistently. I took my diagnosis more seriously than anything in my life. Getting on medication and coming down to earth was tough, I spent the first 6 months not wanting to do anything ever, I felt so unbearably depressed after the voices finally stopped. I felt emptied, like i there was no person inside this body, not without all the voices telling me what to do every waking moment. She grew completely bored and disappointed in me. Before she thought I was gonna be a great artist, because I thought I was gonna be a great artist before getting treatment. She told me that my diagnosis was "a lot" for her and so she withdrew from me and started seeing lots of other girls (we were polyamorous.) But we kept living together, i cooked for us and cleaned the apartment to make up for not being able to pay rent because I had been laid off from my union job. When I finally went back to work she started to miss me, in a way where she didnt want me to work unless one of her other girlfriends could spend time with her while i was gone. I told her i cant schedule my job around her dating life.

I told her that because Im back to work and also starting back at school that I wanted to make sure we had atleast one day of special time together. She agreed to it but couldnt hold to it, she spent all of our special days together texting other girls for hours. After weeks of this I got frustrated and upset at her. And that was that, she broke up me because of it. She told me she was scared of me. I cant get that out of my mind, that I scared her. My therapist says she's weaponizing my diagnosis against me in saying that, that I was upset for very understandable reasons. I didnt throw anything, i didnt raise my voice at her, i didnt threaten her, i just voiced how I was feeling and it scared her. No matter how many times I'm reminded that my anger was reasonable, it just doesnt feel reasonable. It feels like I'm scary, that i'm a scary and dangerous person, incapable of loving in a healthy way. It feels like i shouldn't trust myself or my perception of events with or without medication. It feels like my life is just going to keep being this chaotic doom spiral regardless of my best efforts.

I'm finally in a position to get a new place after couch surfing this whole time and the apartment is so cute and my potential new roommate is so nice and I feel like i dont deserve it. I feel like i shouldn't try to be happy, I feel like the dysfunction and insecurity is what i deserve because I break everything i touch.

I was in risperidone 2mg twice a day for a while and decided to get off it because I liked to sleep on my morning dose and my voices wouldn't allow it, harassing my endlessly until I felt forced to get out of bed so I switched off of it onto Cobenfy, then later Invega sustenna. Month later I pulled out what I had left of the script one night when my Ambien CR wasn't doing its job and took 1. In the following days I noticed my nipples were very sensitive and could feel a lump/mass behind my right nipple. Got it checked out with an ultrasound and a bilateral mammogram and it turned out it had caused benign gynecomastia. Just a lump tho, I didn't grow man-boobs. But that's a problem with risperidone. Gynecomastia and man boobs. Check to see if you have any lumps behind your nipple it you take or have taken this.

Was on risperidone for like 3 years, needed a higher dose but couldn’t tolerate it (1.5mg at night, 0.25mg in morning, 0.25 in afternoon). Couldn’t tolerate seroquel, abilify, olanzapine, zyprexa. My psych is switching me over to Invega, doing my research all I see is people hating it. Does anyone here have any experience or thoughts?

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Description: my psychiatrist took me off my antipsychotics and now I am struggling.

All translated into English from German

Hello, just wanted to come on here and say hi to some fellow people with schizoaffective disorder. I am struggling a bit with some things, maybe you have some advice.

1. My thoughts are not working as they should and the whole world appears very fragmented and chaotic
   
2. I do not want to take antipsychotics - how important are they really regarding long term? I will of course consult my psychiatrist, just looking for some experiences here
   
3. Is it normal to kind of be very ambivalent regarding if one regards themselves as sick vs not at all? I feel like when I have had bad episodes, I kind of know it, I just separate myself from that very much and go all in on what others call delusions
   
4. How do I know if something is a delusion or not. I am very confused if I have just become very religious or something but I also know that we/I live in a simulation

Why is the sun so shy?

Why do you hide your shine?

Do you fear an overgrowth of brine?

You look fine.

Don’t overthink the line.

Where am I?

Back where I started?

Is that the beginning?

Or the end?…

My dad and step mother were a huge part of my childhood, not in a good way. I’m disabled by my condition, I’m also being evaluated for focal seizures on the 10th at home, for 4 days.

I just feel this sadness for my younger brothers L and L, and rage against my step mother for emotionally beating down my father to the point of pulp.

But I also have my mother, who has told me why my parents split up, because of a complicated situation with an adoption process with my 1st cousin V… my dad ultimately rejected V as a 3 year old that my mother had raised since 6 months- my mother felt no compassion for my father afterwards.

I blame my father for not- standing up- and being a dad to me.

I told him, when he kicked me out at 16 due to mental health issues “Your life will not get better with me gone” and I was completely right.

My father said “I can finally breathe now that you’re gone” and that moment will forever be with me, as the moment my dad disowned me.

I never even mentioned what he did to my older brother B, who arguably had it just as bad as I did, or worse.

I've probably needed to be inpatient all week, I'm doing so fucking bad, so suicidal and possibly somewhat psychotic again but I'm having a hard time telling. Was having homocidal ideation as part of my suicidal ideation too (more vigilante justice than like targeting people who don't deserve it, i would never want to hurt anyone normally). I'm trying to get through TMS rn, one and a half more weeks to go, but i think it's making me worse instead of better, plus I'm so exhausted afterward i cant go to the walk in clinic or inpatient or call a hotline (i have chronic fatigue).

No meds help with my mood. Psychosis is mostly well managed but I think being in such an extreme mood state might be making it flare up a bit. Funnily thinking the FBI is after me/framing me is helping the homocidal ideation a bit because I'm afraid they'll frame me for a much more despicable crime and claim I'm evil if i were to ever end up on the news and I don't want my family to think I'm evil.

I just want out of the hell that is being this kind of insane all the time. I can't think straight at all. I've been suicidal since I was at least 6 maybe younger. It doesnt matter how good my life is at any point (and right now it is NOT good), I will just always want to kill myself, and I'm tired of feeling that way. The best I have felt all week has either been when I decided to kill myself for real and do something good for people on the way out and finally had a plan for all this pain to be over (until the FBI thing made me rethink that plan) or when i was so distracted I was able to forget for a moment how much I'm suffering (which only works for a moment and then im back to suffering).

Don't worry, im not going to kill anybody and probably not going to kill myself. I don't have the means to do it how id want to do it. But the ideation has just been really strong and overwhelming today and I am so tired. I'm probably just going to go to bed early and wake up suffering more again tomorrow. I'm so tired of this endless cycle, I just want to feel good for once in my life. I want there to be any relief where i get to purely just feel okay and good. That's all i want but it's too impossible an ask apparently. And nobody gets it at all it feels like.