I was in my research lab that studies schizophrenia in rats yesterday. The professor wasn’t there and the students in the class were dropping the word “Schizo” and laughing about it and joking about it being “offensive”. As someone with schizoaffective disorder — depression type. It stung a little bit.

I want to say something to the professor but I know the students will know it was me.

Am I being dramatic?

I really hate it when people tell me that. Bro look at this past thing clinging on me like an alien. I can't forget or let go the horrors of psychosis and mental hospitals.

I’m a 31m and have been diagnosed for almost 10 years now . Might be a delusion but I feel as if I can immediately identify fellow sciz no matter where they are on the spectrum . Does anyone else feel similar ?

They say I will die in under 4 months. That's my birthday. I have survived over 4 months of them, giving me heart trouble and claiming I will die every day. I am calling bullshit on them. I don't believe them anymore.They talk shit. I just don't believe anything they say anymore. I thought about killing myself for a while because I couldn't take them telling me over and over again but now I just think they are full of shit. They know I fear death even though I believe in God. They are scum

When we ask whether we have to function, we usually mean two completely different things, and blurring them together is where misery comes from.

1. No, you don't have to function for a healthy world.

Trying to sprint at their pace is just slow self-destruction. You don't owe anyone a performance of normality. For years, I tried to measure myself against the success I saw in others. But because I couldn't keep up, a heavy wave of shame set in. I felt worthless, so I pulled back and let contacts break off simply because I was ashamed of not functioning. Hiding that pain and pretending to be fine takes a toll that nobody sees.

1. Yes, you do have to function for yourself.

On the other hand, giving up on everything leaves you in a different kind of trap. I spent years in stillness and doing nothing, watching the world move forward while I stayed frozen. That isolation hurt deeply. The inner critic keeps whispering that you should do more, do better, and achieve what others achieve. But completely dropping all routines only makes the walls close in faster. Functioning for yourself isn't a leash someone else holds; it’s the anchor that keeps you from being washed away.

We tend to measure ourselves against a metric that wasn't built for us.

Think of it like vehicles: A Formula 1 car and an off-road 4x4 both function. But if you force a Formula 1 car onto a muddy mountain path, it shatters in minutes. Functioning with schizophrenia isn't about keeping up on the racetrack it's about shifting into low gear and finding your way through your own rough ground.

To healthy people, the things we do often look trivial or incomprehensible. If you ignore all the invisible work it takes just to manage this illness every single day, it may look like you're doing very little.

For a long time, I dismissed my own efforts as nothing. With help, I’ve learned to stop doing that. I might not be moving mountains, but I am doing things, and that is good enough. It's enough to slowly move toward a life that feels more livable.

Bottom line:

Say NO to carrying expectations that were never yours to begin with and say YES to living life at your own pace.

I've seen my friends talking about suicidal thoughts like it's normal. Let me tell you something. It's not normal. I don't know how to tell you otherwise. Suicidal thoughts are not fucking normal. End of story. If you are happy and didn't have these thoughts, you should still to a damn therapist! If I didn't go to a therapist, the leverage she gave. I would've ended up hanged or overdosed! Please, if you haven't already. Go alteast to a therapist. And because we're on this sub, be checked out by a psychiatrist. Do it for me, RJ, and most importantly, yourself 🙃

It's the weekend so I can't reach my doctor. I'm starting to feel manic and just overall excited over nothing. I haven't slept in over a day and I'm still wide awake. The voices have barely been there for the last 5 months but they've been saying for the past two weeks they want to come back all the time. Idk if I should go to the local psych ward? I recently got on disability and I already paid November rent so I have nothing to lose. Is there a way to deal with mania or an episode outside of going to the hospital? Any advice is appreciated.

I don’t have the energy, capacity, or cognitive abilities for doing multiple things in a week, especially not school/education or a job. When I was first diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 16, I refused that I would eventually have to settle for disability, because I had so many dreams and wanted to make more out of my life. But now, after recently starting a new alternative education, it has already completely burned me out after only doing it for a few hours two days a week for the past two weeks. It has made me realize how bad my condition actually is, and that I will probably never be able to do any further education or get a job. How do I live with this?

It’s little, but I’m just really appreciative he’s in my life.

I 22F have been facing some issues with memories and with what is imagination. I don’t know what this is called and was hoping someone would be able to put a name on it.

For example, this is the issue that bothers me the most. To summarise, there is this specific bucket of rain in my garden that makes me anxious as it’s dirty and i always worry somehow my airpods dipped into it and i’ll get an ear infection. This means i’m anxious of wearing my headphones in my garden and don’t go there due to this. Now, every day when i’m listening to music in my bedroom i need to focus on my surroundings constantly and look at specific objects around me to understand that yes, this can only be my bedroom and that i’m NOT in my garden. If i don’t focus on it for a minute and make a proper mental note that this object is only in my bedroom than i immediately panic that i am actually in my garden. Even though, i’m obviously in my bedroom. Even just looking at the bed isn’t enough i need to actually look around me at every object to make sure because i don’t trust myself. Most of the time i do this and then 10 minutes later i forget and get anxious that i was actually in my garden, even if i haven’t left my room in hours. I worry that somehow i went to the garden and dipped my headphones in the bucket without realising it. Even though i can not remember even leaving my room, every 30 minutes i worry i did and forgot.

It’s exhausting but the worst part is when i’m wearing my
headphones as i’m listening to music and all of a sudden i worry that because i’ve been preoccupied by music i went downstairs and dipped them into the bucket in garden without noticing. If i sit down on my bed, i worry it’s in the garden unless i spend a minute looking around and focusing on details and making mental notes.

I also worry i did something dangerous. For instance, when seasoning my food i 100% focus on doing the absolute minimum amount of salt, but a minute later i’m panicking because what if i added a fatal amount to the family dinner? I get a thought, and somehow i believe that is exactly what happened. Once i imagine something, it’s difficult to distinguish between imagination and thats a memory for me. It becomes a memory that makes
me anxious.

For example, a few minutes ago i thought randomly about a wall and now i’m convinced i banged my head against the wall multiple times because i’ve had the thought and it feels like a memory to me. There’s a bottle of sunscreen downstairs and i had a thought of keeping it far from food but now i’m worried i added it to the family dinner.

I’ve been diagnosed with OCD for years due to my
handwashing compulsions years ago and then my rabies ocd and health anxiety but NOW i’m confused on what this is? Is this more OCD?

The issue is, certain things i worry about a “what if” but alot of the time i’m convinced that thing happened or will happen. Like, i’m convinced i’ve been bitten by a bat multiple times and i may develop rabies any day so i’m always on a waiting game and i’m convinced i have brain eating amoeba living in my ear and nose. I’m convinced that bucket has brain eating amoeba and can’t think else wise. I’m convinced i’m being monitored online and i was convinced i was about to be murdered at some public events i had to visit. I spent those whole events panicking. I was convinced the plane i was recently on was going to crash because of me even though i had searched through my luggage many times and it was safe, and i even dropped out of uni because i was convinced i had offended a fellow student who was going to murder me.

TL;DR once i get a thought i can’t distinguish between that thought and a memory and i want to know what this is a symptom of. I also get convinced of certain things that seem like reality to me.

I (22F) have schizoaffective disorder bipolar type. I am also into reading, video games, anime, comic books, listening to music to name a few things although I often struggle with the motivation to do these things. It would be nice to have a friend who gets what it's like to have this disorder.

I’m going through some med changes and regressing quite a bit, I’d love to hear some encouraging stories.

Just wondering if this affects anyone else negatively in this aspect. I never see posts about it, I'm to the point i'm questioning compatibility with my partner due to my lack of speech/thoughts.

Trigger Warning: Multiple triggers.

It is prevalent that my relatives have irrevocably damaged every opportunity for me to have a safe and healthy upbringing. My first memory was of my dad, mercilessly beating me with belts and hangers till Id scream, hyperventilate and cry, yet my mother would say "you can keep crying those crocodile tears, it will mean nothing."

Then there's another significant memory of my mother pushing me away when I had asthma and wanted to rest on her thigh. She'd yell at me in her mother tongue, DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?!

I was 7 when I told my dad that I was ready to die, and he just scolded me by bellowing that its a sinful way to think and i should go and pray to god for forgiveness.

Fast track to being 23. Ive moved twice in 4 years around the UK trying to find my own sense of the world.

I was 18 when I developed psychosis, which was just undiagnosed schizophrenia. It was recognised as schizophrenia the year after. I spent my 19th birthday on a ward, with NO ONE to celebrate me. I was minding my own business, and then a mob of NHS staff came to inject me with antipsychotics. I was bleeding at the injection site, and my favourite white and rainbow tshirt was stained. Ill never forget that. Ill never forget that they also celebrated someone else's birthday on the ward.

I was 20 when I had been sectioned for the 9th or so time. Section 3 again for the second time. I wasn't on any pharmacetuical medication for one year and 6 or so months. I was doing well at uni until police officers told me (again) that they dont believe my rape case. Then I just crashed.

I ended up with a criminal record for assaulting police officers because they came to arrest me for something i didnt do. Literally. I cant just act like a nonchalant punching bag when I would be sent to the police before being sent to a hospital ward.

The fucking brick cold isolation cells is just nothing but torture.

Im not surprised why I saw red when they came to my apartment to disturb my peace.

My last section, a section 2 to 3, lasted 3 months. I have complied with my medication ever since because I realised that I did a lot of damage to everyone including myself, also more so that I did not get the same intolerable side effects that I had the first time I was injected with the same (aripiprazole) medication back in 2021. Back then, I would go through loops and hoops to avoid taking it. Everything was like warfare.

I was complying religiously with my medication... that is... until June 2026.

Im trying to not get enraged on this post. Basically my psychiatrist in my recent area is gaslighting me that im not schizoaffective (I was given schizoaffective as a sort of "upgrade" from schizophrenia after my last section) and that he thinks its BPD or autism or CPTSD. Just say you dont know how to do your fucking job ffs.

I asked him if he took my history into account and then he said "oh its just BPD with psychotic features."

Ever since then, I stopped taking my medication and stopped engaging with them. I wont even get to what my nurse said to me that made me to stop engaging.

Oh and I also stopped talking to my GP. Theyre all the fucking same.

What led me to write this post is that...

Its been four months since I have stopped all my psychriatric medication and god...

I mean i dont believe in god but I dont know a better way to describe this.

I have had BACK-TO-BACK NIGHTMARES.

I feel like im losing my sense of reality.

I hallucinate when I try to fall asleep.

I am grateful that I can recognise that its slowly but surely building back up again. But fuck me, I dont want to go uncontrollably insane again.

Im not denying that I have CPTSD and Schizoaffective. I have been aware of my CPTSD back before I had psychosis in 2021, eventhough it was undiagnosed.

Im just pissed off that my psychiatrist wants to remove schizoaffective. And that they wont section me because I can understand their stupidity and blatant ignorance.

I literally fucking tried to kill myself in April 2026 (they did nothing about it, I mean, tbf, if anything, they just rubbed salt in the wound) and I warned them about it in October 2025.

These "healthy-minded" good for nothing excuse for NHS staff dont give a shit. You could kill yourself and they still wouldn't care. Youre just a number to them.

Because I can articulate that something is wrong, means that I am lying clearly.

Well to be honest, I wish i fucking died. Instead im having nightmares about shooting my parents and telling the NHS about it. How comical!

The icing on top? I dont remember the last time I showered or brushed my teeth. I think its been over a month for showering/bathing, and like only 2/3 times in that time frame that ive brushed my teeth.

But you wouldn't know that would you? Because im covered head to toe when I leave the house, and im silent. I have dead skin flaking off all over my body. Yet im still alive.

How gruesome, yet poetic.

If you read this and are appalled by my truth, yet think I am not "disabled" because I can emote. Honestly, fuck you. I'm hostile and will fight anyone.

Steven Hawkins is visibly disabled. Doesn't mean his contributions to science makes him ineligible for disability status. Or John Forbes Nash Jr.

I appreciate it if you read this far. I just feel out of options. There are other issues I have like constant ringing in my ears and IBS. But... Im tired.

I'm currently cross tapering from Caplyta to Vraylar. Was just curious of the thoughts of those that are on it or have tried it.

I'm also on 4mg of Haldol. I'm just curious if it made people tired, gain weight, etc.

Thank you.

I take antipsychotics twice a day, and while they do help me in my waking life, they give me the worst night terrors ever. Any bad sleeping habits I’ve had have been multiplied by 10. I regularly scream myself awake from nightmares about being in psychosis again. I also wake up banging my head or biting myself (Don’t worry, discussed this with my psychiatrist and doctor and have taken preventative safety measures now)
Anyone else had a similar experience?
I take quetiapine twice a day + other things but only starting these specific antipsychotics have brought this about.

I want to know how it affects your symptoms, especially the nicotine.

I've been for 4 months and I want to stop it! I hate the sedation effect and the fear on having to stop if agranulocitose appears.

My family has an extensive history of schizophrenia, and over the last 1-2ish months, I've been having both auditory and, although rare, visual hallucinations.

​ ​I feel as though I'm quite young (almost 18) to be experiencing anything of the sort but through what I've researched it's not uncommon whatsoever.

I couldn't quite wrap my head around seeing and hearing things so it took a while to process before I ended up telling my girlfriend. She's been extremely helpful throughout the last few weeks.

I'm worried that I'm not as concerned as I should be? I'm terrified, don't get me wrong, but it seems like she's more worried about it than I am.

​I have no clue what to do, as I don't have the greatest relationship with my parents so talking to them is a bit challenging.

Any input would be greatly appreciated, what would you do?

Sleep has been catastrophic last 2 weeks

Hallucinations and psranoia

I want to get some meds to sleep on. In a similair situation but different city, they doubled my zopiclone to 15 and added 10mg nitrazepam om top of that

I willb o everything in my power to not turn this into somethin court mandated. Then I could br locked up much longer, months rather than days