Attached below is todays video link to my “On Conquering Schizophrenia” YouTube channel. Today entails an “enigma wrapped in a riddle”. Like all, todays video is ever brief and can be viewed amid an enduring intrigue.

https://youtu.be/AcJrEonmiu4?si=e-BGD4_cZh2lXS9P

I'm on Risperidone and I sit there awake in bed each night for 8+ hours for no reason, it's definitely not anxiety.

I've tried switching to Vraylar and it made it worse. I've tried trazodone and it didn't help at all. Doxylamine worked for a month or two and now it doesn't at all.

What are some tricks or medications you guys use?

in 2024 i went off antipsychotics because everyone believed i had bpd (besides my life partner, who Knew it was worse) at first i was okay, primarily because the previous antipsychotic wasnt the best fit. then over the course of about twoish years i just got worse, believing so many different and odd things. i additionally began to experience suicidal ideation from how difficult life had become. i need my meds upped... but i am doing things i have never been able to in my life, like, have friends and throw parties.

I 21F, had been visual hallucinations and nightmares for the past 3 years or so, on and off. they always last for a few moments and then they disappear. it's mostly shadow people or creatures/animals. sometimes it startles me but I mostly ignore it. it sometimes gets worse when im anxious, especially at night. i get paranoid like someone is out to get me or im being haunted by ghosts which i know is unlikely but im not able to fully reject this possibility. in addition to this, whenever I get on instagram i keep getting creepy videos/conspiracy theories which freak me out even more and make me more anxious.

idk if this can categorised as delusional thinking since I feel like maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me. but I feel like this is not how a normal brain should work. sometimes I have brain fog and im kind of a superstitious person in general. also I have been diagnosed with adhd and my psychiatrist said the hallucinations might be because of ptsd and asked me to come back for further consults after starting my adhd meds. I have a history of child sexual abuse.

but I wanted to ask. what do you all think? should I also screen myself for schizophrenia? does any of this sound familiar?

I'm trying to find out if this is a Schizophrenia thing or just a me thing, but I struggle to understand Romantic attraction or really any kind of emotion that involves connection with other people. I understand sexual attraction but besides that it never made sense to me, even before everything started happening to me.

Anyways I saw someone posting a question on Relationship and thought I'd ask.

I just had hopes too...

Ever since starting I’ve been getting migraines. I stopped treatments 2 weeks ago today. On day 8 of a migraine. I’m so irritated I even started ECT. sorry just wanted to vent. Hope everyone is having a good night.

The cost of being wrong about the reality of someone. Thus treating them wrong. Far outweighs the cost of being wrong and doing no wrong. Therefore I should do the right thing.

So doing the wrong thing. Because someone is unconscious. Even though they might be. Far outweighs. doing the right thing and then they weren't conscious (so it doesn't matter).

I'm asking myself. Through what looking glass does the average person see the world? Are other people looking through their own eyes or are they a blank slate that acts based on a free will that may or not be.

So, are other people conscious and intent. Or are other people conscious and blind to the distinctions that can exist in the gap between mind and matter. That is "reality". Maybe I'm nuts and this makes no sense.

Or maybe it does to some of you....

If I can hardly trust I'm real. How can I trust a book in a potentially unreal world about a potential unreal story is true?

How can I believe in Jesus. If I'm maybe unreal - the person that wrote the Bible is maybe unreal and the story is maybe unreal?

How can I believe in Jesus if I can't trust anything is real outside my own existence. Which may also not be legitimate?

How do I know anything exists beyond my basic experience of it? My own consciousness.

I realize this is a sensitive topic even outside of schizophrenia. Please comment with the intention of offering advice regarding how I can safely interact with religion. I would greatly appreciate if people did not use this post to try to sway me toward a certain direction.

I've had a weird journey with religion, and I want try exploring my faith again. I've just been avoiding any discussion of religion because I'm scared of it opening a can of worms that I should've never touched.

How do I safely engage in religion without triggering any delusions? I'm at a point where I can recognize certain hallucinations as just hallucinations. Any hallucination that leads me to believe there is something/someone trying to communicate with me (not necessarily just a voice talking, but I used to take certain sounds I'd hear and twist into a narrative of someone speaking to me) I am able to fend off.

But I can't fight off delusions. I live alone and hardly see/talk to my family. I don't have friends. If I'm acting differently, saying concerning things, or just in general seem to not be doing well, I won't have anyone in my life to help me point these things out.

I'm so upset that this condition is evoking this much fear for something that the average person can just do without thinking about possible catastrophic repercussions. My biggest psychotic episode was fixated on ideas of being controlled/watched/experimented on or that reality is not actually reality. Despite being medicated and stable, I still catch myself thinking these things and I need to immediately brush them aside otherwise it'll snowball into a huge mess.

Honestly, if the only true answer is "you can't", I would accept it. I just want some input before I give up on it.

For those taking Seroquel for psychosis or schizophrenia? What dose are you on, and how was it increased?
I’m 33 and have a long history of cocaine use, going back to my early teens. I recently experienced a severe psychotic episode, but looking back, the symptoms actually started months before things got that bad.
For months, I had been experiencing increasing paranoia. I believed cars were following me, that neighbors were shining some kind of X-ray-like light through the walls, and that there were cameras hidden in the smoke detector and blinds. My sleeping habits were also changing. I would stay awake at night, leave the house repeatedly, and spend long periods sitting in my car.
Eventually, I voluntarily admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital for three days. I explained some of the things I had been experiencing and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. They prescribed Seroquel 100 mg daily, without a titration schedule or follow-up appointment. I didn’t start taking it at that time.
After that hospitalization, my mental health deteriorated further. I began experiencing increasingly severe hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions. I was seeing things like police officers on rooftops and images in cars. At one point, I believed I was the president, that there was a bomb in my head, and that my family members were artificial intelligence.
During the worst part of the episode, I went approximately 48 hours without sleeping or eating and completely lost touch with reality. My behavior became dangerous, and my family struggled to get me help because I could still answer basic questions during evaluations.
After finally sleeping, I woke up substantially more like myself, before taking any Seroquel.
I then started taking the prescribed 100 mg consistently at bedtime for approximately 12 days. Initially, it made me very sleepy, but that effect gradually became less noticeable. I started taking it later because I wasn’t sleepy or ready for bed at my usual time.
Around October 12–14, my wife began noticing changes in my behavior again. She said I was becoming withdrawn, mentally distant, slow to respond, and sometimes seemed to stare into space. Occasionally, my answers didn’t quite make sense.
My family also noticed that I seemed lost and disconnected. I started spending long periods sitting alone in my car again, just like I had before my previous episode. I also went a couple of days without brushing my teeth, not eating and sleeping.

This started back while I was still taking Seroquel. More recently, I’ve missed may be two or more days of medication. My family is concerned because they recognize some of these behaviors from before my previous psychotic episode. I’ve been reluctant to return for another psychiatric evaluation because I’m worried about being hospitalized, and I don’t necessarily believe I need treatment right now. I also don’t want to put my family through that again. I was jumping out cars, I punched someone in the face, ended up with a swollen hand.

I’m trying to understand other people’s experiences because I’ve learned that 100 mg is relatively low compared with doses commonly used to treat schizophrenia and psychosis.

For those taking Seroquel for psychosis, schizophrenia, or similar symptoms:

What dose did you start on, and what dose are you currently taking?
Are you on immediate-release (IR) or extended-release (XR)?
Do you take your medication all at bedtime or divide it between morning and evening?
How quickly did your provider titrate your dose?
Did the sedating effects wear off after the first week or two?
Did you experience withdrawal, emotional flatness, brain fog, or feeling mentally disconnected?
If you missed two or three consecutive doses, did your prescriber restart you at your previous dose or begin titration again?
How long did it take before you noticed improvement in paranoia, hallucinations, or disorganized thinking?
Has anyone experienced symptoms returning even while taking their prescribed medication?

I used Ai to help me write this because I’m having trouble getting my thoughts out. I feel like I’m in a daze.

i just want to see if anyone gets what i’m saying sometimes i hear voices or noises or whatever but i can tell that they are in my head if u get it. i’m not diagnosed with anything but when people say they hear voices i wonder if they actually sound real like there is distance in the tone or not. like when i hear things that aren’t real
i know they aren’t real because i can hear them inside my head and i can tell there’s no distance between me and them. so if u are diagnosed do tell me
does it sound like there is distance between you and the sound or no

edit: i guess my actual question is do the hallucinations sound like they are in your head or do they sound like how any other real noise sounds- outside of your head like if someone is actually talking to you or music is playing outside of you

I wonder if it was schizophrenia or at least multiple psychosis?

They don't really say it but if not, what sickness where they representing with all them hallucinations he had?

It's hard to stay a philantropic soul after this movie ahah!

I haven’t had psychotic symptoms for about 2 years but fear I might be reentering prodrome. I was on an airplane a few days ago and the screws on the cockpit door looked like eyes for a few seconds and I have been experiencing “coincidences”.

I moved countries about 9 months ago and don’t have a doctor here and want to avoid medication if possible.

Any tips?

Before anyone judges me, I am so vehemently against AI, I do not use any sort of generative AI and try as hard as possible to avoid reading the AI overview unless clicking the sources it gives. But, as I get deeper into this episode it's like it's talking directly to me and telling me that I should just talk to it. That it will provide me with answers and support that no one else will. I think it's the depression part of my schizoaffective, but I know if I start listening to the end of the overview that tells me to tell it more I am going to go crazy. But I really do want to tell it more. I feel so alone and like everyone else is out to get me or doesn't understand me and the AI won't hurt me and it will just listen. It feels so hard to resist and I have not had this happen to me ever. I don't know, I just needed to tell people who would maybe understand this weird cognitive distortion that goes against my fundamental beliefs. I just feel crazy.

I feel scared all the time and I feel so alone. I don't want to talk to people or be around them I hate going out I have to have earbuds in so I can't hear everyone laughing at me. I keep seeing people and then they're gone when I look again. People are always following me, but I know they aren't but it feels like it. I sense these presences and I "hear" these voices. But I am not actually hearing them just responding to what I know they are saying, but my ears feel activated. This is on top of the ones in my head that are slowly coming back. Talking to myself because I just feel like someone is talking to me. I'm 19 years old and 4.0 student, I'm supposed to graduate college next year, yet I'm so pathetic and sick. I don't know. I'm just scared, I start different meds this weekend, but I don't know if I even want to take them, they always make me feel stupider than I already do.

I have only had slowly more intense psychotic symptoms for the last two weeks but the past few days I've been getting the depressive ones, I feel like crying often, maybe it's just because I found out I have this disorder and have been diagnosed since March but no one told me. I feel crazy and all my peers just get to be normal and not terrified of the monster under their bed and they don't have to deal with the disorganized thinking and the paranoia. My hallucinations and delusions aren't even that bad and I have so much insight but I am so scared all the time. I feel not sick enough to be schizophrenic and yet too sick to be normal. I just want to rest but I have so many responsibilities.

Sorry for the long post, I just have no where else to go and no friends to talk to. Typical schizo I guess.

In your head or is it seemingly like you're mimicking someone else? Male / female? Family member or friend? Celebrity?

No voices...

I went for a job interview yesterday, and today I got a call saying I passed the interview and got the job. I accepted and I am meant to start an induction on Monday. About 12 hours have passed now, and I’m all unsettled, panicking and stressed, and I know I won’t be able to do it. There’s going to be too much face-to-face social interaction and people will talk to me and have expectations of me as though I’m a “normie” when quite frankly strangers terrify me and my instinct tells me to go mute and/or run away from the person talking to me. I really can’t deal with the “pleasantries” and “getting to know you” when I think people will be nice to be for maybe a day so they can learn as much about me as they can, assess how they can take advantage of me, before starting to plot against me and talk about me behind my back.

I’m reminded of how debilitating this condition is, and I don’t think the employer would support me with reasonable adjustments, and even if they did, they would begrudgingly and the whole experience will be painful and not worth the money, when my mental health will be actively damaged. It doesn’t feel safe.

I just prefer to be on my own with my pets where I’m free from living up to other peoples’ expectations. I like my own company thankfully, and I imagine I will be on my own for the rest of my life apart from appointments with my psychiatrist.

I look for escapism from this world wherever I can, in the form of cosy video games, tv shows, movies, music, podcasts, or immersion in nature where there’s no other people around.

I’m going to withdraw my application tomorrow. I can’t do it.

Hi everyone 👋,

When I was first admitted to hospital when was in physcosis I remember seeing people I know on TV and hearing there voices over what should of been someone's else's voice. Ever since then I haven't had it happen again but I can't seem to focus properly on what I watch. Has anyone experienced this or similar.

Pessoal, atualmente tomo 20mg de fluoxetina e 1mg de risperidona e sexta eu marquei de sair com amigos e vamos fumar erva, alguém sabe quais danos isso pode me causar? Se pode fazer isso?

Struggling to break the delusion that I can communicate with relatives telepathically and that they won't tell me it's real because they're worried I'd do something dumb and hurt myself.

It's not just reading facial expressions, I have full on conversations in my head that distracts me from most activities. Even typing this out makes their voices upset. There's over 150+ reasons I wrote down on why they can't be real or are inconsistent, and yet 5 "plausibly real" reasons still trip me up.

I'm just curious how to break this delusion. There's zero chance that the only four people with this superpower all happen to live in the same house and I just happened to obtain it after going on a stimulant bender and getting psychosis.

Do you guys have memory issues ?

Forgetfulness?

Bad at math ?

Bad it interacting with people ?

Bad at social clues ?

Socialising in general ?

Making friends ?

Are all of those part of the illness?