Avatar Posted by mel33 83 days ago (Question)
Am I schizophrenic? I have been experiencing a sudden onset of uncontrolable episodes that have raised a lot of concern. I am 25 yrs old and I have had a history of mental illness.

When I was 13 I was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts and depression, I was diagnosed by several doctors who never could truly come to one conclusion. One said I had possible schizophrenia, another said it was major depression with psychotic features, and the list goes on.

I was heavily medicated from age 13 to age 20 when I finally began to slowly come off medication. From age 20 I started managing my emotions without medication and started on what seemed a healthy and successful recovery.

As of recently I have been struggling with crippling anxiety every day. I have episodes several times a day where I have a hard time separating reality from non-reality. In these episodes I feel as if I am in a dream or coma, and like nothing I see around me is real, not even people. During these times I feel like I have no control over myself. I find I sit in one location in one position for hours, just thinking. My head feels very dizzy and fuzzy and I feel very disoriented during these times.

Also, every night right before bed as I am laying there I see terrible images in my head. Terrible things happening to my friends and family and even myself. things you would see in a horror film. when i can fall asleep I have dreams of people or things (creatures) sexually assaulting me. These things happen every night.

I have had all of these things happen to me throughout my entire life, but not for this long and not as intense as they are now. I am afraid of having a severe episode and losing all control. I am not opposed to seeking help and taking medication; however, I am opposed to taking so much medication that I become a vegetable. I need to know how to find the right help, what I could possibly have, and what options someone has who has no health insurance. Thanks.




Answers

Written by JunieBeatrice 82 days ago Rating: 0 | Rate Answer: + -

Hi. I do not think it is possible to diagnose over the internet, and personally I am not a doctor so I could not diagnose anyway. I am sorry that you are having such a hard time right now. The images you see when you are falling asleep and the dreams sound very scary and quite disturbing for you. Personally, what I did when I was first struggling through everything, I went to my general practitioner. She ran tests, blood work, etc. and she referred me to a psych doc for a consult. The physical stuff came back okay so that gave more weight to the psych stuff. If you have no insurance you may be able to go to a community health center and they will charge you a sliding scale fee based on income and wages. Some private centers do that too but their fees may be higher than the community health centers. I would tell whoever you see about the feelings you have about medication and the concerns so that they can help you appropriately and find something without the side effect of numbing. Sometimes gp's will prescribe psych meds which mine did initially but it did not work well for me and eventually after trying like seven different ones, my psych doc found one that I can tolerate. Sometimes it takes a while to find one that works for you. Hang in there. I hope you seek out additional help so you can start feeling better soon. All my best, Junie.

Written by Clyde 78 days ago Rating: 0 | Rate Answer: + -

It does sound possible to me. I would recommend, as Junie said, to see a GP or your regular doctor.

Also, check around for clinics with sliding scale or ones that accept government funding, such as Medicade, Medicare.

Best,

Clyde


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