Schizophrenia help

Question to other schizophrenics. How do you stop getting too consumed in your delusion before it becomes another 2 month long episode that I won't be able to wake up from until it hits me like a retard and I even out again? I'm unable to access meds or any psychiatric assistance. Dont recommend me drugs I already tried most

>>80768 Cognitive behavioral therapy or perhaps Electroconvulsive therapy are your best options at this point. Unfortunately most people in your situation would go towards pharmacological solutions. But, as you have stated, this is not an option. If nothing else. Have another person who you are willing to talk through your delusions with. Heck, you could probably get free psychiatric care through a crisis chat line on the internet. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Then you need to define the context of the problem, then you need to formulate a solution. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7001360/ Might be a good place to start

I think a lot of what works for me might sound inadvisable because schizophrenia is such an incredibly stigmatized mental illness that anything short of pursuing the institutional approaches to recovery (meds, therapy, etc) is seen as illegitimate. but some basic advice, as much as it sounds kind of meme-tier because it's very pop psychology, is that a lot of the same soykaf that helps people with more severe conditions helps with being schizo too. whenever I'm under more stress the risk of going into the psychosis zone gets worse, which is probably just because that's how the schizo brain is wired to respond to mental distress, so I've tried to be better about doing even the most basic self-care, having some kind of coping strategies even if all I have the bandwidth for is keeping myself occupied with stuff that requires zero effort. I also try to remind myself if I start to feel the crazy acting up that things will not be like this forever and that episodes wax and wane, and that helps a bit. these things are however also only preventative measures. if you're already too lost in the sauce to know what's real anymore, something that's helped me is to just lean into that and learn to work with delusions according to their own logic. the schizophrenic mind might to a sane person seem like chaos, but even chaotic systems have their own logic and patterns, and it's possible to work within it to make the delusions manageable (i.e. not scary or dangerous). I think a lot of what trips people up is that we're told that being schizo is inherently something bad and scary, something to be fought against like if you're having a bad trip on acid, but the fighting is what makes it worse. it's known in anthropology that outside the west in indigenous societies, schizophrenic people still exist, but their hallucinations and delusions aren't scary and bad like they are in the west, because the cultures they live in treat them like human beings instead of locking them up in prisons and putting them on drugs that don't work. again, I know this sounds like meme-tier pop psychology talking about self-acceptance or the neurodivergence model of mental health, but I do think these things help me. and also, all of psychiatry is bullshit pseudoscience anyways. do what thou wilt, good luck anon. also, unironically estrogen has been shown to have a correlation with treating positive symptoms but that is probably not an option you'd be willing to pursue

>>80773 >ECT no >CBT maybe mindfulness / CBT practice helps me a lot as i feel less delusional when i meditate, the question is how do realize i can meditate? wht if "they" want me to meditate? for me, it was helpful to realize that there are many different trance-states and meditation can achieve some of them. the principles of the trance state (e.g. whether that be the seven factors of awakening, gnosis, the goals of clinical hypnotherapy, etc) are present in its outcome, and color the experience of the meditation. not only are there many different potential experiences, and outcomes, you also get to decide what they are. abstractly, meditating every day in the ways often discussed by buddhists increases the possibilities for life and helps with any feelings of being trapped - sort of like when your own thoughts and considerations feel like tied up in a knot, or a net clinging tightly to you. by giving yourself a moment of peace and just focusing on your breath, you can start to feel this net loosen and untangle, and you start to see more paths forward. when you do this, you are able to see delusions from more angles, and reason yourself out of psychosis hell. or you will start to see the delusions fade away and realize how silly they are. unfortunately, ive been on-and-off doing this for so long that I don't really know how to explain its benefit perfectly to someone who doesnt already know it. these abstractions might only be my own language for it and uninterpretable to someone else. another common metaphor ive seen however, is that your mind is like a pool of water, and activity causes it to be stirred up and muddy. when it is calm, the silt is able to settle at the bottom, and you can see through it clearly. something else that helps me is having friends i can trust, being able to ask them psychotic questions without them freaking out at me and calmly talk me through / out of it. >>80784 >whenever I'm under more stress the risk of going into the psychosis zone gets worse this >tried to be better about doing even the most basic self-care i do this. personally i feel that i get sucked into delusion more easily when i havent eaten or have some other health issue going on, its because of these things give me a distraction and emotional reality that i can cope with not eating. >learn to work with delusions according to their own logic this too, ive found that the series / chain of reasoning and assumptions tht i make as i go deeper into a psychotic state thts terrifying can argue with each other and become somewhat more organized, ive also found that taking thoughts / threads of thoughts in terms of how they make me feel vs whether they're real - a lot of things people take as fact or wisdom can't be proven or disproved, and often have contradictory applications. you have to think: does this make me more stressed out, overwhelmed, unable-to-function or no. if I'm currently overwhelmed its okay to go rest and go somewhere its less loud or stressful. >even if all I have the bandwidth for is keeping myself occupied with stuff that requires zero effort this is good, ty lain i will try this. >even chaotic systems have their own logic and patterns in fact all life / reasoning and human understanding is emergent from chaotic, we are just a thing that can recognize itself in the chaos. > I think a lot of what trips people up is that we're told that being schizo is inherently something bad and scary, something to be fought against like if you're having a bad trip on acid, but the fighting is what makes it worse ... their hallucinations and delusions aren't scary and bad like they are in the west, because the cultures they live in treat them like human beings instead of locking them up in prisons and putting them on drugs that don't work. yeah this, it honestly i dont like the common advice of 'dont feed into it'. often schizo seeming have an unusual way of talking about reality or their interests that doesnt mean they're lost, they are also not children in fact historically schizophrenia before it was weaponized against activists and associated with violence in the 1960s was associated with the types who got lost in the books they were reading.

I think that living with my family (for the time being) helps since being alone probably makes my delusions stronger. Going out to the library (or something) every day helps, too. Also, I have heard that ECT might be effective for some patients but I'm pretty sure that it has a lot of risks. On the bright side, you don't probably need to continue the treatment forever (unlike meds). But I would still think twice about it. Also, I hope that someone will research CBD (Cannabidiol) more since it has been found out to be antipsychotic.

>>80773 Different lain but I wanted to add that having sane people to ground you out of your delusions can be very helpful. There are therapy dogs for schizophrenia that are trained to only acknowledge people that are there, so they can be a good litmus test for what's real and what's not. Having a support network of trusted people to make you feel safe and ground you can be helpful. I'm not schizophrenic and don't know any schizos, but I've heard these are great options.

You need to look in to every single program in the area that can provide you with assistance. Walk into your local public library and ask them for assistance

>>80820 I'm glad my thoughts are helpful or at least relatable. I've noticed that the absolute state of schizos as a demographic is pretty backwards compared to like, autism or plurality (DID) as far as self-advocacy goes. a lot of other groups have embraced the neurodivergence model and have their own cultures and communities and whatnot where they advocate for themselves, talk to each other, have their own alternatives to institutional psychiatry. psychiatry has historically pretty much just existed to legitimize the torture and sterilization of the mentally ill if not just outright be weaponized as bullshit diagnoses for other marginalized classes of people to imprison or lobotomize them, and even today there are still a lot of problems. the dopamine model for schizophrenia for instance is a completely disproven theory, but it's the method of action for antipsychotics to deplete a patient's dopamine and it's still prescribed to schizos even though it's been shown to *increase* psychotic symptoms, even in "sane" patients. so it's important I think to have alternative perspectives from the institutional authorities. the problem is it feels like schizos don't have much of that unless you look for it, and the predominant narrative from other schizos seems to be to fall in line with institutional narratives about schizophrenia. I imagine a lot of this is because most people probably don't realize they're schizo until they have a bad enough psychotic break that they end up being committed, and every story I've ever heard about that is pretty much that it leaves people with trauma that makes the symptoms worse. thankfully that hasn't happened to me yet so I guess I'm lucky to be able to have a different perspective on it, but it's not something I personally talk about very often because it also comes with the territory to be withdrawn and paranoid. it'd probably be like herding cats to try to promote some kind of collective political consciousness for schizos. yeah, it's like you said though, schizos aren't children. I think it's completely possible to live a decent life as a schizo without trying to force yourself to be normal but it requires doing some work. you have to know yourself and how your brain works. >ive found that the series / chain of reasoning and assumptions tht i make as i go deeper into a psychotic state thts terrifying can argue with each other and become somewhat more organized, ive also found that taking thoughts / threads of thoughts in terms of how they make me feel vs whether they're real like yeah, I've done this before too actually. my reality as a schizo is already a weird one where I have a tendency to believe in things that would seem very out of touch with reality or magical thinking or whatever, but I try to practice an unbelief with the delusions/hallucinations of being like, maybe certain things are "real" or maybe my brain is just producing them, but either way they're not just nonsense because my brain is "broken" and I can work with them to be an active participant in shaping my own reality. I think of the positive symptoms as being either my own brain or perhaps external entities basically reminding myself to keep myself grounded and take care of myself, and if the hallucinations/delusions start to become scary, I'll tell myself that it's either because I'm falling into a self-destructive spiral and my brain is shifting my reality without me being in control of it, or maybe it's because I'm in enough of a weakened mental state that the CIA/aliens are able to attack me psychically. either way the upshot is the same; I try to not fight how my brain works and go along with it instead. if just doing normal stuff like trying to take care of myself isn't helping or I'm in too much of a messed up state to even be taking care of myself, if I'm being attacked by external entities or whatever, then I'll put up wards, or leave offerings to a god, or meditate, or do some kind of working or spell -- something that works into my magickal practices. whether you believe in magick and paranormal soykaf or not, if you're working with how your brain works rather than fighting against it, you can seize agency and get yourself back under control. for me practicing magick has a lot to do with having a positive relationship with being schizo because it gives some structure to how I am already predisposed to think about the world, and occultism has a very long history to draw from. another thing that's helped me that really goes against the grain of conventional narratives about schizophrenia -- though you really need to be careful with this either way -- unironically is doing psychoactive drugs (i.e. "self-medicating"). I think of it as being able to intentionally put yourself in an altered state that is similar to psychosis, if not sometimes fully in that state, but in a controlled setting where you can safely explore what it's like to be out of touch with reality, how to navigate it, how to keep not become a danger to yourself or others, how your brain will respond to it. it's helped me to figure out how I respond to psychotic states without much of a risk of anything bad happening to me and just like with anything else if you have the experience with something, even something really extreme and awful like psychosis, then you've gained knowledge about it that you can use in the future if the experience happens again. just so I don't feel like I'm encouraging anything dangerous I have to give the caveat that all of these things have helped me but they may not help you, and if you're fuarrrking around with self-medicating or magick you need to treat them with respect and not be stupid about them. that goes for "sane" people too but doubly so for schizos since we're just naturally adept at getting into altered states. but this is also a perspective you'll never hear anywhere else except from some schizo anon on an imageboard, so I think it's worth sharing. want to also add that the other anons' advice about having people around also holds true for me. it's easier to start getting lost in the sauce if you don't have other people around. I'm really bad about maintaining any sorts of relationships because I've got a lot of strong negative symptoms and paranoia, so I've had to learn how to deal with this stuff on my own, but a support network is a really good resource if you have one. like I said in my other post a lot of the normal person pop psychology stuff does actually help even if you're severely mentally ill. anyways sry for the tl;dr, sincerely hope some of this is useful.

>>80847 support network keeps getting mentioned, how do you know anyone in your life isnt part of ((((them))))? all the way back to your ((((parents))))? placed in your life to surveil and guide you down the path ((((they)))) want? how do you know who is a 'real' person and 'organic' relationship

I don't have a psychotic disorder but I can make some suggestions from research experience and knowing people with these conditions. There is a technique for squirting cold water into your left ear. This is supposed to help you become more aware of your delusions. Just be careful not to use high enough pressure to harm your eardrum. Also keep in mind this can potentially cause dizziness and nausea for a moment so make sure you are in a safe place and position to do this just in case. Having a good support network of people that are understanding of your experiences and don't outright reject you can also be helpful. Things that involve coordinated controlled movement like yoga or martial arts, even just tai chi can be helpful to some people. Playing a musical instrument also can be helpful for some. There is other suggestions of one other kind of therapy I found you can DIY or some supplements I can try to bring up but I'd have to get an idea of your budget before I make a suggestion. If anyone else wants to know something to try you can also ask me with same kind of info plus what meds you are on if any just in case. >>80773 >>80833 >ECT ECT is actually as bad if not worse than the original electroshock treatment I've heard. Now this is highly questionable being I got some info from a Scientology backed documentary so take it with a grain of salt but I also have second hand personal info I know someone who's mentioned his dad went through repeated forced ECT for toxin induced psychosis and he became an adult infant only able to eat and sleep. ECT seems to just fry the brain. Something like TMS would likely be safer but it's not easily available still.

try both schizophrenia and homosexuality in a fanatic catholic environment <3

It may sound silly but my dogs really help me. If they aren't barking or looking concerned that means no one is really there. I also have people around me who are grounded and reality and can tell when I'm having issues and I found that helps a lot.

>>80970 You can also use a digital display camera. If you see something and you cant see it on say your phone camera as well then it isnt there (with exception to lighting issues). For audio you would need some sort of live spectral analyzer. Too bad I dont know how to program or id make an app myself that has video and audio so you can tell if something is real easier. Not that i have any use for it but I want others to.

>>80847 might not be using the right keywords though - look up mad pride. they actually have a festival out in toronto every year now

>>81046 Not that Lain but that is new to me. Instead Ive heard of the Hearing Voices movement. There also has been psychiatrists that had more open minds about it such as RD Laing.

I've been trying to induce schizophrenia or psychotic episodes in myself. I have to escape this fuarrrking reality which is a mental prison. I don't care how fuarrrked up it makes me I want out. The world is not right. Its all perception. The way your brain displays depth of field, the curvature of your eye balls, distance and depth are all mentally generated when the brain interprets visual data fed by the eyes. There must be neurological or psychological structures or patterns in the brain that interpret this sensory data in a systematic way which is how we perceive our world. But these structures can be manipulated through schooling and physical intervention and even then the way humans see the world is just a construction of our minds. Its fuarrrking oppressive. I want to escape these standard neurological lenses which determine human perception. That's why our dreams are so weird because they aren't sensory data filtered by the brain. What drugs are good for this?

>>81048 That isn't a good way out. If you have spoken with enough schizophrenics you would see in many cases delusions and hallucinations revolve around trauma. Drug induced psychosis also is different in some regards.

>>81048 you've no idea what's a real mental prison til you actually experience a psychotic episode

>>81048 well you won't escape but at least you'll have new chains in new prisons at the same time. have fun!

>>81048 no you dont. your mind will be destroyed. you're romanticizing mental illness, go visit a psych ward or something, listen to a lady babbling about seeing ghosts, someone breakdancing in their own soykaf, sounds like fun, right? not for very long as an observer, and not at all as the afflicted.

>>81060 Now I have this funny idea of mental illness giving people smooth dancing moves. If only that were the case.

The previous thread had some good posts => >>56859 >>80768 You need to avoid being alone and talk to people who you can trust fully. Being alone is the worst thing you can do because some get their first psychotic episode because of being isolated from other people 24/7 for too long.

>>81048 >>81051 if she feels like she's in a mental prison, she might already be entering one

>>81048 This is not advisable. It sounds like you want to experience ego death. You could either meditate or experience unimaginable trauma (get lost in the woods without food or something or put yourself into really dangerous situations and not come out of it idk). You start to realize the detachment between the body and the mind and your soul. That is when the ego becomes separated and you can experience ego death. For a number of reasons the trauma route is not advisable. Another alternative is spiritual retreats. People going into caves alone and into the dark for long periods of time, or self isolating can have a similar result. Look at the Jesuit order or monks trying to reach a religious epiphany or enlightenment as examples. >>81058 Kek, well played

>>80820 Thanks for the help. I struggle without any outside guidance, and anything I find online tldrs me into seeking professional help. Since this post I've gotten better at managing my delusions on my own but it's all a work in progress :) >>80847 Never thought of going along with it willingly. It was never a conscious decision to do so, and when I was aware of my delusions, I felt myself splitting between normalcy and the Truth of Reality (delusion). However, I've smoked weed for a good while to self-medicate, and most of the time it worked, but sometimes it would go out of bounds and I'd find myself in public faded out of my mind. I was forced to navigate through a psychotic-like state and surf the wave, something I hadn't done with schizophrenia until I smoked weed. Btw don't start smoke weed if you're schizo. Highly not recommended and you can still learn to surf the wave without it. >>80950 I have a schizo friend who in the past I found to be the only real person in my delusions. It may help to know at least one, but like someone mentioned earlier, try to keep yourself around sane people. No schizo insider trades. Keep good trustful friends >>80986 Camera method is godsend >>81048 Admit yourself into a psych ward and you'll see your life is much better off not being dumb, dummy