Have you ever had a psychotic breakdown?

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I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when I was 21. During my late teenage years, when I was making the transition into adulthood, I suffered a psychotic breakdown at the age of 16. Since then I have been dealing with obsessive thoughts, paranoid ideations, severe depression, and generalized and social anxiety conditions. At 18 I went to see a psychiatrist, who then put me on medication. When I was 19 I went in for a psychiatric evaluation and was diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder and Obsessive-compulsive disorder. From the age of 16-19 were the worst 3 years of my life. I am 21 now and I seem to have recovered from my psychotic breakdown; however, it has left its mark on my mental health because I still have Generalized and Social Anxiety, as well as occasional bouts of obsessive thoughts. I still experience depression as well, but not nearly as severe as it used to be.

Have any of you ever experienced a psychotic breakdown?

Yes, I have had many according to the doctors. Schizoaffective disorder bipolar type. My first breakdown was at 13 (or possibly earlier). When I was 13, I had severe hallucinations, mainly of the auditory and visual type. Also I had "delusions" back then, thinking people were going to kill me. However, it wasn't a delusion because people at school threatened to kill me after that. I was the victim of many years of bullying. Now, my episodes are typically delusional (to outsiders but real to me) with some hallucinations. When severe enough (this hasn't happened in a few months) I even get disorganized speech, bad enough that I get "word salad" and no one can understand me. My sentences become all jumbled up. Currently, I am having a psychotic breakdown (like I said, to outsiders.....don't believe it) because I think that aliens are going to invade Earth, destroy the planet and select a whole bunch of Chosen Ones to fight in an intergalactic war. Then the Gov is going to create a war for many people to fight in, once again threatening our planet. What is interesting about the Gov's war is that they are turning people into robots and I actually feel and smell the Transformation Process. Just a few weeks ago, I actually saw the alien ships preparing to invade. I had to run in the house, terrified that they will get me. I hate 2 groups pulling me apart like this, and I will never fight in a war! I wish that people would view what I am going through as real and believe me. I know it sounds "bizarre" to outsiders, but I have too much proof for it to be just a delusion. Being bipolar sucks, especially the depressions. I am very depressed now as a matter of fact. A few months ago I had a long time that I was manic. If you know anything about psychology (which I do, I have done extensive research after I developed the condition) some of my so called "delusions" don't fit in with my mood of depression while others do perfectly. The ones that don't are called "mood incongruent delusions" such as believing I am one of the Chosen Ones aka a Grandiose Delusion to "outsiders" but not any less truthful. I also have the ones that DO fit in with depression, thinking (or better yet, knowing) that the end is near from these groups, and my body turning into a robot. Since I have great knowledge, I have more insight than what is typical of psychotic disorders, but at the same time, I hate having so much knowledge since it is suspicious to doctors. The thing is I did the research AFTER I got this condition, not before. There were some signs (even though not a full breakdown) at 10 years of age, but those delusions are too bizarre to put on the Internet! Having delusions at 10 (but not hallucinations that I know of) is an extremely young age to start. And I've always had mood swings for as long as I can remember. By the way, I am currently 26, but feel more like 500 million! What are your psychotic breakdowns like?

I thought you were just diagnosed? Perhaps you have 21 backwards?

Yes.

When I was...24, I think. Delusions, hallucinations, malignant OCD and a severe drop in my level of functioning that required hospitalization.

Of note, I've always had delusions and paranoia to some extent ever since the age of 10, in addition to OCD (I think a virus may've triggered these around that time). So, I clearly had these symptoms prior to the psychotic breakdown. (I had the ASD since birth, so it's not childhood schizophrenia I have.)

I recently got the label "Clinical Paranoia" (yesterday, actually), which I don't know what that means, but I think it's the personality disorder type.

yes but it manifested itself as social anxiety and OCD, the OCD aspects im very comfortable with if anything it can be useful (i know where that tiny screw is right now i need to fix something) on the other hand the social anxiety i could do without there have been times i couldnt leave the house for weeks at a time.
Having suffered through this for 10 odd years I would highly recommend talking to someone about it, get it out in the open with someone close or your doctor and working to limit the impact.

When I was in my late teens and early 20's I started getting delusional and OCD. Around age 22 I had a somewhat severe nervous breakdown. Had another one around age 29...but adderall was involved.

Thank you all for sharing. It feels good to know that there are people out there who have experienced something similar to what I have.

yeah, I went seriously crazy in 1977 when I was 19 or so. The combination of pressure of work, my weird upbringing, AS and the inability to form any sort of steady relationship drove me over the edge. The good news is that it gets better from here, in 1977 AS wasn't even recognized but now the folk in the hospitals can really zoom in on the problem and get you back on your feet.

The secret is to work with them, your recovery will then be quicker.

Vanilla Slice

Yes. I had a period of hallucinations, delusions. I was 18-19. One of the college shrinks said, 'schizoaffective disorder' and then they had a meeting about it and came back saying 'stress' and pretty much suggested I drop out. No doubt they figured I'd be expensive. I had to stop being in college and go home and get my mom to look after me.

I've had what others call psychotic breaks. When I accepted it as shamanism it basically went away. I don't have hallucinations and stuff anymore. It is good.

I had a major nervous breakdown at age 20 where I was not functioning. That was because I was forced to take on too much because my mom controlled and forced me to work and/or go to school, even though I was not emotionally ready. I graduated at 18, but wanted to take a year off to figure my life, but my mom took over and forced me to work and go to school. I quit school because I was not going to pay for nothing, so I was forced to work as a cashier at Wal-Mart, where because of my "perfectionism and pleasing" cause of Asperger's, i worked 80 hrs. a week(120 seasonal) because i had to cover shifts(it was supposed to be part time). I quit then went to school, but had to goal, so i quit. I panicked and mom sent me to an autism center. I only wanted to a career counselor so i can take career assessment and then go from there. But instead I got stuck at that Autism center's day and residential program, even though I was and still am able to take care off myself without supervision and/or assistance. Plus I was put in a group home with Autistic men who are violent and mean and employees who mentally, emotionally, and physically abused me(the nurse forced medications on me that I did not need by "lying" to my psych med doctor saying I had things that I did not). This lead to my second nervous breakdown in 2007, where my confidence level and the constant "abuse" from the employees and my housemates were to much for me. This led me to stop functioning and toileting myself and I became easily upset, where I would take it out on myself(going to the bathroom on myself, and slapping myself) rather than externally on the others who deserved it because of fear of the consequences.

In late 2005, my mom went on vacation and the stress of her being gone creating a lack of support combined with severe ocd, I kind of had a break down.My ocd was so bad I couldn't even feel comfortable in a bed due to germophobia.by time my mom was almost back from her 1 week vacation I called 911, but because my dad is schizofrenic he told the ambulance nothing was wrong.He eventually said he would take me, but it was a trick, and spent like 30 min in a car making me promise not to call 911, so I lied and called 911 when I got back, but 911 got suspecious and sent cops instead, eventually my dad took me to the hospital for real.I went and they gave me anti-anxiety pills.that really helped and about an hour later my mom got back home, and I decided to go to the mental insitution.They got me on 200 mg of zoloft and 1 mg of clomopin and some amount I can't remember of resperdol, eventually got better, I started taking pills very seriously.Now I'm better than I have for years before that breakdown.

When my mom died in 1999. I could not talk about it or even think about it so I disconnected from every thing and every body. I got to the point I was drinking on top of my meds and just got sicker. I then one day called my case manager and told her to come get me or I was going to be dead. She picked me up and took me to hospital and I was there for about 4-5 months. While I was there I had shock therapy. It worked for me. It took me several months after that to come back more to my-self. I was seeing things and hearing things I wanted to die and I just got to point I did not care anymore.
Now I still hear voices and when they get out of control I have to get help. But that is it.

Yes and NO Well I've got an excuse for being quite "insane" just check some of my "contributions" on this site currently suffering the effects of "brain plasticity" (neuroplasticity) and it's *ing horrifying, plan to do a You Tube vid on it.

33 years of undiagnoised lobe (birth) brain injury for me