I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia

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There is no way that 20-50% of bipolar individuals experience hallucinations. Maybe 20-50% of bipolar-I individuals, but the very definition of bipolar-II means that you have hypomania only, not mania, and hypomania strictly is a non-psychotic state. That statistic is faulty for several reasons. The source does not explain WHAT bipolar subset they are talking about or in what mood state(s) the hallucinations are present. For instance, do they mean that 20-50% of ALL bipolar individuals hallucinate, meaning during mania AND/OR depression? Or do they mean hallucinating in bipolar-I mania ONLY? If they mean hallucinating during mania, then yes, around 20--50% experience hallucinations, but again, bipolar-I is only part of the bipolar spectrum.

I do not believe at ALL that ASDs are the same as the psychotic disorders. There is strong evidence that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are linked, but there has been no evidence to suggest that ASDs are caused by the same mechanisms as psychotic disorders. Furthermore, ASDs are present from birth. Psychosis almost always first manifests in late adolescence/early adulthood. Also, bipolar disorder with psychotic features is where we are finding the links to schizophrenia. The neurobiology of non-psychotic bipolar disorder doesn't match as well. And even within psychotic depression and psychotic mania, there are substantial differences in the way the psychosis manifests itself. For instance, in schizophrenia, first-rank Schneiderian psychotic symptoms are almost always present, but this is not often the case for psychotic affective episodes. Mood congruent delusions and hallucinations are usually the norm in psychotic mania and psychotic depression, and in those who have mood incongruent delusions/hallucinations, which tend to match first-rank Schneiderian symptoms, it's usually during mixed states and suggests a far more serious case.

Plus, the fact that bipolar disorder usually has euthymic periods between episodes, which gives a better prognosis due to remitting symptoms, suggests something very fundamentally different about classic bipolar disorder and the chronic, more severe course of schizophrenia. It has been proposed that a more bipolar course of psychosis is more "protective" as far as favorable prognosis goes. Classic bipolar disorder typically has the best prognosis, followed by schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, then schizoaffective disorder, depressive type, and then classic schizophrenia. One would think that schizoaffective disorder would be the most severe, because it's a combination of BOTH bipolar and schizophrenia. However, this tends to not be the case for whatever reason.

LSD has never made me hear or see things that aren't there.......lack of sleep with or without stimulants, my mind being weird and playing tricks on me(i guess), and prozac have though. LSD more or less just changes things it doesn't seem to really add things that aren't there at least in my experience.........though it can mix up senses like seeing things you actually hear, or hearing things you see or whatever.

OddDuckNash99, please realize that this is above my pay grade. I am emphatically not a doctor. I mean, I barely know that there are two types of bipolar, one with both upswings and downswings (although the upswings can be agitated with a lot of anger), and one with downswings only.

And I still like the idea that even if the diagnosis is spot on, the medication might still need trial and error in a respectful sense. Just that everyone's biochem is a little different.

No problem. Bipolar disorder is my area of specialty, so I just like educating people whenever possible. And the two main types of bipolar disorder actually aren't the way you described. Bipolar-Is have both manic (or mixed) and major depressive episodes. Bipolar-IIs have major depression and HYPOmania only. They never have full manic episodes. Hypomania has the same symptoms as full mania, only the symptoms are not nearly as severe or impairing. Also, hypomania is not a psychotic state, whereas mania often has psychotic features. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I've been enjoying posting here.

Update: I am taking Latuda 80mg in the evening, along with 500mg of time release niacin in the morning. Latuda can take as much as five days to work, and I've only been taking it for two (tonight will be my third day). I still hear voices, but I seem to be in the driver's seat now, not them. The voices now repeat meaningless phrases and such for the most part. It's more annoying than scary now.

I have pure obsessional OCD, and I have long been interested in the striking similarities (and, of course, striking differences) between auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia and intrusive thoughts in pure obsessional OCD. The biggest difference is that, in OCD, the person knows that the bizarre thoughts are a product of their own mind, which is why OCD is not a type of psychosis. A good many schizophrenics have comorbid OCD, too, and some treatment-resistant OCD-ers respond to atypical anti-psychotics.

When I first started having true intrusive thoughts at 11 1/2 (I've had OCD since age 3, but it manifested itself in a different way prior to age 11 1/2), I really did think I had schizophrenia or was "losing my mind." Pure obsessions are involuntary, "pop" into your mind randomly and against your will, and are bizarre and scary. You lose control of your thought processes, which is frightening. (I can't even imagine how frightening hallucinations must be...) A long time ago, I read an article that said the similarities and differences between schizophrenia and OCD are because schizophrenia involves the dorsal areas of the prefrontal cortex and OCD involves the ventral areas.

What I found fascinating about your recent post is that your medication has made it so that, while the voices haven't gone away, they are just repetitious nonsense annoyingly going on in the background. They aren't crippling anymore. The exact same thing happened with me when I finally found my OCD wonder medication, Anafranil. The majority of obsessions I get now are nonsensical blasaphemous phrases/words, pieces of songs, and random intrusive thoughts without images. The Anafranil makes it so that the frequency of this background obsessional chatter is decreased. I can read books much easier now, because I don't have the background words/phrases going on as much. My daily OCD now IS more annoying than fearful. I don't get many anxiety-producing obsessions anymore. Rather, whenever I get a nonsense phrase/word now, I just grit my teeth out of iritation.

I think it's great that your meds seem to be working, pezar, and I enjoyed reading your take on how you feel now. I hope OCD/schizophrenia connections are studied more in the future.

Hi pezar, I'm glad you're rolling forward in a positive way. What do you think of the idea that everyone's biochem is a little different and sometimes you and the doctor might need to adjust and tinker with the medication?

Yeah AGS, my mom is already talking about getting the meds increased. She doesn't think the dose is high enough. My doc is very capable of adjusting the meds if need be. He deliberately started me out on a low dose.

I tried LSD when I was younger many times but never hallucinated. I find it hard to imagine seeing something that is not there. Or hearing voices, but I wonder what its like too.

I think that's probably smart of your doctor, to start low (especially since those of us on the spectrum are sometimes but not always more sensitive to medication) and then a series of medium steps upward if and when needed. That sounds like a plan.

I called the doc this morning. He increased me to 120 mg. Monday night will be the third day on that. So I will call him Tuesday. To be continued...

I was diagnosed with OCD but now another doctor doesn't think I have it. It's funny that you brought up purely obessional OCD. I may or may not have it. I'm on medication now.

When I smoked marijuana last I heard sounds that I thought were voices. The fan sounded like a low, mumbling radio. And I thought I heard voices that were like ghost whispers or something. I was freaking scared at the time.

McDD:


Autism Program at Yale (McDD)

"Nevertheless, there are some children who display the severe, early-appearing social and communicative deficits characteristic of autism who ALSO display some of the emotional instability and disordered thought processes that resemble schizophrenic symptoms."

I strongly disagree that schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and autism are the same disorder. That would be akin to saying the flu, a cold, and pertussis are all the same disorder because they have similar symptoms and affect similar parts of the body. But they are actually very different things.