Hi

Hi, I'm 27 years old and diagnosed with Schizotypal personality disorder.

I wanted to come here and speak to genuine people and who have been diagnosed with this mental illness. I am recovering now and my doctor has put me from 100 dosage to 75 of quetiapine and I am still stable without symptoms or hallucinations, I am still being monitered by my doctor and psychiatrist.

The only problems I am trying to manage right now and feel like some sort of attention deficit disorder and it gets frustrating to control but I am managing, the problems I am having at the moment are;
keeping my attention focused when working; blurting out things during a conversation; not able to wait my turn when talking, that's annoying and anything that pops up in my head feels like it needs to be said so badly it's hard to hold back which results in me not able to stop talking; I find it hard to slow down when I'm doing anything especialy my hobbies and ends up messing it up; I read too fast when ever I try to do college courses and I miss vital parts of the wording in tests and fail; I literally have to manualy gag myself if I really have to stop talking during a show when others are watching and this is mentaly draining. It seems strange that I once never spoke and would only speak one sentance back to anyone at school and then suddenly I couldn't shut up as I was starting to get better, now it is just to the other extreme and I haven't noticed it until I have started to recover.

I think maybe it is a part of the schizotypal, just another symptom which I need to sort and manage I think as if it were ADD or ADHD it would be there from birth not suddenly.

All other symptoms of schizotypal seem to have gone like; I used to have extreme anxiety but now I use cognetive behavioral therapy I was taught to now be able to not feel anxious again; hallucinations have gone totally since stopping drinking any alchahol at all; new feelings and emotions as well as emotional awareness and empathy have come to life and other symptoms have gone and it feels like I have a new mind now to help me face my life and problems..

I'd like to help give advice and talk about this stuff to gather any tips and anything that may be helpful in managing my problems.

Hi Nicola.

welcome to the forum. there's schizotypal personality disorder sub-forum. you'd be welcome to post there, because there are lots of people who have been suffering with SPD so they can give you some input and the member's corner forum is quiet.

i am not diagnosed with SPD so i can't help you with that sorry. hope you stick around.

Hi,

Ok I will take a look there, thank you

NicolaBlueStar wrote:I think as if it were ADD or ADHD it would be there from birth not suddenly.

yes, that's probably the main difference

my psychologist diagnosed me with schizotypal pd a couple of years ago, and he was very insistent about it whenever i questioned how valid his diagnosis was ("no, i have absolutely no doubts!"), but i think in practice my "schizotypal symptoms" are a consequence of adhd and depression (and bad medication) rather than the other way around (stpd does cause cognitive impairments very similar to adhd). the end result may be similar, but the right treatment will usually be very different (maybe, technically, i do "qualify" for the "schizotypal" label. i don't know. i guess that depends on interpretation. i don't worry about it anymore)

I've been told by all psychiatrists and psychologist that I have seen, they have said I am too complicated with other sub problems that the nearest I fitted was Schizotypal which I feel is accurately enough to be helping me recover now... I think maybe there will be a lot of people who don't totally fit in to one label perfectly as people are too complicated most of the time to do that and so the psychiatrist will fit you with a label and the therapy for that label if they think you fit into that mostly so that you get the best treatment, that's what I have been told by them.

One of my cousin's from my mothers side, her sister's son has Autism and ADHD. I know any ADD symptoms are from my Schizotypal, I think all I can do is learn to manage them until they go away like the others while I'm still on my medication, I would love advice on managing that but I seem to be starting to cope as I've been told it's less apparent now.

unfortunately, adhd-like symptoms ("executive functioning" deficits) can be very hard to manage. not that it's impossible. it's totally possible. but it's a lifelong learning curve. i have been diagnosed with asperger's syndrome as well. as you can imagine, a.s. + adhd + mood disorder + schizoid pd = schizotypal-like — or actually schizotypal, depending on your interpretation. on one hand, simply saying "it's stpd, end of story" seems to explain the whole picture in a concise way. but it doesn't help me break down whatever syndrome i have into smaller blocks that i can work with and address separately

i believe the etiology of my condition is not the same as what authors of diagnostic manuals probably had in mind when they came up with the schizotypal classification anyway. i think the only reason why it looks like "i have lots of [mental] health conditions" is because they haven't yet identified and documented this syndrome that i have (which i believe is actually just one syndrome, and all the aspects have one specific root in common. my guess is it's all caused by sensory abnormalities, complicated by inadequate parenting)

in practice, the a.s. diagnosis just helps me with the awareness of reasons why i probably do some things in a particular way, or why i experience some sensory distortions, and also the awareness of what i could probably change if i wanted, and what i should probably just accept as it is and learn to live with it. and it's been very helpful. the adhd part of it, on the other hand... is complicated. just being aware of it doesn't change much. i have to keep constantly working to improve my coping skills so i don't end up stuck in a downward spiral of unproductive and counterproductive behaviour. i essentially need to "trick myself" into doing things that have to be done, even the smallest everyday things

you said in another post that you used to have vivid hallucinations, so that's a strong sign of "schizo-something", so caution is warranted. on the other hand, you also said that the hallucinations were gone once you stopped drinking, and that's a very good sign. i don't know much about the relationship between stimulants (typical medication for adhd) and psychotic symptoms, but i know that it's still controversial (most doctors, for example, are wary of prescribing stimulants to bipolar patients, but there are studies that suggest stimulants may even help in the treatment of mania). have you talked to your doctor about stimulants as a possible part of your medication regimen? i suppose they probably will reject the idea outright, but it's probably worth discussing anyway

Like you I have had problems with my mood, without medication I would feel anger; easily irratible and the paranoia would make it worse, I used to get upset for no reason and be over dramatic with reactions and very sensitive, I would have mood swings and I also have had bad deppression with it from early teens, though with the problem I had was with daydreaming in my mind and thinking about bad things happening or imagining I was having a fight or someone was angry with me even though it was just in my head and I was just thinking to myself in a daydream, my feelings would then be changed and I would start to feel paranoid and moody as if it had really happened, but thankfully that doesn't happen now.

Asperger's traites are in Schizotypal, that's why I think I was diagnoseed with Asperger's first and then I went to see a specialist because I wanted a second opinion when I got older as I didn't fit into the special school I was put into, he removed that label and then later on I finely told someone I was hallucinating and had problems I couldn't cope with... although when I was at the Autism school I did mention a few times when I was 7 years old about my hallucinations and she put it in a report as just something I had "learnt to say" which later on angered me when I read the reports when I was an adult. I would paint pictures from my imagination and write books in art and the teacher's thought I had copied them or learnt them from somewhere because that was not the traites that fitted my diagnosis of Asperger's and they never understood that I wasn't copying.

It will probebly be updated about Schizotypal and other disorders one day as everyone is different and shows different signs of it, I don't think anyone can be perfectly diagnosed but what ever helps a person progress and live a healthy life one day is the best. I know for me it was hard to see just how unstable I was.

What you say you are like seems to fit the Schizotypal, it's the same problems that I have too. The hallucinations I had were very powerful, I remember being in hospital because I had a bad stomache and I was laying facing the wall in my bed and I felt someone's hand touch my side and I heard a man's voice ask me "are you alright?" and I turned around to see that the room was completely empty, it's scary how real it felt and I wonder if anyone else has felt them so vivid, it makes you wonder what IS real and what is not when the thing that isn't real feels exactly like the things that are real, but apparently that is because my brain had not developed those bounderies which I had been told. In order to recover from Schizotypal you have to make those bounderies yourself that should have developed from childhood, but bad things that happen when you are a child can cause you to not develop your mind in the right way and yes that can be caused by bad parenting, abandonment and other bad things that may have happened as a child.

My Quetiapine medication I take at night because it makes me very sleepy, that is the way I have been told to take it. Drinking alchahol I have been told it does effect those who have schizophrenia and other shizoid problems badly, so does sweets apparently so I don't think other stimulants would help me. I have been on medication that can be taken with bipolar, risperidone and quetiapine are similar with their effect but quetiapine has less of the side effect which I had got badly from risperidone but it has taken me a lot of years to find the right one.

I have only heard of the sort of stimulants for ADHD and Bipolar were ones that counter stimulate, make you drowsey, the medication I am on is the same one for Bipolar too so mine help control and balance my mood but if I wake in the middle of the night I feel very drowsey.

I wouldn't want to go near any ADHD medication, I don't really feel it would help because my symptoms aren't actually from ADHD it's just a sub part of schizotypal and I think it may cause damage to me, I would like to be able to handle it without but I will tell my doctor about it and those problems which are similar but wouldn't take any thurther medication