All of a sudden developed schitzoaffective?

Hi. In the past few months, I have been hospitalized with 3 relapses for schitzoaffective disorder with bi-polar disorder features. Before this I had been diagnosed with Dysthymia with General Anxiety Disorder.

My story:

I had a full-blown panic attack at my work on Oct 26th. Oct 31st I had delusions and hallucinations about Halloween, thinking people were out to get me or were going to hurt me "Jason" style. I thought I was Adolf Hitler, from Mars, that people were wearing earpieces and listening to my thoughts, that I was under a private government study. I snapped and then I was admitted the hospital and released soon after. Then, I went through a cycle of hospitalizations/discharges for a period of two months. My last discharge was on Jan 3rd and I haven't had a relapse. I'm on Depakote 1500mg and Zyprexa 300 mgs or more I think.

How is it possible to have *developed* schitzoaffective disorder after never having symptoms of it my entire life? Could a panic attack change my brain chemistry? When I go back to therapy, what do I tell them? That the last two months haven't happened and just go back to counseling me for Borderline Personality Disorder (my self-diagnosis)? I just don't get it, and I need help.

Hey there, so I'm a little confused. Have you actually been diagnosed as schizoaffective? Or are you just showing symptoms. Anyone can develop this illness. A lot of times stress and as in your case, anxiety can lead to possible psychosis leading to the possibility of becoming schizoaffective. Is this your first time having psychosis? How long are these episodes lasting If you can tell? I think you should just be straight to the point with your therapist. Just tell him your situation and I'm sure he'll understand. After all he/she is a therapist, and listening and helping is a part of their job. But kinda ease into it don't just say, "I'm schizoaffective" you see what I'm saying?

The doctor at the county hospital diagnosed me with Bipolar disorder with psychotic feautures but on another paper it said Schitzoaffective disorder. I will be going into therapy next month. I understand what you mean about easing into it though, it just is so new to me to have this kind of thing happening.

I am not having anymore episodes since I've been put on all this medication. The epsiode last time lasted about a month and a half.

I see, I myself was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder a year and half ago. One thing I will say since you're new to this, stay on the medication, unless you're fully sure you have control over yourself. I tried going off it once. Was a living hell. Went back on, life was so much better. Just take notes of your symptoms when they happen, if you can tell if you're having an episode or not.

It is possible that your dysthymia and your anxiety issues were already the beginning of developing schizoaffective disorder. Very often it takes years to develop a schizophrenia spectrum disorder and those ppl were already different a children in many cases. It is not clear now if those ppl were just at a higher risk because of other issues, or if those symptoms were already the beginning of the schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
I'm not sure if I've schizotypal PD or schizoaffective, but one of the two and I have always been different, but my symptoms increased after experiencing a trauma. Suddenly I developed paranoia and more and more magical thinking, social anxiety, more overload issues, withdrawal into my own shell and so on. I don't think it would have been that worse without stressors, but I would have developed it eventuality, at least I would have always had some symptoms.