Schizotypal Forum

per0 · by **per0** on Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:00 pm

I am a 15 year old boy from somewhere in Great Britain. I am as of yet unsure of whether or not I actually have StPD as I cannot work out whether the symptoms match my personality or I match my personality to the symptoms. Anyways I am interested in things such as computers(programming/linux etc), philosophy and psychology as well as lots of other fiction books(my latest being Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.) Perhaps the most interesting aspect of me mentally(in what would perhaps constitute to a symptom of the disorder if indeed I am not just imagining it) Is an increasingly more frequent belief that I am in fact in a coma living out my past life and when I get up to the point of the accident I will suddenly wake up in hospital rather than dying or whatever. The problem with this socially however is that I quite often get the idea that they are people sitting around my hospital bed listening to my every thought, sometimes I get intrusive thoughts where a member of my family or some other person try's to wake me up from my coma. Coupled with Selective Mutism I have had since around the age of 5 I have achieved a reputation of what my delightful and endearing classmates refer to as the 'social retard.' The cause of my social anxiety is slowly switching from simple poor self image/fear of (failure/rejections) or whatever it is with Generalised Social Anxiety to paranoia etc and am becoming increasingly paranoid. Anyway this was not supposed to be a list of symptoms I just wanted to say hi. Hopefully out of this forums I want to obtain the courage to visit a psych(ologist/iatrist) to actually get a diagnosis of something and perhaps some medication I hate the fact that I have learnt so much about mental health and now find it impossible to know if symptoms are real or if they are just things I am making up as an excuse for failure at life or something like that.

by **Karla** on Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:52 am

Hi per0, and welcome to the forum!

You seem very articulate about your symptoms and what's bothering you. I'm sorry your class mates are giving you a hard time.

I had a hard time when I was around 15 as well, and I wish I'd paid a little more attention to my mental health back then. I didn't see a pdoc (psychiatrist) until I was 25, but I should have seen him when I was around you age. Maybe we could have nipped this in the bud and I could have avoided a lot of misery.

I think going to see a psychologist is a good idea, per0. What are your options? Is there a school counselor you could talk to, just to start off with? What about your parents, are you comfortable talking to them about this stuff and asking them to pay for therapy?

per0 · by **per0** on Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:33 pm

Unfortunately the health service(NHS) in the U.K is a bit different to how it is in America and the country as a whole is a lot less aware of mental health issues so its a bit more difficult than you may think. For a start there is no such thing as a school counselor in the U.K as far as I am aware, in fact the school nurse only comes on to the actual school premises on rare occasions. Teachers have no idea about mental health either and seem to be only interested in 'problem kids' - so I doubt there is any real help I can get from school; apart from the usual "is there anything wrong at home?" that I sometimes get from teachers who are not yet acclimated to my quiet nature. If I was to see a psych(ologist/iatrist) it would involve first booking an appointment with my GP(my doctor) then I'm not sure exactly how many questions he asks but it is up to him to refer me to a psych(ologist/iatrist.) I don't think there will be any real problem with that as he is not supposed to be qualified in mental health and probably will just refer me no questions asked however it is another step in the process. Another awful problem with the NHS is although we do get health care for free it is limited by budgets and as far as I can tell there is a big problem in the mental health sector with this - look at this post from another forum for example:

What the **** is wrong with the NHS? I spoke to a psychiatrist today and told him I had severe anxiety, which is trouble sleeping due to thinking i've stopped breathing and having to "manually breathe", having panic attacks and going to the emergency room and crippling social anxiety, the doctor tried to convince me that thinking I was having a heart attack is a sure sign of psychosis and not at all anxiety, which is straight up bull****, it's common knowledge that panic attacks and phantom heart attacks go hand in hand...

I am dead sure that the 4 psychiatrists I've gone through so far are trying to grasp at anything, ANYTHING to get me on antipsychotics to meet their quota or whatever, even if I give a long list that is just complete symptoms of anxiety they will try to twist one part into being psychosis even if it's obvious bull****, they keep saying "we don't want to give you help with your anxiety, first we must treat your psychotic symptoms..."

I told one doctor that I felt detached from my body during panic attacks and he wrote down on the report (which I got hold of later) that "He thought he had been possessed by an alien that was controlling his mind", he wrote the opposite of the answers i gave to "delusional thought" questions, such as "are you hearing voices?" which i distinctly remember saying "no" to, but it was written that I was hearing voices and all sorts of other made up bull****.

Why are they such *****? How do they get away with this? Why won't they suggest an alternative medication like valium or beta blockers that actually treat anxiety, not psychosis or unstable mood.... I don't want **** that messes with my creativity and upon telling them this they said "well you don't seem to planning to be creative any time soon..." what the fuck? I seriously don't believe you can get more retarded than people from the north of england... In America I could sue these ******** for writing down lies about me.....

also

Also under the medicine guide for valium on nhs.co.uk they only have it listed as being in injection and anal suppository form, does this mean they don't give out the pills anymore? Probably to make it less desirable to take, ****...

http://nhs.medguides.medicines.org.uk/n ... se=Anxiety

Swearing removed from quotes - I guess he was quite angry about his treatment. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm not sure if the British mental health sector is even cut out to help me. I mean okay that was just one persons experience but how could they actually go out of there way to stop people getting anti-depressants? or at least make the process of taking them so uncomfortable that people do not want to take them. Sorry for the long post

MGMT · by **MGMT** on Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:58 am

Hi per0 and welcome!

I can see why you're wondering if the NHS has anything to offer you, based on this guys experience (and maybe others too?) But I don't think you should let it hold you back from trying to get the help you need.

I too am in a country with free health care, much like in the UK, and I've only had good experiences so far. If you're worried about being pressured to take meds, maybe you should see a psychologist - in my experience, they're less eager to get you onto meds. Then there's the whole waiting list issue - if you go through the NHS, you'd probably have to wait for a while (I'm guessing here), but there's also the option of seeing a psychologist privately. Is that an option for you? - I mean getting your parents to pay for that?

by **Karla** on Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:24 am

I agree with MGMT. It sounds like you are struggling, and with some help you could feel a lot better. Don't let some random stranger on an internet forum prevent you from getting the help that you need. I'm sure most of the stories you will find on the internet are bad because people who are satisfied with their mental health care don't write about it on internet forums. Sure, the health system can be a struggle in most countries, but keep fightin', is all I´m saying.

inbetween · by **inbetween** on Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:15 am

Welcome Per0,

I'm new here also. Sorry to hear you are having a rough time.. I know what you mean about learning too much about mental health at your age, it can be frustrating to know about it and also be incredibly confused about yourself at the same time.. I'm not sure I'm much help; all I can suggest is try going to a GP and describing some of the symptoms you feel comfortable sharing, and mention that you'd like to talk to someone, i.e. a psychologist about it, to support you.

I'm in Australia and have health care cover, I'm not sure how the health system works over there. When I was 14 I tried chatting to my mother about some of my concerns (didn't get very far) but, went to the GP and described some of my symptoms, (mind you, I didn't mention anything schizotype, I was too afraid) and got diagnosed with clinical depression. Though not exactly a correct diagnosis, it opened up options such as seeing a psychologist and the like.

All the best, take care

`inbetween

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