Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder: What is the difference?

I just received the following comment from Laura regarding my article on psychosis for healthyplace.com.  She raises an imporant point- how do you know the difference between the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizo-affective disorder?

Hi Julie,

Your article was very helpful for me. It not only educated me but gave me hope which I desperately need right now. My 19 year old son is currently hospitalized after a suicide attempt. They have diagnosed with as BP type 1 but possibly schizoidaffective. After reading about the psychosis differences between the two, I am hopeful – he seems to display the BP type of psychosis instead of schizphrenic type.

Hi Laura,

I am so glad the blog helped.  Schizoaffective disorder is actually easy to understand in terms of a diagnosis-  If the psychosis comes with an obvious mood swing- such a psychotic mania- ie, a person could be euphoric with high energy, zero desire to sleep [ Read More ]





Posted on October 29th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Bipolar Symptoms

Bipolar Brain Weirdness – while watching movies!

Bipolar Brain Weirdness – while watching movies!

When I’m slightly depressed and psychotic, it’s hard for me to watch movies. Something odd really happens- I have a voice in my head that makes comments such as

- This is not real, these people are acting – Look at the makeup he’s wearing. I can only see his eyeliner – They are just reading from a script. This is not real – This is no good. This whole thing is fake – That was an odd movement in his face. I call tell he’s not really this character

Now, it’s normal to think about this stuff in a bad movie, but the whole point of a good movie is to suspend disbelief and when I’m depressed, I can’t get lost in a film like I normally do.

When I get the commenting voice, it’s different than thinking- ‘this movie isn’t very good!’ It’s an odd technical [ Read More ]





Abilify and Bipolar Disorder: Reader Question

Hi Julie,

Recently, my daughter switched from Risperdal to Abilify. I am hoping Abilify will be good for her, contrary to what I have heard. Do you have any information regarding the success of bipolar people on Abilify? T.

Hi T.

Risperdal and Abilify are anti psychotic drugs. They are often used in the treatment of bipolar disorder. If a person is really manic or psychotic and has to go to the hospital, anti psychotic are often use to get the person to come down from the mania and psychosis. The dose is often very high. When my partner Ivan was so sick in 1994, he was immediately put on anti psychotics and mood stabilizers just to get him out of the mania, so this is common.

What a person takes depends on their symptoms. Many people with bipolar disorder do well on a mood stabilizer such as Lithium. I do well on a depression, [ Read More ]





Bipolar Manic/Psychotic Talk

Manic/Psychotic Talk

“He blew a glass jacket. The walls were mayo and I was chewing all of the dirt off of the vegetables.”

The above is known as a word salad ( no pun intended!) – the sayings are close enough for us to understand them – but overall, they just make no sense.

A psychotic friend of mine said the above during an episode.

Psychosis is a fascinating topic- it’s horrible to experience and horrific to see someone go through it- I have been through both.  But after it is over, you can certainly be fascinated by what was said.

Julie