#psychotic disorders

[reasonsforhope]

Story from the Washington Post here, non-paywall version here.

Washington Post stop blocking linksharing and shit challenge.

"The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was.

Her name was April Burrell.

Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself.

April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating mental illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the global population and can drastically impair how patients behave and perceive reality.

“She was the first person I ever saw as a patient,” said Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, who was still a medical student in 2000 when he first encountered April. “She is, to this day, the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.” ...

It would be nearly two decades before their paths crossed again. But in 2018, another chance encounter led to several medical discoveries...

Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain.

After months of targeted treatments [for lupus] — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.

The awakening of April — and the successful treatment of other people with similar conditions — now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions.

Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery.

And scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed.

Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients, the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated.

“These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.” ...

Waking up after two decades

The medical team set to work counteracting April’s rampaging immune system and started April on an intensive immunotherapy treatment for neuropsychiatric lupus...

The regimen is grueling, requiring a month-long break between each of the six rounds to allow the immune system to recover. But April started showing signs of improvement almost immediately...

A joyful reunion

“I’ve always wanted my sister to get back to who she was,” Guy Burrell said.

In 2020, April was deemed mentally competent to discharge herself from the psychiatric hospital where she had lived for nearly two decades, and she moved to a rehabilitation center...

Because of visiting restrictions related to covid, the family’s face-to-face reunion with April was delayed until last year. April’s brother, sister-in-law and their kids were finally able to visit her at a rehabilitation center, and the occasion was tearful and joyous.

“When she came in there, you would’ve thought she was a brand-new person,” Guy Burrell said. “She knew all of us, remembered different stuff from back when she was a child.” ...

The family felt as if they’d witnessed a miracle.

“She was hugging me, she was holding my hand,” Guy Burrell said. “You might as well have thrown a parade because we were so happy, because we hadn’t seen her like that in, like, forever.”

“It was like she came home,” Markx said. “We never thought that was possible.”

...After April’s unexpected recovery, the medical team put out an alert to the hospital system to identify any patients with antibody markers for autoimmune disease. A few months later, Anca Askanase, a rheumatologist and director of the Columbia Lupus Center,who had been on April’s treatment team, approached Markx. “I think we found our girl,” she said.

Bringing back Devine

When Devine Cruz was 9, she began to hear voices. At first, the voices fought with one another. But as she grew older, the voices would talk about her, [and over the years, things got worse].

For more than a decade, the young woman moved in and out of hospitals for treatment. Her symptoms included visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as delusions that prevented her from living a normal life.

Devine was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which can result in symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She also was diagnosed with intellectual disability.

She was on a laundry list of drugs — two antipsychotic medications, lithium, clonazepam, Ativan and benztropine — that came with a litany of side effects but didn’t resolve all her symptoms...

She also had lupus, which she had been diagnosed with when she was about 14, although doctors had never made a connection between the disease and her mental health...

Last August, the medical team prescribed monthly immunosuppressive infusions of corticosteroids and chemotherapy drugs, a regime similar to what April had been given a few years prior. By October, there were already dramatic signs of improvement.

“She was like ‘Yeah, I gotta go,’” Markx said. “‘Like, I’ve been missing out.’”

After several treatments, Devine began developing awareness that the voices in her head were different from real voices, a sign that she was reconnecting with reality. She finished her sixth and final round of infusions in January.

In March, she was well enough to meet with a reporter. “I feel like I’m already better,” Devine said during a conversation in Markx’s office at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she was treated. “I feel myself being a person that I was supposed to be my whole entire life.” ...

Her recovery is remarkable for several reasons, her doctors said. The voices and visions have stopped. And she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria for either schizoaffective disorder or intellectual disability, Markx said...

Today, Devine lives with her mother and is leading a more active and engaged life. She helps her mother cook, goes to the grocery store and navigates public transportation to keep her appointments. She is even babysitting her siblings’ young children — listening to music, taking them to the park or watching “Frozen 2” — responsibilities her family never would have entrusted her with before her recovery.

Expanding the search for more patients

While it is likely that only a subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders have an underlying autoimmune condition, Markx and other doctors believe there are probably many more patients whose psychiatric conditions are caused or exacerbated by autoimmune issues...

The cases of April and Devine also helped inspire the development of the SNF Center for Precision Psychiatry and Mental Health at Columbia, which was named for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which awarded it a $75 million grant in April. The goal of the center is to develop new treatments based on specific genetic and autoimmune causes of psychiatric illness, said Joseph Gogos, co-director of the SNF Center.

Markx said he has begun care and treatment on about 40 patients since the SNF Center opened. The SNF Center is working with the New York State Office of Mental Health, which oversees one of the largest public mental health systems in America, to conduct whole genome sequencing and autoimmunity screening on inpatients at long-term facilities.

For “the most disabled, the sickest of the sick, even if we can help just a small fraction of them, by doing these detailed analyses, that’s worth something,�� said Thomas Smith, chief medical officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health. “You’re helping save someone’s life, get them out of the hospital, have them live in the community, go home.”

Discussions are underway to extend the search to the 20,000 outpatients in the New York state system as well. Serious psychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia, are more likely to be undertreated in underprivileged groups. And autoimmune disorders like lupus disproportionately affect women and people of color with more severity.

Changing psychiatric care

How many people ultimately will be helped by the research remains a subject of debate in the scientific community. But the research has spurred excitement about the potential to better understand what is going on in the brain during serious mental illness...

Emerging research has implicated inflammation and immunological dysfunction as potential players in a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, depression and autism.

“It opens new treatment possibilities to patients that used to be treated very differently,” said Ludger Tebartz van Elst, a professor of psychiatry and psychotherapy at University Medical Clinic Freiburg in Germany.

In one study, published last year in Molecular Psychiatry, Tebartz van Elst and his colleagues identified 91 psychiatric patients with suspected autoimmune diseases, and reported that immunotherapies benefited the majority of them.

Belinda Lennox, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Oxford, is enrolling patients in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of immunotherapy for autoimmune psychosis patients.

As a result of the research, screenings for immunological markers in psychotic patients are already routine in Germany, where psychiatrists regularly collect samples from cerebrospinal fluid.

Markx is also doing similar screening with his patients. He believes highly sensitive and inexpensive blood tests to detect different antibodies should become part of the standard screening protocol for psychosis.

Also on the horizon: more targeted immunotherapy rather than current “sledgehammer approaches” that suppress the immune system on a broad level, said George Yancopoulos, the co-founder and president of the pharmaceutical company Regeneron.

“I think we’re at the dawn of a new era. This is just the beginning,” said Yancopoulos."

-via The Washington Post, June 1, 2023

#mental illness #schizophrenia #schizoaffective #psychotic disorders #psychology #neurology #autoimmune #autoimmine disease #neuroscience #medical news #medical research #catatonia #immunotherapy #immune system #clinical trials #good news #hope

[yrfemmehusband]

it’s so difficult being someone who needs to talk to themself in public. there is no way for me to avoid looking “crazy” when im constantly shouting or whispering to myself or jerking my neck. i wish people understood this doesn’t mean im dangerous. people with many different mental illnesses or disorders face this issue as well and all situations deserve more compassion. treat people who talk to themselves loudly or quietly, continuously, repeatedly, or with pauses, the same as anyone else.

Edit: not targeted at anyone but I feel the need to say that This post is about tics and tourettes and psychosis please do not derail, your experience with needing to mutter bc of ADHD, autism, etc, is valid but different than being uncontrollably loud, and this is about an experience that's often left out of conversation.

#neurdivergency #tourette’s #ts #tourette’s syndrome #mental illness #neurodiversity #neuropunk #ticpunk #tourette’s awareness #tic disorder #psychotic safe space #psychotic disorders #psychosis awareness #neurodivergent

[madpunks]

we are so ableist about memory. people with good memory take for granted the fact that they can recall as much as they can, and use that to taunt, guilt and threaten people with memory issues. many neurotypes and mental illnesses cause memory lapses. traumatic brain injuries can cause memory lapses. brain cancer can cause memory lapses.

even if your memory is good, it's not right to guilt someone because they can't remember something. trust me, people with memory problems are desperately trying to remember: it's just that we literally can't. it is a very literal "i can't remember".

#adhd #psychosis #psychotic disorders #autism #memory problems #memory issues #did #dissociative identity disorder #dpdr #osdd #mental health #neurodivergences #schizophrenia #schizohprenic #actually autistic #actually adhd #actually schizophrenic #depression #our writing

[chaos-in-one]

Friendly (or unfriendly if you're against this) reminder that this blog is supportive of ALL disorders. This blog does not think ANY disorder inherently makes someone a bad person, and is against any disorder being demonized. This blog wholeheartedly believes that a bad person having a disorder, yes, even if things that are also symptoms of their disorder are part of what caused harm, does not make the disorder a "bad" or "evil" disorder or excuse ableism and demonization directed towards the disorder.

Yes this includes personality disorders

Including npd and aspd

Yes this includes all psychotic disorders & disorders that cause psychotic symptoms

Yes this includes paraphilic disorders. All of them.

Yes this includes disorders that cause, or are even characterized by, attention seeking

Yes this includes disorders that directly have lying as a common symptom

Yes this includes dissociative disorders

Yes this includes any disorder with "gross" symptoms

Yes this includes physical disorders too

Yes this includes disorders that can cause loss of control of any kind- control of speech, control of body movement, etc.

Yes tis includes disorders that make someone "look scary"

This goes for literally any fucking disorder. There are not exceptions.

#disability activism #ableism #demonization #disability awareness #personality disorders #npd #aspd #psychotic #psychotic disorders #paraphilic disorder #attention seeking #pathological lying #dissociative disorder #idk what other tags to put #also additional note I literally have a couple disorders on this list #and symptoms of several too #so if you're thinking of trying to argue on this post just fuck off #I guarantee you will not change my mind #and I don't want to hear it either

[thatwitchybitchandco]

Can y'all please stop using words like "delusional", "psychotic", and "narcissistic" as insults. These are terms used to describe mental illness. Mental illness does not make people evil, stop acting like does.

#actually disabled #actually psychotic #actually delusional #psychosis #psychotic disorders #npd

[alixisherebutringagain]

Psychotic episode are fucking terrifying so sorry if I don't like when you use the word "delulu" and sorry if I don't want to talk to you because you think I'm crazy or dangerous and sorry if you think I'm exaggerating BUT FUCK YOU BECAUSE I WAS TERRIFIED.

I WAS SCARED.

I WAS LIKE A KID SCARED OF THE DARK.

HOW DARE YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY.

I WAS AFRAID TO GET KILLED, I WAS TERRIFIED OF GOING OUTSIDE I WAS CONVINCED OF HORRIBLE THINGS I COULDN'T SPEAK I COULDN'T MOVE I WAS TRAPPED IN MY BRAIN SO FUCK YOU.

Fuck anyone who thinks psychotic episodes are funny. Fuck anyone who judges someone for being on the schizo spec. Fuck anyone who laughs at this.

#schizo spectrum #mental illness #schizophrenia #schizophrenic spectrum #schizotypal personality disorder #disorganized speech #psychosis #schizotypal #psychotic disorders #actually psychotic #paranoia #delusional #tw delusion #my disorder is not something to laugh at #try going through a psychotic episode before talking about it #transient psychotic episode

[sandswirls]

People with psychosis deserve better.

Psychotic episodes are fucking terrifying.

If you say "delulu" I'm going to hit you with my car !!

Be normal about schizospecs and psychotics *bonk*

#my art #digital art #art #vent #cw vent #cw vent art #actually psychotic #actually delusional #psychosis #delusional #psychotic disorders #mental health #mental illness #tw ableism

[psychotic-tbh]

Shoutout to those who have had to go through things no one should as kids/adolescents due to their mental illness(es).

BUT ALSO:

Shoutout to those who developed their mental illness(es) after their tween/teen years and had to learn to adjust to life with mental illness.

ADDITIONALLY:

Lots of love to all with mental illness who had to adjust without much or any support from others/those you love(d).

END NOTE:

Mental illness is hard enough on its own, but these conditions can make it so much more difficult.

You’re worthy and deserving of love, support, and respect even if you haven’t been receiving it.

#actually psychotic #actually schizospec #schizospec #schizophrenic spectrum #mad pride #actually schizophrenic #disability pride #schizo spectrum #schizoaffective #brief psychosis #psychosis positivity #psychosis nos #actually schizotypal #schizophreniform #actuallypsychotic #substance induced psychosis #psychosis spectrum #psychotic spectrum #psychotic disorders

[inrecoveryhehe]

Respect psychotic folk!!!

respect psychotic folk by not assuming they're automatically dangerous or hostile.

respect psychotic folk by not feeding into and/or confirming their delusions/hallucinations.

respect psychotic folk by not calling strangers "delusional" when they disagree with you.

respect psychotic folk by not pseudo-diagnosing criminals as psychotic with barely any evidence.

respect psychotic folk by not interacting with "schizoposting" posted by non-schizo specs.

respect psychotic folk by not showing them potentially paranoia-triggering memes.

respect psychotic folk by not interacting with memes that make fun of the psychotic experience.

respect psychotic folk by realizing that none of the things listed are too much to ask for, and that it takes no effort from your side to not be sanist.

#psychosis #actually psychotic #actually schizospec #actually schizophrenic #actually schizoid #actually schizoaffective #actually schizotypal #schizotaxic #szpd #stpd #actually stpd #actually szpd #psychotic disorders #sanism tw #sanism cw #tw sanism #sanism #feel free to add on

[capricorn-witchbitch]

I don't know how to live like this anymore

#mentally unstable #im sad and angry #actuallytraumatized #anxiety attack #bipolar disorder #bpd #actually bpd #depression #suicidal #depressed #panic attack #hurting #sad girl #bipolar type 2 #psychotic disorders #self harm

[psychosiscupcake]

life with psychosis

#psychosis #actually psychotic #actually schizophrenic #actually schizospec #actually schizoaffective #anti psychotics #psychotic disorders #psychotic depression

[thenullepisode]

The Schizospectrum creature/Schizocreature❗❗❗or simply the schizospec creature ^______^

•it's abbreviation is IRL creature🥼🥽

•It can be used by all schizospecs, schizospecs only💥🧪⚠️

•For all the schizo-spectrum {schizophrenia-spec, schizoaffective, pd schizos (szpd&stpd), schizophreniform, schizo-bpd, schizo-ocd, etc} 🧫🔋🦠👽🔫🧪

•Created by an affective schizophrenic💊🎭☢

•Based on my own experience, strange designed bc of our schizospec's eccentric personality, behavior and adventures.

•It uses any pronouns.

•They make a "HEE" sound

PLEASE USE THE HASHTAG " #irl creature " & " #schizospec creature "

Wanna make it more popular, I am thankful & grateful of any post interaction.

FEEL FREE TO USE‼‼ I thank every credit ♡

#irl creature #schizospec creature #schizo spectrum #schizospec #schizospectrum #actually schizospec #psychotic #psychosis #psychotic disorders #psychoticspec #actually psychotic #schizoaffective #schizophrenic #schizophreniform #schizotypal #schizoid #schizobsessive #schizoparanoid #schizothymia #actually schizophrenic #actually schizoaffective #schizophrenia #schizotypy #szpd #stpd #scz #szad #sczf

[autopsyfreak]

if i see one more ‘delulu’ im going to hurt someone

#actually aspd #actually npd #aspd #npd #clusterb #actually mentally ill #actually schizophrenic #actually psychotic #psychosis #psychotic disorders #paranoid schizophrenic #schizophrenia #schizospec #schizophrenic spectrum #actually delusional #psychotic spectrum #psychotic symptoms #schizophrenic disorder #schizoaffective #schizoid #schizotypal personality disorder #actually schizospec #actually psychosis #stop using delulu #you’re not delusional you just have terrible judgement #delusions are serious and often dangerous to the person experiencing them they aren’t your fucking quirk #delusions aren’t quirky stfu #i’ve had delusions that almost killed me

[like-this-post-if-you]

Like this post if you take daily meds

#meds #medications #daily meds #actually disabled #actually mentally ill #actually disordered #disablity #mental illness #mental disorders #personality disorders #psychotic disorders #mood disorders

[johnnyiscaged]

why are non psychotics so obsessed with "schizocore" and then always use it to be racist or triggering shit is so exhausting

man i hate the internet people be normal for once

those fucking "delulu" mfs too SHUT UUUUUP

#actually psychotic #psychotic disorders #schizophrenia #schizospec #schizoaffective #actually schizophrenic #paranoid schizophrenic #schizophrenic spectrum #mentalheathawareness #actually mentally ill #mentally tired #mental illness

[craycraybluejay]

Literally, people who joke with me about how psychotic and crazy I am are a million times better allies than some asshole who wants to debate the validity of psychotic disorders with me, an individual who has one. And people who are so scared to think about someone they know having a psychotic disorder, not because they're worried for them but because they can't see us as just people. They will dance around the issue with "oh youre just weird thats okay!" "Im sure everyone can see things if theyre really stressed" "maybe youre just depressed?" Underhanded 'compliments' about how normal they're Sure you are and how theres no way youre like "that weird guy i saw rambling to himself a few months ago in the park" or "my friend nancy who thinks she's an alien." Because they can't dare to see you as a person if you're Like Them.

You can say PSYCHOTIC. You can say SCHIZO. They're not dirty words. I love my schizotypy. It's a part of me, and it is dare I say quite a part of the reason I have the talent and drive that I do in certain fields of study and arts. Maybe other people on the schizo spectrum don't like it, and that's their choice and feelings, their experience. But one thing's for sure, accepting and destigmatizing schizo spectrum disorders is important in the madpunk movement. I don't need double-edged "praise" of how I'm "not like them." And what if I am? What if I'm stark-raving mad, speaking in tongues and trying to fight demons and falling in love with things that don't exist to anybody else? What if green-yellow butterflies fly around my field of vision while I look at you, while we talk? What if I hear the voices of people I really don't like while you and I have a pizza at my place? What if the world tilts and shifts, and suddenly I'm not sure where I am and everything feels possible and god is talking to me and the shadow government is watching me? What then? Am I no longer a person? Is my reality less important than yours? Do I deserve to be unpersoned for seeing the world differently, whether that be due to a mental disorder or simply because I don't agree with the status quo?

We all deserve to be treated equally and fairly. Some differences we are born with, others we attain later in life unrelated to genetics or anything like that, some are simply quirks. No one should be forced to identify under labels they don't agree with, and conversely, no one should be denied the validity of their own experience of themselves and their life. And all differences, psychotic ones especially, because that's what this post is about, are beautiful in their own way and worthy of acceptance and respect.

#schizo spectrum #schizotypal #actually stpd #stpd #actually psychotic #allyship #madpunk #mad pride #schizotypy #neurodevelopmental #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #MAD AND PROUD #radical self love #psychotic disorders #hallucinations #my world is a beautiful place and if you're not overjoyed to be a part of it you can fuck right off #rambling #rambles #anoutherposting #giving a very big 'youre so cool' hug to everyone else on the schizo spectrum because you are so fucking cool and awesome #honestly i want psychotic friends i need someone to relate to on that front and complain and joke ab it with