Something that always bothered me is that with the sz, or at first bipolar diagnosis, as my file/ case/ care gets handed off to new people nobody even knows what my symptoms are: delusions, paranoia, erratic behaviour, emotional instability. Those are the main ones, but the list is possibly longer if you include things like insomnia, odd thoughts, overthinking, blackouts when drinking alcohol, cannabis abuse etc, intrusive thoughts. Lots of things the medication doesn’t touch, makes worse, or causes even.
I want my file to say what my major symptoms are instead of schizophrenia: I dont really want the diagnosis or be misunderstood.
I would like to be treated according to symptoms and having some methods to alleviate these ever present problems. From my perspective some overarching fuzzy diagnosis with associated stigma is un-useful and, frankly, demoralizing, humiliating even. I would wish for precision and personalization and possibly renaming schizophrenia altogether to, say, integration disorder or some such. Especially since it is a syndrome which presents itself individually on each person.
No, schizophrenia implies a lot of possible things, kind of like IDK in the USA they have ‘felon’ designation, but the exact thing you did might not be the same as another felon. Thats just a hypothetical example to maybe explain the thinking here.
In the US, health insurance companies require a formal mental health diagnosis to process claims for therapy and psychiatric services. In other words, insurance companies only pay for “medically necessary” care. They use diagnostic codes from the current DSM, and only pay for care that corresponds with the code.
It doesnt, just says schizophrenia. They have no idea about anything. Even my disability papers the doctor submitted to the government didnt even reflect me at all. Just wrote some nonsense there. Not like I was going to say anything.
I think I’m still undiagnosed. I don’t remember if my doc told me or not years ago.
I only know that the meds are good for me, they keep me stable. Recreational drugs and skipping meds make me unstable.
Btw, I’ve seen a lot of changes in diagnostic here in this forum throghout the years. That’s why I think the whole concept of labels in psychotic disorders is a bit silly.