- Hi, my name is Lauren
and I live with Schizoaffective disorder
and I've been making videos detailing a little bit more
about what schizophrenia
and Schizoaffective disorder entail.
In my video about what schizophrenia is,
I talked a little bit about positive and negative symptoms.
So in this video, I'm gonna talk
more about what exactly these positive
and negative symptoms are.
So first I'm gonna go over some of the positive symptoms.
So the first positive symptom
that I wanna go over is hallucinations
and hallucinations are basically
when an individual perceives something that others do not.
So these can include auditory, visual,
or factory, so sense of smell, taste and touch.
So some examples for me
are when I first was experiencing my first symptoms
I had olfactory hallucinations
where I would smell these really awful smells
that I couldn't identify what they were
and I couldn't locate where they were coming from,
but I just smelled these really bad smells.
Another example that occurs
more frequently for me are voices.
So I hear...
while I'm on medication,
it's mostly just chatter about what's going on around me
or about people around me.
But it doesn't happen all the time.
So sometimes hallucinations can be more intense.
So for me, especially when I'm off medications,
I can sometimes get command hallucinations
and these can vary from anything
like go pick up that rock over there
to commands encouraging more along the lines of self harm.
So there's a lot of variation
in the types of hallucinations
that an individual can experience.
The second positive symptom is delusions,
and these are beliefs or convictions that are not true
and they can include persecutory, religious
or grandiose thoughts or delusions.
So an example for me
would be around more of the persecutory delusion
where I would see and hear helicopters circling overhead
that I thought were looking for me or out to get me.
And I would be really conscious of any police around me
because I thought that they were looking for me
as well at times
and coming to take me back to the hospital
or something along those lines.
The third positive symptom is paranoid thinking.
So this is one some sort of threat is perceived.
So an example of this for me
would be like I talked about in another video
is checking mirrors for cameras.
So I had some delusions or paranoid thinking
around cameras being in mirrors
or around people watching me.
Another one is thinking that people can hear my own thoughts
which is called thought broadcasting.
Racing thoughts are another common positive symptom
experienced by people living with schizophrenia.
So for me, this looks like
just a lot of thoughts racing through my head at one time.
And it's kind of hard to focus on one
and to hold a steady train of thought sometimes.
So again, positive symptoms
include the addition of a behavior,
a new behavior as a result of schizophrenia
that the individual did not have before.
So they include hallucinations, delusions,
paranoid thinking and racing thoughts.
So next I'm gonna talk a little bit more
about the negative symptoms.
So again, this doesn't mean bad symptoms,
but instead this means symptoms that have been taken away
as a result of schizophrenia.
So some negative symptoms of schizophrenia
include low motivation as well as emotional flatness.
So this can include restricted affect
which is diagnosed based on observations about a person
and lowered emotional range which is basically
when an individual has less ability to feel emotions.
And another negative symptom is decreased speech,
which is sometimes referred to as poverty of speech.
So this is when there is little if any spontaneous speech
and the individual mainly responds
in monosyllabic responses such as yes or no.
There can sometimes also be long pauses
or gaps between words or sentences
when an individual is having poverty of speech.
Another symptom is loss of interest in life,
which is also referred to as apathy.
So this is basically when an individual appears indifferent
and lacks the interest to engage
in even basic activities such as personal hygiene.
So this happens for me sometimes
when it's really hard to even just get out of bed,
get ready, have a shower.
Those things can be made more difficult
when you're experiencing negative symptoms.
Another symptom is social withdrawal.
So when an individual stops engaging
with other people in their life
or with parts of their life in general.
And then the last negative symptom that I wanna go over
is a decreased sense of purpose.
So this is when an individual
has a difficult time understanding the meaning
or the value behind engaging in different activities.
And just generally has a decreased sense of purpose.
It's important to note that these negative symptoms
look a lot like depression.
So this is why schizophrenia
is often misdiagnosed as depression
for prolonged periods of time.
So in my video about my story,
I talked a bit about
how I was initially diagnosed with depression
and how I went for several years thinking
that I was struggling with depression
when it was actually Schizoaffective disorder.
And lastly, another concept that I just want to hit on
because it kind of goes hand in hand
with the negative symptoms is the concept of anosognosia,
which is basically just means a lack of insight.
So when an individual doesn't even know that they are ill.
So sometimes during psychotic episodes,
I can have periods of anosognosia
where I don't think that I have Schizoaffective disorder.
So just to summarize positive symptoms include new
or added behavior is to an individual
as a result of schizophrenia
and negative symptoms include
the removal of or taking away behaviors
as a result of having schizophrenia.
So thank you so much for watching,
I hope this video helps you
to better understand some of the positive
and negative symptoms.
If you wanna see more videos like this,
make sure to subscribe and thanks again
and have a great day, bye.