Schizoaffective Disorder Signs and Symptoms

Schizoaffective disorder is a serious mental illness that has symptoms of two different conditions, schizophrenia and a mood disorder, either major depression or bipolar disorder.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality and relates to others. Depression is an illness that is marked by feelings of sadness, worthlessness or hopelessness, as well as problems concentrating. Bipolar disorder is characterized by cycling mood changes, including severe highs called mania and lows called depression.

Schizoaffective disorder is a lifelong illness that can disrupt all areas of daily living, including work or school, social contacts and relationships. Most people with this illness have periodic episodes. There is no cure for schizoaffective disorder; symptoms can be controlled with proper treatment.

A person with schizoaffective disorder has severe changes in mood and some of the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking. Psychotic symptoms reflect the person's inability to tell what is real from what is created by the disorder. Symptoms of schizoaffective may be mild or severe. Symptoms of schizoaffective disorder may include:

Depression:  Poor appetite, Weight loss or gain, Changes in sleeping patterns , Agitation, Lack of energy, Loss of interest in usual activities, Feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, Guilt or self-blame, Inability to think or concentrate,  Thoughts of death or suicide

Depression is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts and affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one perceives things.

Schizoaffective disorder is often confused with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (manic depression), because the symptoms are similar.  Some people only ever have one episode, but others may have recurring episodes at intervals throughout their life, usually when they are under stress.
Schizoaffective disorder affects your thinking processes and your moods. Moods can swing from deep depression to extreme elation in the course of one episode of the disorder, and in this it resembles bipolar disorder. Within the same episode, there are also schizophrenia-like symptoms, which might include: hallucinations or delusions.  Having hallucinations and delusions is being psychotic, because, the person having them is out of touch with reality.
Depression may be the symptom you experience most when you have schizoaffective disorder. If you are depressed you will feel sad, lonely, tired and bored with life. You may want to sleep a great deal.  When the depression gets really bad, you may not be aware of having any feelings at all, except emptiness and despair.  Your thoughts may become very morbid.
Depression may alternate with mania; sometimes mild and at other times severe. Mania can make you feel very excited and enthusiastic about life, talkative, and racing thoughts, ideas and plans. You need very little sleep. Your confidence in your own judgement and abilities which can cause difficulty in daily activities.  People are extravagant with money, and pursue sexual encounters and risky business ventures. The euphoria can turn to sour when you become angry and irritable, especially if someone contradicts or questions you.

The cycles of mania and depression can be at regular periods; this varies from person to person. It can be rapid cycling 4 or more episodes a year; to moods alternating every year.  It is possible to live without symptoms for years. But the symptoms can return with no warning. At its extreme, full-blown mania can be a very frightening.   If left untreated, the cycles can begin to happen more rapidly and more severely.

Mixed and Rapid Cycling in Bipolar Disorder

 Unstable mood and energy marks the life of a person with Bipolar Disorder.  People with such instability have big changes in their mood, or energy, or creativity over periods of time.  They may have easy crying.  They may have extreme episodes of anger.  They can sometimes have inappropriate laughing too loudly or too much.    

Mixed states include only phases of full manic and full depressive cycles as short as 4 days.  

 Other combinations of depression and hypomania, or mania exist but not the two full phases together.  And it is possible to have cycles shorter than 4 days.

 For a lot of people, there are no phases of normal functioning; instead, many people have only symptoms, varying from one kind to another.

Symptoms vary separately from one another, and at different durations. 

 Bipolar disorder has phases lasting at least 4 days shorter than that, and it does not meet the official diagnosis. But the shorter versions are seen so often they have their own names.

Many people with Bipolar II do not have the intervals, in between periods of having symptoms that are often spoken about Bipolar I disorder. and Bipolar II.    

 A rapid cycling of the individual symptoms, at different rates, can create a varying pattern of nearly continuous symptoms.  Instead of having periodic episodes, the person has almost constantly shifting symptom phases that blend into one another.

  Many people have rapid cycling and mixed states due to medication for others it is the natural course of the disease.  Mixed states and rapid cycling are hard to treat but treatment is available and with good prognosis in some cases.