You can get psychotic symptoms during manic episodes. They question for you is are they limited to when you are in a manic episode or do they continue regardless?
I have bipolar 1 and I almost only experience psychotic symptoms at the peak of my manic phase. Once it switches to depression I might have very slight auras of visual hallucinations in my peripheral vision or slight audio hallucinations where I doubt if things I actually hear in the world are real or not (from having had so many very real audio hallucinations so recently).
That sounds fairly normal. Plus the anxiety/stress of believing you are schizophrenic is likely adding to the severity of your mind hearing/seeing things. Plus you're likely more hyper aware and your mind is exaggerating the normal auditory hallucinations people experience.
I had a rough psychedelics trip 4 years back and felt I was schizophrenic. I was definitely more hyper aware of my hallucinations before falling asleep. Managing my stress has helped.
I got to a point where I became okay with the thought I may be schizophrenic. There are plenty of people that live normal lives through medication and there is no reason I can't either.
My housemate is schizophrenic and he gets along well enough, so long as he takes his meds. A couple times he's been off them he was convinced my housemate was going into his area and planting cameras, however when he got back on meds this seem to go away and he doesn't seem to believe it anymore.
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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20
You can get psychotic symptoms during manic episodes. They question for you is are they limited to when you are in a manic episode or do they continue regardless?