#that wasn't very elegant

[schizosupport]

i recently started back on all my meds. as happy as i am to get back on them, i noticed how. quiet? everything is? i dont know if what i have is schizophrenia or psychosis, if there's a difference, but im on antipsychs for it. im just confused as to why i feel my mind as quiet now, esp because ive never had auditory hallucinations. im wondering if anyone else feels the same and if its good or not?

Hi there!

Your experience isn't uncommon at all. Antipsychotics, broadly speaking, makes it harder for certain kinds of signals to get sent in the brain. The result is that some of the things that would previously reach consciousness no longer will on antipsychotics.

If you think of your brain as a soup full of processes, then your consciousness is the clear top of the soup. At the bottom of the soup there's all kinds of ingredients and that's the subconscious processes, like when your mind is mulling over a problem, and suddenly you get the answer without having actively thought about - that comes from the depths of the soup.

Really it's not so mysterious. The brain has to do a lot of things and keep track of a lot of things, and if we had to be conscious about all lf them, it would be exhausting (and impossible). So most of it stays submerged.

The clear top part of the soup then is the things you're conscious of. It's the thoughts and feelings that you have direct access to/that make up your experience.

When you take antipsychotics, it makes the soup less see-through. So things that would previously have been visible in the clear top part of the soup now aren't visible anymore. This can be quite helpful if your consciousness has become very messy, and ideas and experiences that don't really make sense (like delusions and hallucinations) are taking up too much attention in your consciousness. But it also means that when you take antipsychotics it takes more effort for any type of thought or emotion to rise far enough up in the soup for you to perceive it.

People on high dose antipsychotics have described it as "I have to actively make myself think, to think". They have to stir the soup pot and stare intently into it.

So long winded soup metaphor apart, the point I'm getting at is that antipsychotics absolutely can and do make your mind "quieter". That can be a good thing if your mind is very cluttered and loud, but it can also feel empty.

Only you get to decide whether it's a good thing for you or not.