Might be, though the label is arbitrary for me - what are ways to manage these symptoms?
Yeah a lot of people feel that way. If you really are ill (and of course we can't diagnose you over the internet), you need three things: medication, therapy, and support. The first probably includes an anti-psychotic as well as a mood-stabiliser; antipsychotics can essentially be broken up into two classes: the atypicals and the typicals.
Atypical anti-psychotics are newer. The first one synthesized, clozapine, is the go-to for treatment-resistant cases of schizo disorders. Others include risperidone, paliperidone, quetiapine, aripiprazole, asenapine, and lurasidone. The advantages to the newer anti-psychotics is that they control aspects of the mood, are generally more tolerable than the typicals, and work for the positive as well as the negative symptoms of schizophrenia via 5-HT2a antagonism. Negative symptoms are things that are taken away from one with the illness, such as experiencing anhedonia or cognitive deficits. Lurasidone and aripirazole are supposed to be particularly effective for controlling depression relative to the other from what I've heard and read. I don't know what makes lurasidone so special but aripirazole is a partial agonist at D2, D3, and D4 as opposed to (as far as I'm aware) every other anti-psychotic, making it fairly activating, though it can be sedating at higher doses.
Typical anti-psychotics were discovered starting in the 1950s. They include haloperidol and chlorpromazine. They are less tolerable, often making one feel "flat", but alas some find them more effective than the atypicals. They generally have high levels of sedation and signficant anti-chollinergic action, which is to say they block the action of acetylcholline, making negative symptoms such as memory impairment worse.
In my experience a combination of an atypical with a smattering of a typical works best.
Mood stabilizers work through Ca+/Na+ channels, generally increasing levels of GABA while decreasing levels of the related glutamate, though they aren't abusable as are GABAergics such as alcohol and benzos. They include valproic acid, tegretol, lamotrigine (particularly effective for depressive episodes), and lithium. Lithium is the the "gold standard" of the mood stabilizers. It has the advantage of also acting as an anti-depressant via increased synthesis of tryptophan (which is converted to serotonin, generally though to be deficient in cases of depression); but it could lead to some serious liver and kidney toxicity, necessitating a blood test evey so often (as a side note, clozapine also requires regular blood test, as I believe it could cause serious damage to the bones, and which is why its a last-resort treatment).
If you're sick, your doctor might also opt to prescribe a benzodiazepine. These attach to the GABA receptor at the benzo site, opening up calcium channels more frequently, which allows your endogenous GABA to bind more often to the receptor site. Benzos include diazepam (very long-acting), clonazepam (long-acting), lorazepam (medium-acting), and temazepam (medium-acting, just indicated for sleep). This class of drugs is pretty addictive though, some saying that after chronic use the withdrawal is worse than that of opiates/oids. Usually they're prescribed for older people (don't know why, but my guess is probably too insidious to post) and alcoholics.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy involves changing the way you incorporate and view your emotions. It also includes understanding why you feel the way that you do so that you can re-route your reactions to various negative stimuli. Circumstance>thought>emotion>action. It's an invaluable tool, said to be useful for pretty much any mental illness and life struggle alike. I don't know too much about it though. Dialectical Behavior Therapy is similar to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in that it examines the way you feel. I find it less challenging of thoughts than CBT, more of a meditative awareness of whats going on. Therapy also includes talking to a therapist at least once per week. Telling them everything you feel and think that's harming you. Don't keep things bottled up!
Support is having friends to talk over things with. Or family. Or co-workers. It doesn't really matter who it is so long as they listen intently to you and don't demean you in any way for what you're feeling and/or thinking. I think everyone needs a social support system, a safety net for when things get bad. It's just that people who are mentally ill have a tendency to isolate so they oftentimes have trouble building up that team. The sooner you can start the better.
Anyways, hope that helped. It was kind of convoluted. Any questions I'd be happy to answer.
