Hi @HumbleJ 

I have experienced a lot of negative symptoms from schizophrenia (well, schizoaffective disorder but you know), more recently in the last few years of my illness. 

I would say the most hurtful thing about negative symptoms is the blaming words: “lack of motivation.” I know that it’s a medical term but I think it implies that we don’t have enough get up and go to help ourselves along. I think of it more as lack of capacity. Our brains are damaged from the psychosis (in my experience) and our minds just don’t have the scope to do things that are often simple and even meaningful tasks. It’s a horrible feeling when you are trapped by this incapacity and you can’t grasp anything beyond it. I wish the medications would treat negative symptoms more.

Funny that your name is HumbleJ. I find the negative symptoms are a very humbling experience! For most of my 20 years with this illness I’ve dealt with more of the positive symptoms but they’re finally becoming a little more managed for now. It is certainly humbling finding that you just can’t do the things you so want to do. 

Losing my independence has been hard and being dependent on services and agencies is scary but I’m getting a bit of help for things that I used to be able to do that I can’t really do now (driving, cleaning etc). 

Anyway, I hope all that helps. It’s a very big topic for schizophrenia, thanks for giving me time to reflect on it.