It is easy for doctors to say pain is a mental illness when a mental illness is diagnosed on not knowing the medical cause. Just because they don't know the medical cause does not mean it is not medical.

There are many different things that can be causing your symptoms. You may have more than one problem and your troubles may be a combination of them.

The stress from an earlier condition could cause a cascade of autimmune problems. Pain begets more pain.

Before they diagnose you with this they should have run extensive testing on you. Have you checked yourself for gluten sensitivity? See www.enterolab.com What about all your hormone levels? Have they given you physical therapy? Checked nutritional status (vitamins and such?)

You might wish to investigate http://www.lef.org and http://www.endfatigue.com/

Also, see: http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org...nt/34/1/69.pdf

Also, geared towards parents but useful, http://itsnotmental.blogspot.com/ (written by a parent whose child had symptoms similar to yours and was also diagnosed (misdiagnosed?) schizoaffective.)

That is not to say you do not have schizoaffective on top of everything else. I am just saying that diagnosis may have been based on the unaddressed medical problems that are real not a figment of your mental status.