How long have you had schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and was it difficult to accept?

I’m curious how long everyone has had schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

When you were diagnosed, was it difficult to accept? Has it still been difficult to accept?

Thank you sincerely, I’m going to be talking about a similar topic in my next youtube episode of Life with Schizophrenia and I could really use your input.

(I of course will not mention any username or anyone in particular whenever I do any youtube videos, I just like to hear from others and their experiences as it helps me as well. Thank you.)

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It took a while to actually accept. I remember getting it about 4-5 years ago. I knew that I heard voices and I thought that I didn’t need medication for it. I went 2 years getting worse. I thought that people were out to get me.

After those 2 years my psychotic break happened. After that happened I became a staunch believe in using medication because I realized how bad schizophrenia could be. I was barely able to speak for about 1-2 years after the break. I don’t know if that was because of the trauma of the hallucinations or just what having constant hallucinations and paranoia can do to you. I noticed that my memory isn’t as well as it was. I don’t know if that is because of similar reasons. But I digress.

It is hard to accept to not be able to trust your senses. Now I know to not trust anything I hear. Even on medication sometime hallucinations still make it through.

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Since childhood…I hid it and blended decently…got stressed in 11th grade and quit got my GED…hid it and self medicated through jobs and marriage divorce… love …kids ect…had a major break down due to stress and self medicating tried to rip out my eyeball…diagnosed the same day I was admitted…kinda knew it was coming…so acceptance was easy…the things I went through finally had a name…I know my enemy now…know my triggers and handle the ■■■■ as it comes…

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I was diagnosed in 2008 but I didn’t accept that I was sick until 2013. I thought there was a conspiracy against me.

So I have had the illness 8 and 1/2 years now. Its easier to manage once you have accepted it

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Since I was around 3 years old. I’ve always struggled w psychotic symptoms…it was mind-blowing to me when I finally became aware at 16 that I was possibly psychotic…all at once everything I experienced in life made sense and was also made fake at the same time…

It took me years of struggling to accept it fully. There was a lot of denying that I was “crazy”, and trying to find reasons why I couldn’t possibly be ill…I think getting involved in the mental health system finally solidified the idea for me…because as I explained my experiences to professionals the responses were “yeah that is definitely psychosis” so it helped to remove the unsureness of it all. Then when I went on antipsychotics and became “normal” it just further reinforced that I experienced what I did because I was sick not because I was “spiritually aware” or anything like that.

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Since I was a child 5 years old?
I’m 52 years old now, so it’s been a long time.
I’ve been taking meds for decades.
Not letting go just yet.
Still holding on.

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I am mildly Autistic and had voices as a child and saw patterns in numbers and an alien behind my eyes
Then I smoked pot for a year or so and had my first episode in 89.
Age 17-18ish
Would make me sick if I actually ever found out my schiz was because of drugs.
Glad I’ll probably never know
I’m 42, married and working in theatre as permitted work while on benefits
My dream
but after my sister also schiz walked out in front of a car and severe episodes for years around age 30

Feeling bitter, writing all this I think I need to think about the positives

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I was diagnosed in 2001 with bipolar/psychotic features. Since that time I have also been called schizoaffective. It has been next to impossible for me to accept that I have this illness. Anything but this is how I feel. Someone above said it best, I can’t trust my senses, my mind lies to me all the time.
I’m barely holding on with my life.

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I’ve suffered from the symptoms since my early teens but just got properly diagnosed a year and a half ago (I’m 50!) It was a relief to have explained to me that all of these bizarre, painful, tormenting things I’ve experienced have a label, a reason, a diagnosis. Then on the drive home I started sobbing because I couldn’t deny what was going on with me anymore…it became very concrete and real and heavy.
Now, I’m just trying to gain more information and still trying to come to terms with who I am, what I believe and how I function under the banner of sz.

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I’ve had mood symptoms since I was a young child, and psychotic symptoms crept in around 14-15 yrs old, but I did not receive any mental illness diagnosis until I was 20, following a suicide attempt. I was diagnosed with major depression at that time. That remained my diagnosis until 2003 when I was diagnosed bipolar 1 w/ psychotic features, at the time of my first psychotic break, during a severe manic episode. It was two years later that the term schizoaffective was first mentioned, but I refused to accept it, insisted that my dr was wrong. When I got a new dr after moving, I told him I was bipolar. My dx flip-flopped between the two over the years, but last year it occurred to me that the flip-flopping was only because of me refusing to accept the dx of sza. Every dr who has tried to tell me I was sza was after a little while of treating me. Last year I asked my current dr where she lands on that, she’s been treating me for four years now, and she said I’m sza. I’ve finally accepted that dx, it took 11 years for me to accept it, and it makes a lot of sense.

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I’m pretty positive I’ve struggled with it since I was a child (I recall VERY vivid delusions that people were constantly trying to sabotage me – one particular instance being a spelling test that I got a 98 on. I was convinced someone sabotaged my test and that there was no way I made a mistake. I was inconsolable), but I only just got diagnosed this last month. It’s been hard, but I accepted it pretty quickly since it became increasingly obvious to me that it was likely that’s what was going on with me.

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I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1980 when I was 19. It took me about three months after being diagnosed to even finally get the insight that I was sick. Maybe I’m unique but the label never dragged me down. When I was diagnosed I didn’t even skip a beat. They put me in the psyche ward and then into a group home for schizophrenics. I didn’t even skip a beat.

I just don’t remember any big trauma or cataclysmic moment when I was diagnosed. I didn’t think my life was ruined. I mean my life changed obviously but the label didn’t scare me or traumatize me. I just went with the flow and endured the hospitals and group homes. Don’t get me wrong. I suffered incredibly and I was on the edge for a couple of years after I got diagnosed. The beginning of my life with schizophrenia was nowhere near easy. I was a naive 19 year old just doing what I was told as my disease tortured me.

I never think of myself as a schizophrenic. I think of myself as someone who has schizophrenia. There’s a big difference between the two.

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when I was diagnosed I stigmatized myself for years, everything fell apart the burden was defeating but in the last 6 years ive risen above all issues I walk tall now I am glad I went through it ive learnt a lot on my journey, there something special in beating most problems in life.

I feel going through all my past troubles and issues have toughened and strengthen me

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I got diagnosed with sz in 2003 when i was nearly 19. I read up about sz but never really understood it properly. When i went into remission in 2006 i thought i was healed because my mom said her prayer group at church prayed for me and i got better. I thought it was just depression. In 2007 I went off meds believing i was cured and feeling fine.

Then in 2012 I relapsed but thought it was bipolar (and the doctors too) and returned to meds. In 2013 I landed up in hospital and they reconfirmed I have sz. Only since then I have begun to understand sz better. But it was hard to accept. I kept on going off my meds when i felt fine and landed up in hospital one or two more times.

Nowadays I know I have sz and accept it, but its hard to believe i am still sick when i am quite stabilised. For my husband’s sake I want to stay on my meds because i know i can get ill again if i go without. My voice Alien still is with me and I know he will never go away. I know now i have sz for the rest of my life no matter how stable i am on meds.

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Beginning at sunset on halloween years ago my mind was invaded and i was tortured nearly to death.

I escaped and it happened again, tortured nearly to death by them.

And then it continued and i’m dying now.

I’m not a schizophrenic or schizoaffective, it’s them, i’m sure you have heard of them by now.

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I still find it difficult To accept This Illness …!!! Cuz i am very low functioning …!!!
How are u thomas … These day i suffer from Extreme Anxiety …!!

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I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia about 6 years ago. every time I didn’t accept it, I ended up back in the psych ward. got tired of that, so I just accepted.

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I had my first very mild symptoms of feeling like I am being watched in around 2013 or so. I had my first psychotic symptoms in June 2015 where I was hospitalized and DX with Bipolar. When I got out of the hospital, I was DX with paranoid SZ. About 6 months ago, my new pdoc DX me with Delusional Disorder. This illness is very new to me. I am in my late 40’s and had no symptoms at all until just a few years ago.

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@far_cry0 It is very difficult to accept, I agree with you. You seem very smart and social, I doubt your as low functioning as you think. :slight_smile:

The anxiety has gotten better, I’m also trying to scale down my anxiety medication (it’s a very low dose,) but still, it won’t work forever. Talking to people even when I don’t want to has helped me get over a lot of my anxiety. I hope you get some relief from your anxiety and things get better.

Everyone’s testimonies and stories are pretty incredible.

I think it started 10 years ago. I’ve always had voices but the psychosis started 10 yrs ago. At first I was diagnosed with mild psychosis… then Bipolar and then finally a year ago Paranoid Schizophrenia. I sometimes have my doubts and think that I’m fine and can go off meds. so i havent really accepted it, that its permanent.

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