I answered an “ask” on Tumblr and thought I’d share it here.
What was your first delusion?
Hm, my very first delusion… I had paranoia, but I think my first big delusion was that there were ghosts haunting me in my house. I saw a little girl ghost go into the laundry room across from my bedroom. I saw her clearly but only for a moment. From then on, I believed she was always following me and watching me. For the most part, I didn’t think she was dangerous. I told my mom about her and asked, “Why am I the only one that sees her?”, and my mom answered, “Maybe she feels a special connection to you.” My mom didn’t know I was sick at the time… neither did I… but this probably just fueled my delusion even more. I believed she had this strong connection to me. In addition to the little girl ghost, I believed all of the pictures in the house were watching me - I’d sometimes see their eyes move and look at me. I don’t know if that came first or the haunted belief. I think that my delusions officially began when I was about 17.
How old were you when you were diagnosed (or figured it out yourself)?
I figured things out myself when I was 24, I think. I had a really extreme depersonlization/derealization moment that happened while I was at work, which prompted me to start researching what was really wrong with me. I came across schizophrenia being linked to extreme episodes like that (mind you, this wasn’t the first episode, just an exceptionally bad one). My mom has schizoaffective / schizophrenia, so I started looking into it even more. I read all about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and then schizoaffective disorder. After doing extensive research, I realized I was schizoaffective bipolar 2 type. I was professionally diagnosed with this exact type or schizoaffective about 5 months ago. I’m 25 now.
Do you have a hard time making yourself understood?
I’m pretty dang good at expressing myself through writing but very bad at it through speech. My speech is choppy, I pause a LOT, and words get either caught in my throat or I can’t think of what I’m really trying to say. I also tend to get really off-track when I try to answer things through speech and never end up actually answering the question… (disorganized symptoms)…
Is there a situation you can laugh about now, which was scary at the time?
Uhhhhh. Hmmm. I can laugh about the doctors diagnosing me with depression at the age of 12 and never thinking twice about it until I was 24. My new therapist was actually cackling about this in my first visit with her, lol. Does this count?