Good grades in High School.
A nice circle of friends.
Making good money as a Head Waiter in a popular Restaurant.
Went to a respectable University - was stupid enough to try a powerful Hallucinogenic and Bamm!! …
Full Blown SZA.
My life was forever changed from that point on.
I spent a lot of it in misery , and very rarely having the confidence to go out
I had been having some depression in high school but I was still performing academically. I’d just graduated co-valedictorian in a class of over 300, had a partial-ride scholarship to Johns Hopkins University, and rode everywhere on my road bicycle so my calves were hard as rocks and I was really healthy, no smoking or other drugs. Then it all came crashing down. I spent the next 6 months in between an intermediate-term and then state institution, no hopes of college, no job, smoked like a chimney, and almost lost the use of my left hand cuz I sliced into it so deep with a knife that I severed a major nerve and several vessels…
That said, I am thankful for having had the chance to at least regain enough functioning to go back to school in my 30s and get my Bachelor’s and Master’s and at least live independently again and not a group home. Unfortunately my people skills suck and I have difficulty dealing with other folks, it stresses me out totally…so now I have a ton of student loans and no job to pay them back:cry:. But since I don’t have own anything of value they can’t take anything of mine. 
I’m not who I set out to be, but I’m better than they said I’d be…
Smoking weed, everyday
Congrats on staying clean for so long. I smoked the stuff for four years in the late eighties with regular drinking and occasionally pot (and one weird night when some people I had just met shot me up with twice with speedballs which is heroin and cocaine) I got clean and sober in 1990 through AA, CA and NA and I haven’t touched drugs or alcohol since.
I’m trying to get clean off alcohol too, i am happy aa helped you.
Looking at these posts its weird thinking about how high functioning we once were. I wonder how i felt pre sz cuz i dont remember anymore. We r stronger than we think.
Had it my whole life, just worsened over time
Yes @Ninjastar, harassment is also a factor of schizophrenia. When I studied in college than my HOD said to me by calling me in his cabin that I am not fit and not be worth it for his college, also I lost one student’s future by taking admission . I don’t know why he said because a lot of failure students were also in that college.
I was in University studying computer science in 2001 and I became suddenly sick. Because of that, I had to stop my study. Then I had a part time job as a software developer during some months. It was really difficult because I was still sick. Then had to stop my job and I couldn’t do anything for the following 12 years because of the untreated illness. I have been diagnosed only in 2013 and treated with an antipsychotic. Then I came back to college and I started working again as I software developer in 2015.
I was f##### before diagnosed.
I was abused ,raped , molested in my memory and bullied and beyond a outcast who did not fit in with any people and adults disliked me too.
I may of been unwanted .
I was not in my body .
I suffered and had apathy and no one understood me.
They made me do things that made me worse.
School was horrid.
I had some love and kindness but things were complicated.
I love them.
I am sorry @Truemist8 =(
I am now living the best life i ever had. I am more wise, conscious and a better person now than i ever been. Before sz I was an scared, irresponsible, spoiled, lazy brat who lived a life he could not afford and running after superficial pleasures. I have more happyness now than in those days because now I know how to appreciate it more. I dont long to go back in time to days before my illness. The illness also made me who i am today so i dont regret the illness. I went through hell but i kept going until it became good again and better than before. I am not particular successful, as in career and set up, but i found peace and happyness, more than i ever had. Before going psychotic i was living in a false reality already of trying to be competitive and successful as the world defines it. This made me a nervous wreck and eventually drove me crazy. I had to go psychotic to loose all my false dreams and then build up a life again that was better for me. I dont want to have too much status, power and responsibility nowadays. Thats not who i really am. I want peace of mind, i want to get along with everybody, i want to be good not have to be mean and be competitive against other people, i want time to relax and enjoy life…simple pleasures of life.
I am impressed by your nice illustration. What makes you feel better lately?
Happiness, no worries, and some kind alcoholic on weekends
I was slipping in my social skills. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I would just stand there awkwardly. I still have that problem. I lost touch with my old friends my sophomore year in high school. I smoked marijuana for the first time my ninth grade year. In junior high I was a good wrestler, but after a winning season my sophomore year my skills declined sharply. By my senior year I was getting destroyed every time I stepped onto the mat. I had crushing anxiety at school. I’d sit in class so afraid I knew something had to break inside me. I was self medicating heavily with drugs and alcohol. I joined the army right out of high school. I did my heaviest drinking there. There was a lot of heroin in Germany where I was stationed. (This was before the Reagan military build up.) In 1980 I voted for Ronald Reagan solely for his military policy. I got out of the army with an honorable discharge, but just barely. I got worse and worse, until I was finally hospitalized for a year when I was 28. That was my first official diagnosis as a schizophrenic, though I count my descent into sz from a much earlier date.
I don’t really remember in specific what I was like before I started having symptoms, I starting having delusions when I was 9. Before that I assume I just did normal kid things.
I am recovering from depression and schizophrenia. 
