I was inspired by Steve Martin to be a wild and crazy guy in 1977. I started acting crazy in school to make people laugh. In high school I talked to friends about Syd Barrett and saw that if I used acid I’d be crazy. I used acid and it came true. I had no idea it would be painful. I thought I’d escape life. Instead I found imprisonment.
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Heavy words mate 
Sorry i dont know what to say
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I thought I had depression or autism but not a severe mi like sz. I read about sz but refused to believe I had such a severe mi.
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No I would never have predicted that I would become schizophrenic and I still have a Hard time believing that it is actually the case. I still Hope that I’m just having a spiritual crisis, and that I will find my way through it. But my diagnosis was changed from borderline and psychosis to schizophrenia just recently
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Before diagnosis, I did feel something was up with my mental health and I was watching the Bipolar storyline on Eastenders and I felt I had it.
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No, I had no idea. Even once in psychosis I denied the sz diagnosis and thought that they were wrong for a long time.
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I didn’t know I had sz/sza till I was diagnosed with it for the first time in hospital in 2003 when I was nearly 19. But I knew something was wrong since I was 13 and had severe anxiety. When I heard voices and got my delusions the first time I didn’t understand what it was but I knew something was wrong. Then when I was seen by a pdoc for first time in 2002 right out of high school I realised I have a mood disorder but I did read up about sz as well and both seemed to fit me.
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I used to imagine what my future would be like. I was very creative–loved to think about the potential future if this/that or that happened or vice versa it didnt. I wanted to be a writer and so I wrote stories etc. I was Goth/Punk/Hippie and experimented in all sorts of deviant behaviors.
when I went crazy, I remember moments before it happened I was like ok this is it Im about to go crazy—and I just let it happen…and once I went crazy I couldn’t turn it back off…couldn’t stop it…I didn’t think that people would fall for it. I was faking it because I had gaps in my memories and I wanted to know what happened at the school. I was ashamed but didn’t know why.
It was like a UFO abduction. Supernatural stuff happened. I went to sleep hearing knocking from inside the closet, then blacked out and lost days.
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of course there is something called “predictive programming” but i didnt watch a ton of movies or read a ton of books. I just came up with my own narratives and future alone.
Just didn’t know I would be this accurate.
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I already had bipolar so I thought that was as bad as it was gonna get (I acted like Kanye sometimes basically). Boy was I wrong.
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Didn’t see it coming at all. Despite having family members with sz.
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It was the last thing I expected. I had a lot of signs, but I blew them all off for the longest time.
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I did.
In 8th grade I read a biography of someone who had it, and it triggered a sort of familiarity with me, and I was convinced I had it.
Then I wrote a paper about being inside the mind of a schizophrenic for my creative writing class. No one got it.
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May I ask what age you developed it?
I was showing symptoms when I was a little kid. I had my first hallucinations when I was around 9 or 10, my first major depression when I was 11, and my first bad panic/anxiety attack when I was 5-6.
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Even though my mom and older sister were mentally ill (SzA), I never thought I was ill, too… Until my marriage almost ended because I was so insane.
I read about SzA online and I was like, OMG, that’s me… Then I got treated and my marriage is very healthy now.
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Never thought about it before I became schizophrenic.
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When I was 16 I was friends with a 26 year old guy who had sz most likely, and I had a friend whose mom had sz. Didn’t think I would get it at all, then when I was 17 I had psychosis for a few months or so in highschool. It was a strange experience but I didn’t know how to understand it, and then when I was 18 in grade 11/12 I took intro to psych, soc and anthro and learned about sz and was really worried I had it, but still didn’t fully understand what it was. In university a year or two later I was hospitalized.
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How are you doing now? Found meds that have helped?
Yep aps help, they always worked for me. I just didnt take them for a few reasons.
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