Early childhood-onset SZ or SZA?

Does anyone else have early childhood-onset schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder? I have schizoaffective d/o and my psychosis started at age 10 or 11. I didn’t know I had psychosis; I just felt like my peers were experiencing the same things I was. I started believing there were people inside my head who watched me and I had to play music for them to “start them up” and get them inside my head. I wanted them to see my life because I was sure that they would not think I was a bad person if they saw that I was trying my best. I also started believing that the television and radio were sending me subliminal messages, making me a bad person, so I stopped watching current T.V. and movies and I stopped listening to current radio at the time. As you can imagine, I did not know anything about current media when I was 11 so my peers thought I was weird. I didn’t start becoming depressed until age 12. I got diagnosed for the depression first, because that was the most apparent of the two to everyone else. I’m not sure when I was properly diagnosed with psychosis or SZA, but I started on my first anti-psychotic med when I was 15.
If you had this very early onset psychosis, did you realize something was wrong then or later? How did your illness impact your life then?

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I’ve had psychosis since 14, but I wasn’t diagnosed until 25. It was rough during school. I had parents who weren’t very well versed in mental illness, but they tried their best. They ended up teaching me some really good coping skills that let me graduate high school and college. But after a traumatic event as an adult, I had a major psychotic break and ended up homeless for a while.

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I remember being paranoid at the age of 6 and throughout childhood. I was also depressed due to my physically abusive and pedophile father. At the age of 15, I became severely anorexic and that turned into severe bulimia in a short time and this condition remained for eight years. I remember being suicidal at age 17. At age 23, I became very psychotic but I hid it well and wasn’t diagnosed with sza until the age of 34.

That’s very rare. But then I got sick at 38 which is rare also. It happens.

My symptoms started when I was 7. The first time I visited a psychiatrist I was 19 and I was prescribed my first antipsychotic (trifluoperazine), but my official diagnosis came when I was hospitalized at the age of 22. I didn’t have a happy childhood because of my symptoms. I think I have never been completely happy because of schizophrenia.

I remember myself at 10 believing that God had created only me and other beings were robots, soulless entities, without inner experience and inner world, just to test my reactions towards them.

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My sza started with panic attacks at the age of 13 going on 14.

For as long as I can remember I’ve seen things, ghosts, shadow people.

Had my first voices at 12, my first true breakdown at 14, and attempted to hurt myself. Talked to a doctor for 15 minutes, diagnosed me with Major depressive disorder, and General anxiety disorder. Got me on antidepressants. Never helped the voices. Family thought I was psychic. So did I for a while, hearing the dead and angels.

Was diagnosed at age 32. I self medicated for years on drugs and alcohol to try to cope with my symptoms.

Welcome to the forum @cactusgyrl!

:llama:

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I’ve had it since I was 8 years old.

I had symptoms at least in childhood. Mine started out as OCD- I focused a lot on my body and still do. Like breathing and swallowing right or I could die. I remember hallucinating sometimes as a young teen and believing my mom was replaced by a robot at some point. But I dont think i developed it full blown until later (well I’m still questioning if I even have it but that’s a different topic) .

Thanks for the welcome!

Thanks everyone. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who developed psychosis so young. I didn’t talk about my psychotic symptoms for a really long time, because, like I said, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me except depression. I thought the screaming in my head while sitting in classes in Junior High and High School was a normal part of depression. After all, I listened to music at the time with lyrics about “screaming in my head,” so it must be normal, right? But for me it was screaming sometimes and voices other times, but I could only identify the voices as “thoughts inserted in my head that I can’t control, sent by the Judges.” (The Judges are an entity in my head that control me). I always just thought that I had the worst depression, which I did, but I also had psychosis. I didn’t open up to my therapist about The People Inside My Head until I was 16 or so, despite living with them since I was 11. I worry that if I ever try to get disability, they won’t believe that I had SZA since age 11 because my psychosis is not well documented then. I started smoking pot at age 20, which apparently can cast doubt on my SZA diagnosis because pot can cause psychosis, which could then stop me from getting disability. At least that’s what my lawyer said. I will need to prove that I had psychosis before the pot addiction happened, which, because that was so long ago, I don’t know if those records exist anymore. I’m 39 now and not looking to get on disability right now, but I worry about my future.

When I was a little boy in first and third grade I had a really mean teacher - this is when my hallucinations started - on top of that I was bullied and had an abusive father - I became scared just to go to school - I started using drugs then my issues kicked into full blown Schizophrenia - I was molested and was forced to do other things as well - I REALLY hit the pavement hard, I’m not happy but I’m coping…

I have had symptoms since as long as I can remember. Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia the whole deal. Eventually I learned that no one believed any of the stuff that I was going through and they would just laugh at me thinking I was playing pretend or was being crazy so I stopped talking about it. I still believed everything I went through was real and did not question anything until I was 17 and a friend had a sort of intervention for me. It still took years after that to fully accept that I had a mental illness.

My illness drastically impacted my life. Growing up with this whole other world that I had to keep secret basically isolated me hugely from others. I did not feel I could have meaningful connections with anyone and was very lonely even when I had plenty of friends. Also a lot of what I experienced was very terrifying and it traumatized me, I have ptsd from my psychosis.

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I understand the loneliness of living in another world and no one understanding your world. It makes you so isolated and feeling trapped, like you said, even when you have friends. They just dont get it.

I have early onset schizophrenia!

I started hearing voices at 5, started showing symptoms at 9, and had hallucinations and paranoia at 12.
I wasn’t properly diagnosed nor treated until I was in my 20’s, though

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