Did you find out on your own that you have schizophrenia like I did, then later on get diagnosed it by a doctor. Or did your doctor diagnose you before you knew you had it?
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I had a psychotic break that lasted almost two years before I ever sought help and was then diagnosed after a while of getting stabilized on meds.
How did you know you had schizophrenia?
I didnât know a thing about MI and got diagnosed with sciziphreniform . then i moved cities and got a different diagnosis then I eventually learned about it and realised I have some symptoms . diagnosed myself kinda then doctors agreed.
I was experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia since 15 years old and my senior year of high school when we read the book one flew over the cuckooâs nest my teacher told us the character, Cheif, had schizophrenia and would see things and talked about symptoms of schizophrenia. I realized that the symptoms he was talking about are things that I was experiencing. So I did research online about schizophrenia and all of the symptoms that schizophrenia shows, I had. So I want to see a therapist and after a few years I was diagnosed with disorganized schizophrenia
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My diagnosis was a progression. I was diagnosed with major depression in 2000, after five years of suffering in silence. That diagnosis was updated to bipolar with psychotic features in 2003, when I was brought to a hospital crisis center by police during psychotic mania. It was a year or two later that the term schizoaffective was first brought out, but I refused to accept it. Doctors over the years have said schizoaffective, but I never believed it. Then, recently I asked my doctor of over three years what she considers my diagnosis to be, and she said schizoaffective. Iâve accepted it now. Theyâre right, I have psychotic symptoms in the absence of depression or mania, Iâve known that a long time; I just didnât want to accept it for a while.
I got hospitalized they diagnosed me in the hospital and I didnât believe them for months. I took my meds because I thought they helped me with all the stressful things I thought were going on.
I found out on my own that I probably had a psychotic disorder. When I was 16 I was deeply psychotic, no awareness, absolutely nuts, have no idea why my parents didnât comment on any of my bizarre behavior at the time. I ended up involving a friend and pulling her into my delusion world. Luckily she came to pretty quickly and realized that I was offâŚand she told me she thought I needed to get help. At first I was very defensive, like âoh great she thinks Iâm crazyâŚit was a bad idea to tell her anythingâŚâ but then I started realizing that all the things I had told her were going to happen werenât happeningâŚand how the things I believed in werenât holding upâŚand then the defensiveness turned to shock as I realized I may in fact have just been psychotic my whole lifeâŚitâs been a long journey of acceptance of that from there. I just kept realizing that more and more of what I experienced were textbook symptoms of psychosis.
first full blown delusional period I thought the doctors were quacks and so I discontinued my meds and was insane seven more months because of it. three hospitals later I was finally stablized in a state hospital. only then did I realize I had schizophrenia. I didnât fully accept it until months after my last hospital stay then I was suicidal because I lost my architecture career. decades later I am at peace with my illness. Happiness is achievable but you can never give up.
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That happened to me the first time. I thought I was going psychic. Then the weight of it all hit me all at once that I was psychotic. I just wept. Now I canât stop weeping. I guess it just goes hand in hand with me and psychosis. Or maybe itâs a depression side effect of the antipsychotics. I know you get depressed @Anna, do you cry a lot or do you just feel numb?
It wasnât until I was put on medication that i realized I had schizophrenia.
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Iâm sorry you cry @SunLion I used to cry a lot tooâŚit gets better with time. hang in there.
@jukebox @SunLion yeah I have periods where Iâm manic and just cry but other times I feel like a sociopath because I feel absolutely no emotion.
At the age of 15, I figured it was just my imagination⌠So I just shrugged it off. 2 years later, NY first psychotic episode occurred in Walmart where I found myself in the back of a police cruiser, because I âcreeped customers out and wouldnât refrain from screaming âtheyâre coming!â.â
So the feds had me evaluated, later to be diagnosed with schizophrenia in a psychiatric hospital in Ohio. soooooo. Yeah!
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Doctors had to diagnose me. I didnât believe a word of it. Maybe I was a little depressed. Then maybe I was a little Bi-Polar. Took 30 years in and out of hospitals before I could believe the sz part of sza.
I did not had a clue what was going on with me. On my second visit to the psychiatrist I asked her what was wrong with me. She said I had delusional paranoia. Because of my delusions I thought everyone else was delusional. But when the meds kick in I gathered she must be on to something. I later learned from some correspondence to my employer that I had schizophrenia.
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I had to convince my doctor that I have Schizoaffective but now sheâs a believer.
Iâve never known i had schizophrenia.
Something contacted my brain, something not human.
30 years? what is your sza like?
It was a surprise for me. I got referred to a psychiatrist because my therapist thought I had bipolar disorder. In reality, I had psychotic features I didnât know existed until they pointed it out. Throughout my whole life, (or since I was about 5) I hallucinated and saw these little angels and I would talk to them. I thought it was normal but I was already 16 and my doctor said I had schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. I was in shock. But yeah, life is pretty surprising isnât it? Later on, I accepted my diagnosis. It made sense. The social withdrawal, the voices, and the mood swings. I finally had an answer.
at first, I didnât think I had paranoid schizophrenia. I thought that my thoughts were very real and non-delusional. even when I got diagnosed, I still didnât believe that I was mentally ill.
but after hurting others and myself, in real-life, I finally accepted the fact that I was mentally ill and that I could potentially unknowingly hurt people or myself.