What were your first symptoms of having the illness?
Looking back on it I think I had a few negative symptoms when I was younger but it started properly when I had my flatmate and I was convinced he was poisoning my food. It took about a year and half in and out of hospital for my diagnosis.
my delusions started very mild around age 18, i was still very functional. sometime during that yr i tried weed and it triggered my first psych episode (very mild) however i was still functioning. i had mild delusions for the next year and nothing else. a little less than a yr later i fell into powerful psychosis which came on very suddenly, i was like this for 3 days and ended up in hospital. the pdoc sent me out with a dx of schizoaffective bipolar type and a rx for zoloft and zyprexa. i was in terrible shape and ended up in the hospital a week later and stayed for a week. the pdoc put me on risperdal and i went home. it took me about 6 months and many med changes to relieve the majority of my neg and pos symptoms, during that time i was frequently psychotic and that damaged me a great deal. psychosis is horrific and harrowing for me. now im back in community college w/ online classes and doing alot better. still have profound poverty of speech which makes it impossible to make friends. im waiting on newer better meds for the future. best wishes and best of luck to you.
Hi @princess, I have no idea what led up to the diagnosis. I saw the diagnosis schizoeffaffective for the first time when I was in my early thirties. However, I was hospitalized much earlier. Even after I saw the diagnosis I didnât know what it was (by that time I had been hospitalized many times) Even after I got out of a long term hospital stay in my forties I didnât think I was sz. I thought I was just very bi-polar. I just started admitting I had a âformâ of sz about 6 years ago. I still donât know if I fully believe the sz part of my illness even though all the doctors tell me I am.
I had the same thing with the food.
Thought people were poisoning my food, meds, cigarettes
Thought people were breaking into my place.
Thought people could read my thoughts.
Thought people were following me and keeping tabs on me.
the list goes on
These were some of the thoughts when I wasnât in psychosis, I wonât get into the psychotic delusions.
My first episode started with suspiciousness and hallucinations talking about me in the third person. I thought they were neighbours. They quickly became more frequent and changed to 2nd person in style, occurring 24 hours a day, and after a week or so I recognized they couldnât be neighbours. That delusion morphed into a telepathy one, and voices changed from outside to inside. Intrusive thoughts came along, becoming inserted thoughts at some point. After a month or two the tactiles started. Some 5 months into the episode I had enough and tried to debunk the belief that these were subjects for the sake of my wellbeing. Took a lot of work, switching back and forth between insight and delusion but eventually it worked and I settled on it being some psychotic disorder instead. After that things turned better, though hallucinations and intrusive thoughts persisted continuously. Two months after the switch I went to the GP to tell I suspected I had some psychotic disorder. Got a referral and about 8-9 months after the onset the psychiatrist diagnosed me with paranoid schizophrenia.
Its hard to say because my father suggesting there were FBI bugs in the walls when I was 10 was an influence in my behavior before any of my own problems⌠But I think my drug use at such a young age damaged me also
Began with terrible hallucinations at 6 or soâŚI had a severe incident last year that ment I could no longer control it on my ownâŚit took 2 weeks in the hospital to get dxd with szâŚ
I was suspicious and paranoid for two years before a SI-attempt made me end up in hospital. For 6 months.
I started having hallucinations at 14, but I remember some paranoia before then. I thought the tool booths were scanning cars trying to identify me based on a scar on my hand. I thought I had a secret brother who was given up for adoption, and I would sneak away in the middle of the night to go looking for him. My older brother was also quite psychotic at the time, and my parents just assumed it was a weird phase all teenagers go through.
I didnât get diagnosed until I was 24, when I finally realized normal people donât hallucinate all the time. I had a roommate, and she was concerned for me because I was convinced there were bats living in the walls of the house, and I could hear them moving around all night. I also had another friend who was studying psychology, and she told me, âHey, listen, Iâve been reading about this schizophrenia thing, and a lot of it seems really familiar.â
Lost days of sleep when my first son was born. At 30 years old. Became paranoid and delusional couldnât tell the difference between voices and real voices ,dreams and reality . Thought people were after me and druging my food. Conspiracyâs at work took over and I ended up quiting my job. Got arrested for terroristic threats ( trying to protect my family) they put me in the hospital diagnosed me with sz and released me. I had no belief that I was sick. 2 1/2 months later charges were dropped. I went back to an old job. I was all screwed up for the next couple yearâs denying my diagnosis and messing with my meds.
When I was 12-14 I faced a lot of trauma, my whole family has mental illness, some schizophrenia âŚwhen I was 14 I started hearing ghosts (probably voices). I lost touch with reality, I started not sleeping, my school performance suffered, became socially withdrawn, entered a fantasy world where I built my ego up really big while my real life ego shrunk to zero, I was a ghost in high school, I didnât look at the mirror for four years because I was so uncomfortable in my own skinâŚI had depression and anxiety. Then I started self medicating with drugs and alcohol which brought on the delusions of robots, aliens, government experiment, I was the chosen one, I was the president, I was hitler and I was in hell, people out to get me, voices, psuedohallucinations REALLY bad, that was the worst symptom, disorganized thinking, much more. But I respond to meds really well. Itâs been 2 years 8 months on meds and I have like no symptoms left.
When I was about 17 I used to hear the coat hangers on my dresser clanging and banging through the night.
When I was 21 my mother moved interstate and I was sharehousing. Thatâs when I started to get real psychosis which lasted about four or five years. I had terrible hallucinations and delusions.
During that time I was diagnosed with bipolar and put on lithium which did nothing for me. I always knew that diagnosis was wrong. But I was also surrounded by people who thought my experiences that I shared with them meant that I was psychic.
Then throughout the years I continued to have hallucinations but they were few and far between and easy to take. Up until last year when I was under a lot of stress at work.
I had a really big and scary psychotic break and moved temporarily in with my mum. She found me a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with schizophrenia after a long time consulting with him. When I first met him he put me on antipsychotics but they only really started working this year.
Iâve since moved back home with my partner and continue to have hallucinations and live according to delusions, but I am doing much better than I was. Things arenât as scary as they were.
For perspective on how long this has been going on, Iâm 35 now. So it was a long road from my first experience to my final diagnosis and treatment.
Saw & heard things when I was little, Stopped @ 10ish. Saw things sporadically during my teens, last time was 18 but it had been a few years at that point.
27 kept getting Avolition at work (itâs a very distinct sensation for me) thought I was depressed. Quit my job, went to College & worked part time. Negative Symptoms increase Start having Positive Symptoms. Dropped out of College half way through my 4 semester, I wasnât doing well.
What the â â â â is wrong with me? syphilis? No (I play safe but accidents, Trojans Suck). Brain tumor? No. Are you sure? Yes. Iâm pretty sure I have one I can feel it growing. Moe you need to talk to a Mental Healthcare Professional, do you want me to help you make an appointment. No, itâs not that far. Youâre sure itâs not a Tumor? YES!
Intake, Out Patient.
Took about 4 months before I was Diagnosed, but my pDoc was âpretty sureâ after the first meeting. She is very cautious with her Dx likes to observe/ask questions if the matter isnât urgent. I was fairly lucid at the time, or I drifted in & out of Lucidity which maybe gave her pause.
I used to talk to and spend time with my grandfather after he died from when I was 4 until I started primary school (I think thatâs when that stopped happening so frequently). After that I seen shadows of people and creatures and I had weird beliefs and many other things happened such as hanging out with âghostsâ. I think the voices became constant when I was 12. I realized it was schizophrenia during the Junior Cert. Which is the 2nd biggest secondary/high school exam in Ireland. So I guess I was either born with it or it started when I was 4. But Iâm happy though 
And I hope you all find ways to enjoy yourselves despite the illness.
When i started hearing the voices of my classmates. Which led to attempted suicide. Then it was considered an isolated psychotic incident. Until a year and a half later i went psychotic again and it was continuous. Then i was diagnosed with schizoaffective
My diagnose is schizoaffective. Bipolar type. Mood stabilizers never did anything for me either. I was once on zyprexa Wellbutrin lamictal lithium and klonopin and I went off the zyprexa and I had my worst psychotic breakâŚWellbutrin makes me psychotic, very psychotic. I was once on it alone and that induced my first hospitalization. Supposedly only bipolar type people canât handle antidepressants, so thatâs the other side of the argument that maybe I am indeed bipolar and schizophrenic âŚalthough itâs strange the mood stabilizers might as well be sugar pills.
mine started with paranoia about the police and the demon in my head. it just got progressively worse. in the beginning it was so hard to think clearly my mind just felt chaotic. i still struggle with all of these things. my pdoc was torn between schizophrenia, schizotypal or schizoaffective. it took over a little over a year and placement in a residential until i was finally âofficially diagnosedâ. they thought it was mixed episode bipolar nos at first
I was delusional at 16, but everyone assumed it was me going through a phase. Had a few suicide attempts, but I was okay for a while after that, hearing voices and such but overall not too bad, until i was in my mid-late 20s when i had a huge psychotic episode that lasted for months. Eventually I found a doctor and got on meds, and Iâve been semi-okay ever since, though I still have pretty bad negative symptoms and a few positive. I donât think Iâll ever get back to ânormalâ, Iâm pretty sure the damage is permanent and Iâll just have to live with it unless a miracle cure comes out. I can still function, albeit at a limited capacity, so as long as I donât get worse I should be fine.
I started experiencing paranoia and voices, around my second year of college. around my third year I quit college and got a job at a big name retail store. when I switched to third shift I got worse, I was found hiding once in the back of the store in the clothes racks. they fired me. around april of that year in 2010, I was admitted into a hospital. thatâs where I got first diagnosed with schizophrenia and got told to sign up for Medicaid and social security
it took years to get my official diagnosis, of schizoaffective disorderâŚ
Hallucinations and semi-manageable delusions started at 15. Got diagnosed when I was 24 when I realised my thoughts and feelings werenât normal. Was painful until then. Kind of resent not having a good youth.
Struggled a lot until I was about 30 and then I got decent meds and therapy and all good since then.
Have memories of going through psychosis as young as three. I suffered depression from about 9.