It took me six years after I started hearing voices to get a diagnosis. It’s because I believed the voices I had started hearing were actually my neighbors doing a psychic attack. Then once in a while I thought about talking to a psychiatrist about the voices I heard, I was afraid they would think I was crazy. My symptoms and delusions worsened. I was talking to my mom about them and she told me to see a psychiatrist. So, I finally did see a psychiatrist and tell him I was hearing voices and I think some of my delusions.
Btw, I went to a hospital for a diagnosis. I was afraid to make an appointment with a psychiatrist through an office. So, one night, I was sick of the voices. I had my husband drive me to a hospital 40 minutes away for a diagnosis (I thought the area where we lived was evil - part of my delusions). I had no idea my rights would be taken away. A mental health place had suggested a hospital since they had a four hour wait.
Second appointment I was diagnosed. Then two years later I had to sit in front of 12 doctors, 2 from the USA!! I was honoured !! I was given a diagnosis of chronic paranoid schizophrenia, and one doctor said to me, You have a disease of the brain………what? Still to this day I can’t stand that doctor who said that to me
I was first diagnosed with psychosis. Then they called it chronic psychosis. Now they call it schizophrenia. Don’t know when my diagnosis exactly changed. But probably after a couple of years of psychosis.
My first diagnosis from a psychiatrist at 20 years old was actually schizophrenia.
He told my Mom my SZ diagnosis but on paper it was Anxiety NOS.
He prescribed me Navane, a powerful typical antipsychotic.
I had depression starting at 12 regularly. I knew I was mentally I’ll in my early 20’s. I had severe anxiety. I was hearing negative things in my head at 30, but just thought it was a negative inner voice. It’s not really what it was. I heard people talking to me at 37. I wonder how long I actually had Sz.
First diagnosis 12 years ago was undifferentiated schiz. Them schizoaffective with bipolar, then bipolar on its own , then schizoaffective bipolar again but it depends who I see. I want to know what I have for sure but it’s going to take time.
I thought a woman I met online was trying to watch me with psychic and crystal ball abilities.
My parents immediately took me to a doctor and I was diagnosed in less than 15 minutes.
For years I denied that I was mentally ill until I had a break down and went crazy, eventually I started taking my meds
I live a normal life, for the most part
My symptoms started at 13 with panic attacks and psychosis at 15. First time I went to pdoc I was 18 and within less than a month I was hospitalised for the first time and they diagnosed me with bipolar/sza. Two months later hospital again and they diagnosed me with sz.
I was diagnosed with psychotic depression from age 16 to my thirties. Then late 30s it switched to paranoid schizophrenia and now it’s schizoaffective disorder depression type
like 4 years. at first i was dxed brief psychotic disorder. then years later i got a new pdoc who said i wouldnt be on meds so many years if it was brief psychotic disorder. after they knew more about my symptoms they diagnosed with sz. then like a year or two lateri had very bad depressive episodes and it changed to sza depression type
First in '88 by a military doc and then in '21 by a civilian doc so I could get back on meds after 30some years. That was a long stretch and wish I had stayed on meds all along.
In 2013 when I was 23 I started getting symptoms then I went to the psych ward in 2015 when I was 25 and the psychiatrist diagnosed me with chronic paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis.
I started hearing voices around 2013. I just lived woth it and thought it was normal. I thought i was a famous musician in town. Fast forward to 2016 i took off in the middle of the night after hearing voices saying “they” were going to kill me. I stole a car and drove till i ran out of gas. I took all my clothes off and threw away my wallet and cell phone. The cops found me naked trying to siphon gas out of a car. I just said “i need help” and they took me tona hospital where they diagnosed me with schizophrenia right away.
I didnt take my meds. I lived without symptoms for four years till they started to come back. I thought i was on a 24 hour tv show. Ended up running from the cops until they caught up with me and took me to the hospital. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia again and havent quit taking meds since.
I think it took about a year. I went through the usual trail of DXes leading up to it. I maybe could have gotten one faster, but I couldn’t find anyone that wasn’t using theirs.
I saw my first therapist when I was 19 and having problems. I didn’t think my problems were a mental illness, I just thought I was having a hard time. I fooled her completely, I went in and we just chatted and I might have talked about a couple problems but I never told her what was really going on with me. We just talked about the weather or movies we’d seen or what I did that day. We never got into serious discussions.
Looking back, I know I had been in a prodomal stage for a couple years and maybe was experiencing delusions. But I was still working and functioning and nobody seemed to think I was crazy and I acted and sounded normal. Then one day the head psychiatrist at the clinic scheduled a meeting with him, my parents, me and my therapist. We talked for about half an hour and the psychiatrist told my parents I had to go into the psyche ward immediately. My therapist started crying because she had no idea how serious my condition had been.
So I went into my first psyche ward. I stayed about a week and a half and had my first psychotic break in there. From there I was put in a house for schizophrenics. It’s funny because I was in denial in my first group home but after a couple months I realized I was sick. But I never knew my official diagnosis until a few years later when I was seeing a psychiatrist and he showed me my medical chart and I saw it written down in black & white for the first time: paranoid schizophrenia.
I was diagnosed with schizohphrenia when I was 35. I was hospitalized for about three weeks and semi stabilized…when I got home I took my meds and went to my first pdoc appt. but had no insurance and finally decided that I just had a nervous breakdown and stopped going to the pdoc and stopped my antipsychotics meds…moved to another town, landed a job as a furniture designer in a large firm and slowly lost my mind again until they escorted me to a psychiatrist and was hospitalized again for a few weeks but didn’t have insurance so they let me go…I wasn’t even semi stable that time…long story short, I landed in a state hospital where they didn’t care if I had insurance and I stablized there…that was 1998. I wrote a book about it and it is on the home page of this forum under “schizophrenia success stories”…the name of the book is “out of it - an autobiography on the experience of schizophrenia”.
HIt the mental health system with a depressive break at 23. Went away smoking a lot of weed because it helped with my depression but we all know where that goes. 6 years later paranoid sz.
