I was 28 and i am a female. I’m 38 now. I’ve been on these damn drugs for about 8 to 10 years. 
My very first? I was told I was about 5. First real delusion hit when I was 11. I really became aware of the voices when I was 10 and a half. I was sure my kid sis was talking to me from my Mom’s belly.
I wasn’t diagnosed SZ until I was 17 and had my swan song of a mother of all breaks. I’ve been on meds of some kind or another for most of my life.
In retrospect, I was 15 at my first break. I thought my dad was persecuting me for months. I was so tortured by these delusions that I cut my arm open to the bone. I had to be taken to the ER, where a crisis team member evaluated me and diagnosed me with major depression.
I had several similar instances until 2006, and finally received the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. That’s when I finally started taking meds and getting better.
I still have psychotic events, but they’re much more mild in comparison.
Blessings,
Anthony
I was ten years old when I started to have serious issues. My positive symptoms were at a peak between the ages 19 and 25, that’s when I really freaked out.
Thanks for sharing. I can’t imagine going through all that as a kid. james and drew it must have been super scary. And anthony i really admire you for going on to become a nurse. 
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I have had emotional problems and social anxiety and shyness all my life pretty much. But the psychotic part didn’t come till my twenties.
I was such an out of control hyper little in your face, never know when to leave you alone, way to personal, manic ADHD, little kid I don’t think I noticed that it was all that bad. I was told that my head was really like…
Ahhhh that was so scary… oh look butterflies, lets get naked."
Sometime I think that’s why I’m doing pretty well at 28, I never knew anything different. Some people tell me they were normal, and getting on with their life and in college or at work and the break happened.
I’ve never known anything different. My head has always been a scramble.
I think your doing really well. you still have some psychotic symptoms i think i read and i really ADMIRE people that can work with psychotic symptoms. I have paranoia and hallucinate voices and i was never able to work while i was having problems. It was pretty much impossible!! Honestly it is still impossible. Only due to the jobs i have now am i able to work. I have two degrees actually but they are in cubicle settings and i can’t work in that field anymore.
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My little brother was the same way when he was a kid, and still kinda is. He turned out to be even more messed up than me. I’m glad I don’t have to take the meds that he does.
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I was 15 my uncle committed suicide and I believed I could save him in the afterlife through meditation, I stopped eating and drinking and started hallucinating but didn’t have the kind of voices I have now, they started properly at 16. Because I was misdiagnosed and mistreated I’ve never been truly symptom free, only with small periods of remission so I never crash intensely anymore but I still hear voices and get caught up in delusions regularly.
i was 18, i saw a familiar face and suddenly lost it within a minute….there were earlier signs but that was my first real break from reality.
I was 36/37 when I had my psychotic episode. I had been suffering with major depressive disorder for many many years before that. Then I started becoming delusional and paranoid.
I always knew I was a bit “left of center”, but did my best to be real.
After a few months of therapy, my pdoc open a can of worms they wished stayed shut. This was at age 32.
19, all hell was let lose in my head
when I was 16/17 smoking a lot of cannabis and doing other drugs didn’t help.
starting hearing voices and thought there was a camera in my bedroom A LOT of ■■■■ went down why could my parents have been more thoughtful and chose not to divorce while im trying to survive being 16 lol
I feel I can handle positive symptom so much better then negative. That feeling of not being able to feel anything. No humor, no sadness, no good, no bad, just tan. The whole world is tan with nothing. No motivation to get involved, no motivation to keep going, I hate negative so much more then positive.
I am more likely to give up on myself when it hits.
ive been thinking about this a lot i keep thinking that i should reduce/slash my meds cause theyre making me into a zombie but i know from experience theyre be monsters.
I was about 22, it started in october 2009 and got worse in january 2010 when i lost my job. I was first hospitalized in april 2010.
My symptoms started around age 22 but my delusions started at age 27, since than i am on meds.
i was 26 when my tv started talking to me. not outloud of course but i was getting coded messages from certain tv programmes. not all of them just a few in particular. i got paranoid and started to believe ridiculous things, only ridiculous in hindsight mind you. some of those things i still believe in, others i now know were just acting out due to programming of a young mind due to rape and torture. but at the time i fell for it hook line and sinker. guess i wasnt strong enough to take the stress of it all. i don’t blame myself for that though. i blame my abusers for torturing innocent kids. but anyway, i digress. the paranoia slowly, over a period of months got worse and worse to the point that i ran away from home. i thought i was protecting my family, most notably my children by leaving them. i was only gone for about a week but i was in a right state and ended up being given the choice of going inpatient voluntarily or being sectioned. i chose to go in. i stayed for 5 months and was no better when i came out but the drugs took the edge off of it i guess. i still got messages from the tv, i started hearing voices, i still smoked dope back then and that didn’t help the paranoia either. i’ve been on meds ever since, different ones at different times, both high and low doses, nothing has changed except i am more experienced at dealing with it. some of the “delusions” r gone and i wouldn’t fall for them again, others have yet to b discovered but i won’t fall for them anymore as i know they won’t b real. that’s the difference between now and then. just plain old experience.