This is my first post, so I really hope this is the right place to put it, haha. This isn’t me asking someone to diagnose me, I’ve been diagnosed as schizophrenic, I’m just very curious if anyone else with it can relate to my experience, since I obsess over whether my diagnosis was correct a lot.
Basically, I had my first sort of symptoms, I guess, when I was 13, without much of a trigger, I started to get scared and paranoid that I was going to be abducted by aliens and had these sort of fuzzy hallucinations, that kind of looked like how ghosts are represented in media (sort of translucent, but still there), of things like aliens and eyes staring at me through the windows. Had my antidepressant changed, the symptoms mostly stopped, but from that point on I was more paranoid that before and kind of hypervigilant around people, especially in public. By this point I had been diagnosed as having ocd and aspergers.
I also have had this weird thing since then where if I look at, say, the ceiling or wall, it often looks like its “breathing” or drifting. However, starting in fall of 2015, my grandfather died (First close family death), and I began having severe panic attacks for about a month, after that was said and done, over the next…year or so, i had the progression of the following symptoms
-
increasingly paranoid, both about people (i thought they hated me, were plotting against me, talking to each other about me) and about aliens, I became obsessed with aliens and every night became terrified that they were watching me
-
constant feelings of being watched
-
the fuzzy hallucinations came back, same types of things with eyes and aliens
-
i completely withdrew from social interaction during this period, deleting all social media and not talking to any friends and rarely leaving home
-
constant feeling of confusion and my brain being in a fog, like I couldn’t think straight or understand people
-
fell behind 6 months in school (I was doing high school online at this point) because i just lost both the ability to do math as well as my motivation to do it
-
speaking of, no motivation, which has continued until now, its hard to will myself to do anything other than lay and rot
-
thoughts either raced constantly and i couldnt control them, or my brain felt completely empty
-
harder to speak
-
my inner thoughts, which had always been intrusive and irritating I suppose from the ocd, became even more obsessive, and my inner voice started to feel “split”, like I had MY thoughts, then i had these other thoughts that felt foreign. I heard this voice in my head sort of fuzzy, it never sounded external, but it did feel completely detached from me and unwanted, and this was totally new.
-
i started stumbling over words a lot for whatever reason, sometimes saying the completely wrong word or switching words around
-
my thoughts would blank out completely mid sentence/thought, so i would go completely blank and almost feel like i had hit the reset button on my brain
-
severe mood swings, i already had sensory problems from the ASD, but they got worse during this period, and something as small as my hair falling in my face sent me into a blind rage that was hard to control
-
serious self harm developed
-
i would sometimes hear my name being said, or someone shouting for me, or footsteps, at times it got hard to even do things like shower because i kept having to pop my head out to make sure there wasnt someone at the door trying to get me (this also worked with my paranoia to make me think aliens were teleporting into the bathroom to get me)
-
and i have no idea if this could have anything to do with sz, but during this period i developed frequent tremors and jerkiness particularly in my arms and hands, that seemed to stop once i was prescribed antipsychotics
so when i finally came forward about my alien fears and whatnot to the nurse practitioner i see, she prescribed me abilify, which has helped wonderfully with these problems and made my head feel clearer than it had in over a year.
She didn’t even bring up schizophrenia, but later, right before I turned 18 earlier this year, we went to this childrens clinic in Louisville to get the ASD diagnosis reaffirmed for insurance purposes. During the interview with the psych, i described this period to him, not thinking anything of it since I thought i was there just for the ASD problems, but then lo and behold, he comes back not only with a reaffirmation of the ASD and OCD (as well as diagnosis of agoraphobia and panic disorder), but also says I’m schizophrenic.
I present this information to my nurse practitioner, and she says while she doesn’t want to stick me with that label yet, that or schizoaffective disorder is a strong possibility. I have a family history of mood disorders and OCD, but the only person with a sz diagnosis in the family is a cousin.
My new therapist as well as some family seem to think I don’t have it at all. I think I do, but i question myself a lot and so I’m really hoping atleast a handful of people read this and can tell me if they share any of these experiences, as it would really help my doubts to subside.