My sister was 20 years old when he had his first psychotic episode and later used to have one more …
now thinking as it was before the onset of the disease, the strange things that had were:
-big and wide eyes, often with the expression fear and surprise
-not has never been a very brilliant
Has always been a very good person, never had many interests, maybe it’s always been a bit unsociable
What you are experiencing abnormal behavior and physical appearance of a person who will become schizophrenic?big and wide eyes, with the expression sometimes frightened and surprised?
I don’t know other than I stopped eating and taking showers. Food was poisoned and I had angels in my bathroom telling me to tear down the walls to release them.
When I had my breakdown, before hospitalisation and diagnosis, I overheard my mother say to her friend that ‘the look in my eyes is not of God’ I will never ever forget that, it freaked me out. I thought the evil spirits were infiltrating my soul and mind and manipulating me.
Other than that, I must of had a scared expression ( I think I still have) and untidy in appearance (which has improved now). I also spoke to pictures a lot, had imaginary friends in my teens and early adulthood, very anxious and depressed, sometimes paranoid. I also talk to myself a lot (still do).
I know when I get flattened… my face goes blank. No expression comes through. It makes me look unfriendly and uninterested. Maybe people avoid me because of that.
Before my psychotic break I started listening to music I didn’t like, magical thinking, I never really was that good at hygiene and never really good at socializing.
My eyes are brown they look almost black now, but everyone says they don’t see it. I was 23 when I had my break… I’m almost 26 now.
I can agree with this from my own experiences. My mother died when I was 11 from cancer, and I was understandably upset. Within a year, at age 12, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Trauma happened to catalyze my prodrome as well- I had a testicular infection, my dad got demoted, and I had to enroll in my safety school which I originally had zero intention of attending. I got heavy into weed, tobacco and alcohol.
For me:
• Natural expression of emotions sucked.
• No motivation, my apartment was a huge mess. Flies, maggots and other bugs in my kitchen and I didn’t really care.
• No desire to socialize. I almost lost my friends because I never wanted to hang out.
• Some people at work told me I acted like I was high all he time. I think it was the thought blocking that made me seem like that.
• Physical appearance degraded a bit. Though I use showers to relax and wake up in the morning, so showering wasn’t that much of a problem. But it did get worse.
That’s all I can think of now. It’s pretty much all from the “Negative Symptoms” list, which I guess is usually the first to hit.
Thanks for citing this. I very much agree. And will add that I was myself (and have seen at least 15 others) who were mis-dx’d with “major depression” who were actually at the bottom of The Big Wave of bipolar… and who became floridly psychotic over time because of that mis-dx and resulting mis-medication with neuro-stimulating anti-D’s vs. neuro-inhibiting anti-P’s.
This phenomenon is much better understood now and far better assessed for, but the literature on it goes clear back to 1990… and the widespread mis-dx’ing and mis-medication well into the mid-2000s. Sigh.
NOW… one wonders how many prodromal sz pts got similarly mis-dx’d and mis-medicated in exactly the same (mis-) direction.
My eyes during the awful “terror tunnel” rides from August '94 to March '95, from January through December '97, in April and May of '99, from May of '02 through January of '03, and again in October of '03.
It took all that time to get a *functional" dx of “PTSD-induced bipolar with psychotic features,” get me on an anti-P with worked (Risperdal and Geodon hadn’t; Seroquel did), and get me out of the “wide-eyed terror tunnel” (save for a few hours here and there through about '08) for good.
But I am still given to psychotic thinking and occasional verblunget (see http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/) and/or obsessive-compulsive behavior. Sigh.