Progression of your illness

[bystander10]

What was the progression of your illness like?

For me, although I’m unsure if I’m really schizophrenic, it started off with maybe a prodromal phase of feeling messed up for about a year. I felt like my ability to relate to others correctly and connect socially was weirdly blocked. I also felt like my soul was somewhat destroyed and that I was not myself. I started perceiving people and places differently - not sure if it was in a good or bad way. There was some other good in this period too, though.

Then, in November of 2011, I first started hearing voices. The following roughly 8 months were a horrible, horrible, horrible experience of being messed up, destroyed, sabotaged, persecuted, and consumed by constant voices. I actually collapsed from exhaustion at one point and went into a coma for 3 days. I also stopped checking email regularly and missed my appointments.

Some more months passed, some periods okay, and some periods really horrible.

Then I got on meds and things improved for about a year, although there were bad periods occasionally.

Then things took a turn for the worst toward the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014. I tried to go off or change meds, and went through some horrendous, horrifying psychotic episodes. It made me realize I really need to be on the right meds.

After this, I also never had peace from voices again. Since early 2014, I’ve been harassed by voices nearly every day of my life, I think. The harassment is miserable and can be extremely tormenting. I also periodically undergo further psychotic attacks.

Also, throughout the course of my illness, I’ve felt my soul has gotten destroyed, degraded, and worsened more and more over the years. It’s a tremendous and frightening change.

But these days, on meds, I can at least keep up with email and appointments and have conversations, which I couldn’t at my worst. I’m with it enough to do crosswords regularly as well. The meds keep the worst of the psychosis at bay and for that I am grateful. And I’m working on applying some spiritual principles I read about to my life, and hoping for the best!

[Om_Sadasiva]

Good. Take your meds and you will be relatively stable

[kuckuckuc]

Sorry to hear.
What meds are you taking? Maybe, just maybe, there is some room left there, so you can get even better?

My illness also had prodromal phase, full of anxiety, getting worse and worse in school, loosing friends, etc, while i wasn’t aware something is wrong. Than i had a trigger that started delusions, paranoia and all kind of sick thinking. Hell lasted for 15 years, for that time i deteriorated completely. Then meds at last. And now i have “only” gross negatives and cognitives.

[bystander10]

I’m currently taking Risperdal and Trilafon (generics), but I’ve tried a variety of others. These were the only two that worked for me unfortunately!

Wow, so you went 15 years off meds, deteriorating all the time? What finally got you on meds?

[By-my-design]

Had depression for maybe 5yrs & emotional numbness yrs before that. Psychotic symptoms came on quite mild then amped up over several months. The rest of my memories are twisted by delusion or just gone unfortunately

[kuckuckuc]

I’m reluctant to talk about what got me on meds… I strongly believe it includes a miracle/metanoia/catharsis/dunno
Not even now sure how all that really happened, but i went on my own to a hospital saying “I have schizophrenia!”.

[bystander10]

Glad they finally helped you out! Thanks for the response

[Anna]

Mines kinda weird because I’ve always had symptoms. When I was little I had really vivid auditory and visual hallucinations & paranoia, and got my first delusion at 5 that lasted 8 years and kept getting more & more complex. Around 8 or 9 my hallucinations started to calm down and I pretty much didn’t get them anymore. My voices became “telepathic” ie internal instead of external. I didn’t have many back then though.

Around 10/11 I started getting depressed…like my baseline state was sad…then at like 12 I had my first major depressive episode and my social skills got totally messed up and I didn’t regain mostly normal skill there until college.

Then at 15 I suddenly started getting visual hallucinations again but they were diff then my original ones these ones were very trippy like I’d taken drugs even though I didn’t. Got really involved w my voices. At 16 I started getting tactile hallucinations that were horrible, mostly of being sexually abused but also of physical harm. Had my first major episode, extreme paranoia, highly delusional, etc. It was so horrific I got ptsd. Ptsd took all of my existing problems & amplified them by 500. So now I didn’t just get depressed I was in agonizing pain and wanted to die, I had intense anxiety problems, & all the rest. All my emotions seemed to have been made extreme and the mood swings were unbearable. I gained insight I may have a problem thanks to a friend but when I asked my parents for help they refused to help me bc they didn’t trust the mental healthcare system. I actually sought help from them multiple times growing up but they would ignore me/brush me off or pretend like we’d never had the conversation. Any weird behaviors I had they just ignored or just said I was a weird/eccentric person. (They are pretty supportive now though & feel awful for having done so)

When I went to college I finally got help and diagnosed & everything but to this day I haven’t had success w APs. My paranoia is almost nonexistent as long as I get enough sleep. I still get visual & tactile hallucinations & telepathic voices and delusional thoughts and all that though. I haven’t had a major psychotic episode in 4 years, mostly mild ongoing symptoms that occasionally have brief flare ups that are very unpleasant but I don’t lose insight during. My mood & anxiety stuff is controlled w meds.

[Azley]

@bystander10

I’ve felt my soul has gotten destroyed, degraded, and worsened

I can relate to this… but I consider that a part of growing up… the idealist slowly begins to secede.

I’ve heard nothing but voices at all my down moments… and more skirting above the tops of all the people I talk too… for about 6 years or more.

It used to be that I’d get too stoned and then wake up to another day and it would be like it never happened. I can’t tell if it’s false memories brought on by psychosis… or I just had a more hypothetical interpretation of things back then… like selling out to the games my brain had set up for me out of stoned boredom… wondering why it had to be so difficult to feel placement in life… then I wound up spread to thin and it took over… I did lose myself to it. Took me a couple years to remember the extent of my old self.

Part of that crazy Hunter Thompson worshiping fool wanted to map insanity… I didn’t know who Carl Jung was back then… but it was the same intent. I feel guilty for bringing it on myself… and more guilty in the face of the fact that the government has helped me through my struggles.

I’m off of the disability list now though… The government is truly fair… I’m sure a lot of them wish the could do more… and not just for us. All the same, it really does quell the conspiratorial persecution complex when the system demonstrates it’s concern for those who fall through the cracks.

I’m fine though… I’ll have a place I can afford… and I have job that fits me that I know I’ll never lose. I get to be free for a while… and I plan on getting ahead.

So much strife exists in the face of a debt-ridden paycheck to paycheck world… I think it ways even heavier on those who understand what freedom really is… It ain’t reckless… it functions on it’s own.