By that I mean was becoming mentally ill something that happened in a quick and dramatic way or was it a gradual progression to mental illness over quite a long period of time?
I would say in my case it was a gradual process occurring over 3-4 years in terms of presenting with overt signs of mental illness though more subtle signs may have been present pre adolescence.
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I have had symptoms - even psychotic experiences as a kid, so mine was a gradual journey into full blown mental illness.
with in 2 days without sleep, fear kicked in paranoia and then full blown psychosis voice hallucinations the lot
I always had something going on as a kid… after the family suffered a house fire… I got a little worse…
Ages 14 through 16 I was loosing it a little more each day…
17… that was when my head just opened up.
Psychotic symptoms developed rapidly from being suspicious about hearing things to actually hearing voices 24/7, over the course of a week or so. But having read about the prodromal phase I recognize a lot of the described symptoms of that up to 4 years before becoming psychotic.
I voted gradual. My mind started going little by little but I could tell something was a little off, just didn’t want to think it was me.
A slow unawaking -
I was mildly psychotic since 8th grade, nobody really figured it was a serious problem until junior year in high school.
Sounds like me.
I count the age of onset of mental illness for me at 15. I wasn’t officially diagnosed as sz until almost 15 years later.
For me it was a bit of both,i’ve been a little off since birth so that’s the gradual.
Then the hard stuff kicked in when/because I was using hard drugs In my early 20’s.
I developed sz when i was twentytwo. I have been depressed sibcw fourteen. Im thirtu four. It took about two months.
Mine was gradual. I was diagnosed at age 19. I was always kind of weird even though in a lot of ways I had a normal childhood. Due to the definition of gradual I can’t pinpoint when my disease started. I never acted so weird or bizarre that anyone noticed anything was wrong or said anything about my behavior. I always think my early symptoms were showed by I was not acting like myself. I was always lousy with women, but all of a sudden I thought I was good with them. A lot of my symptoms started at my numerous jobs. Lots of panic and anxiety there. I was hanging out with people who were, " out of my league". I mean people who were a lot tougher and harder than me. I was acting tough but they were the real deal. Anyway when I was 26 years old my mom told me that she started thinking something was wrong with me when I was 16 or 17.
My onset was gradual, it began as just paranoid thoughts and feelings then it became voices. At first just whispers then it grew to shouting. That was devon, he made me feel like ■■■■, (pardon the language). He made me not trust myself then their was aaron he made me not trust others. The only good one out of all the voices i heard was baliel. He’s a gargoyle that i sometimes i see and hear. He wasn’t negative at all and really helped with the other voices. But as soon as i started medication it made baliel go away, so that left devon and aaron then about a year ago a new voice came about, rebecca.
I think mine was a combination of Effexor, topamax, Wellbutrin and stimulant abuse. One day I just snapped and felt like telepathic and that everyone could see inside my head. Then I started getting voices just from normal sounds like running water and when I hear strangers talking in public it feels like they are talking to me. Like everything is talking to me, it’s pure hell. Now I’m medicated and drowns the voices out but also takes away something because I always feel an emptiness now.