What was your immediate reaction to your first symptoms?

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I always had issues.

Even as a kid.

Lots of OCD type stuff and delusions.

But my first full on hallucinations started at puberty.

One of the first big ones I remember was in 7th grade.

Our teacher used to do these complex math problems,

She read them and you were not allowed to write them down,

Had to do it all in your head.

I’m terrible at math so had a habit of just having a “in thought” face and counting on not being called on.

I mean, kids raised their hands for the answers so I never got picked.

Until I did get picked.

I can’t be too sure that was my first panic attack too,

But a new thing happened and it was terrifying.

The second the teacher called my name, my vision started moving to the left,

I got sweaty,

I could hear my heart and felt like I was going to die.

Not a normal reaction to something where you can just say “I don’t know”.

Instead of saying anything, I left my chair and walked out the door to the girls bathroom.

As I was entering the bathroom I could hear my teacher in the hall calling me.

When I looked in the mirror I saw something that was not human and not in reality.

It was scary, but not very defined, it was more of a feeling of “evil”.

I went in a bathroom stall, got sick, my teacher walked in and I told her I had a stomachache.

Got to go home early.

I still suspect that teacher knew I was having psyche problems.

She was smart and in retrospect, treated me a little differently.

That could have been for a lot of reasons though.

Anyway, that’s my story,

What’s yours?

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I had no insight. At 16 I would spend most of my time thinking about useless philosophical stuff.

My schizophrenia was what they call insidious .

I got worse inch by inch year by year and never noticed. I just thought I was ok and the world was getting more bizarre.

I finally had a psychotic break at 38 when I was hospitalised.

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Age 12 had anxiety. Age 14 very withdrawn used to think I was just shy. Started to think people were watching me when I was in the car had to put my bag up to my face. My mind started to go wonky and i didn’t have a clue what was happening

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My onset was starting to hear voices. A couple weeks later I was in the psych ward. It all went downhill really fast but I also got treatment quickly.

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I was always different. deep thinker…never heard my name being called …especially when watching t.v. thought the Exorcist was about me at age 13 and started batting the air when I was alone to fight off the devil. scared me for years…too sensitive to the world I think is what caused me to be ill. anyways…when my first night of full psychosis hit I kept questioning if it was real or not, even though I strongly believed it was true. not until months later did I stop questioning my ideas.

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The night before I was admitted I felt excruciating pain in my brain and was awake all night.

I’m convinced I got braindamage because of psychosis.

Edit: I was also too sensitive for this world but always had my mind to fight for me. When I lost my brainpower I was lost…

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Was that when you started thinking in terms of good and evil? That’s what happened to me. I cracked up. I believed a lot of disturbing things that weren’t true and saw terrifying things. It gave me intense anxiety which I believe knocked my chemistry out of order.

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I had a lot of delusions, including that my boss had installed a brain chip in my head which was causing the intense pain.

Hence, a scene at work and security taking me into an ambulance.

Psychosis at work.

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When the doctor told me I was schzio I was terrified and relieved. Relieved because I now knew my delusions weren’t real but scared because I thought I would lose my mind!!!

I thought I would like… Cease to be as my brain rotted away kind of…like sz would be a horrible nightmare…don’t get me wrong is annoying and torturous at times but not as bad as I thought it would be at that moment.

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I think most sz think that the events happening are real and not hallucinations at all.

If you didn’t think they were real, like you induced them through lsd or mushrooms then it is not so bad.

The point is that first blown psychosis is when people hallucinate and don’t know they are hallucinating and think it is actuality.

I suppose that is the deifinition of sz; not knowing the difference between imagination and reality.

I actually thought that people were chanting outside. Of course, they weren’t. I couldn’t tell the difeerence.

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I’m not 100% sure what my first symptoms were. I didnt have hallucinations so its not as dramatic as yours. It was just strange thinking. One of my early things was noticing my former roommate/tenant and an online friend were making similar responses on facebook. Like they somehow were in communication. It was just a case of apophenia, but it eventually evolved into me believing that one was in mental communication with the other.

Btw, this was in my early 40’s. I was a late “bloomer” :stuck_out_tongue: .

Edit: I actually think it may have started at 40 years on the nose, but it was awhile before in full fledged psychosis,

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12

My family is religious.

I always thought in terms of good and evil.

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My first symptoms are probably the night frights I had as a little child. They were traumatic. They may have led to schizophrenia on some level.

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I also had a wild imagination as a kid, but I don’t think that played a part in developing sz.

Maybe it’s a sign. Who knows!?

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15

i went to gould farm to heal. i was symptomatic still at times but it was amazing. darn girlfriend dumped me and i ended up back home with nothing to do.

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I looked at Gould farm. I went to spring lake ranch instead

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!possible TW! Hope this isn’t too bad…

Don’t know if this was a hallucination or just being a child scared of the dark or half dreaming- but when I was little I woke up and saw a woman standing beside my bed, it wasn’t my mom because she was sleeping in the bed with me. I threw the blanket over my face. I was terrified.

Fast forward to when I was 19 or 20 living in nyc, i hallucinated/saw the same woman standing beside me while I was laying in bed….
She even said something this time and pointed at something. I won’t repeat it here though, it was creepy.

Very weird if you ask me….

But I will say that I assume those were my first hallucinations/signs of psychosis.

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I thought I was just gifted… psychic…

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19

When the psychosis hit I remember it hitting like a freight train.My reaction was basically:

OH FXXX OH FXXX OH FXXX OH FXXX OH FXXX

I live in a state of terror when my insight is blown.

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“What’s going on”

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