Schizophrenia first hand

@Zam If you don't mind me asking, what kind of schizophrenic experiences do you have?

Hello Zam

This is brilliant. Thank you so much for doing this.

I wanted to add that you are under no obligation to answer every question. You monitor exactly what you want to discuss.

Also, we need to be mindful that whilst living with symptoms of schizophrenia you are studying.

We must respect yours and your family's privacy.

i myself have a trillion questions, however will leave you in peace whilst others ask theirs first.

Hi @Former-Member, i was 25 almost 26 years old when i was diagnosed. i was in hospital for a while before the diagnosise an dthey had to do all sorts of tests to rule out anything else before they could make that diagnosis.

Hi @Spookytookims, nope dont mind at all 🙂

off medication i expreienced Audio Hallucinations (voices), Visual hallucinations (people, shadows, animals, trees with faces), delusions (thought police were sneaking in house and poisoning my food, thought that a ex girlfriend had hired a hitman to get me, people reading my thoughts and also me hearing theirs).

Also no energy, insomnia, depression, very anti social, stopped taking care of myself basically.

Hi @Former-Member

thank you. i have no problem answering any questions, im very open about it. i dont feel the need to hide it. it is what it is, trying to hide it and bottle it all up on the inside just makes things worse. Also being in hospitals and so on, you get used to opening up about it pretty fast since a lot of people ask questions. but yeah i dont mind what so ever. If you ever want to ask anything im happy to answer.

Hi @Zam,

I just wanted to say a very big THANK YOU!

Starting this thread and offering to answering questions is very geneous.

It's really wonderful to get advice and information from someone that has first hand experience.

@Zam, I second @CherryBomb in saying this is a really insightful thing you are doing and thank you so much for giving us this unique opportunity. Does it help you too, to answer the questions? I'd hate to think you were not getting anything out of it.

I do have another question, if you feel up to answering.

That all sounds really scary. When you had your first episode did you reallise something was amiss or did it feel real and logical at the time? I would have been terrified, I think, but I would like to hear how it felt to you.

I understand if you don't want to answer, it might bring back memories you don't want to deal with and I apologise profusely if I have done that.

hi @CherryBomb

thank you and im happy to help others in any way. if talking about my experiences helps others who are going through something similar in anyway, it kinda twists something bad into something good.. thats my way at looking at it anyway. A big reason why im now getting into the work field of mental health

hi @CherryBomb, thank you. if me talking about my experiences helps anyone in any way, it makes it all worth while 🙂

to answer your question, nah it wasnt scary at all. Its hard to explain, i mean you think if you started hearing random things in your head that you would know that something is seriously wrong but when it was just starting, it was just hearing slight whispers. couldnt make out what was being said and was really easy to ignore.

As bit of time went on the voices got louder and it started as one voice and at its worst i was hearing 6 frequent voices. They even had names and hearing all those voices kind of wiped out my own thoughts since i couldnt hear my own thoughts over those voices. They started out really friendly, like saying i can do anything and just like really good things that gave me a ton of confidence.

That didnt last very long and it all started getting really negative where they were freindly but it all changed to like the point of constantly hearing to end my own life..

the voices as annoying as they were/are are nothing comparend to dealing with the visual hallucinations. Some of those were terrifying..

but yeah it never started like a full on episode to begin with. It was slowly building up to the point of a full blown episode that took a couple months to get to that point and never did i think anything was amiss or that i was sick or anything like that, i guess its hard to explain on that but yeah i guess my brain wasnt working normally so it made it that i just couldnt register that anything was wrong with me or that i was sick