Where there any warning signs?

I am a little embarrassed right now so I've made a new account for myself just to ask this. I was wondering if anyone diagnosed, or with family who has been, noticed any signs of the illness before or immediately preceding its onset? Did you begin to have any particular symptoms, did anything change, or were any of your diagnoses modified to schizophrenia once symptoms became psychotic? I've read a spattering of literature suggesting that there is a prodromal stage. What was the actual diagnostic procedure? Were there prior misdiagnoses?

I'm wondering because (as you could probably guess from my trepidation) I have some suspicion that my mother or I have schizophrenia or may be developing it. I never thought about it before until I was diagnosed with bipolar depressive type with psychotic features this year. The doctor said that my symptoms were a little funny and didn't completely meet bipolar but because of my frequent mood swings, the diagnoses was used. I have family with bipolar but they do not behave like me at all. Prior to bipolar I was diagnosed PTSD. I was so fearful at the time that i crawled on the floor to avoid being seen by anyone through the window and became so reclusive that I didn't take out my trash until maggots and flies accumulated. That was when I turned 18. since then I have become even more withdrawn. I was always a "loner" and socially anxious, but now I can't even look at my phone because I am afraid. I don't really want friends and am mostly content to stay in my house for weeks, but I obviously can't function that way. No job, no work, no friends, hardly even a relationship with immediate family because I am uncomfortable with them, too. I was never bothered by this and most people simply knew me to be an "introvert". Since I was 14 socializing was very hard because one day something switched and from that day on it felt like I saw the world through a glass cage. It seemed fake. Sometimes I would be afraid that I was dreaming and I speak softly for fear that whoever i think I am speaking with isn't really there, especially if I don't know them. So I avoid people. I don't usually like their company and I feel too anxious with them. However, I have always had more overtly psychotic behavior too. Until i was 13 I heard voices and saw shadow people, colorful figures and animals that were not there. I have had a life long and intense fear of the dark. As an adult I rarely have hallucinations, but I have constant phosphenes, black spots that look like insects, and under stress I hear banging, crashing, or a roaring crowd that others do not hear..

My mother is the same way. She and I even share the same body language. She saw "little people" until she was nine years-old. She is reclusive like me and feels "overwhelmed" by the energetic presence of other people. We are our best friends because we don't have any others. She has always been sad and suicidal, but over the years her behavior has become more erratic and her ideas strange. I don't know if she still sees little people, but she has odd beliefs. She believes in evil entities and spirits and will interpret innocuous events as signs. She has become increasingly difficult to speak with as she her thought is derailed and tangential and it does not always make sense. She seems...almost senile. In retrospect, we have done things that made no sense. We started locking our door and hiding in the room because we had convinced one another that our roommate was going to eat our cat. I don't even know why we thought it, but it was a legitimate concern. Since being diagnosed bipolar and considering our similarities I wonder if she may have the same problems. I have always thought something was not right with her, and now that I know something is not right with me I have to reconsider everything else. I am becoming a little suspicious and frightened that I am either developing worsening bipolar or that it is beginning to become schizophrenia. I may be getting carried away though; is this something a doctor would even speak toward? What can someone do if they are in a position like this, which is becoming increasingly alarming because now my feelings feel not my own, what does one do? I don't want to be THAT person that goes to the DR and rambles on about how I am afraid my mother and I may be developing schizophrenia. Would a doctor even care when the medicine is the same? How is S even diagnosed? Do you have to wait until the psychotic break occurs?

I was curious if anyone could recall if there were any warning signs, anything that you in retrospect realize may have implicated progression into schizophrenia. They've been trying me on antipschotics for a little while now, but my pdoc wasn;t really interested in telling me WHY. It wasn;t until being hospitalized that they shrugged, scratched their heads and then said, "well look like bipolar" SO I have some reservation about his dx, even though I know that bipolar and schizophrenia share so much in common that it can be difficult tease them apart and make sense of it. I'm selfishly and paranoidingly fearing that I am in the prodromal stage of this and that it will get worse. to quell my fears, I would like to know, at one point did you begin to suspect that you had may have had schizoprenia? When was the fist time you began to feel or act differently?

Thank you...I'm just curious and figure this is a better alternative and hounding the hospital for my medical records so I can know whether or not we should both be comitted!