I blamed myelf ( trigger warning)

This is the first time I have ever admitted this to myself and I just want to get it out there so I don't feel like I'm going nuts. I'm a schizophrenic and have had symptoms since I was 9, was not diagnosed until I was 26. ( My doctor says it might have started this young because I went through puberty at this age.) I went through years of hiding things and symptoms because I thought I was causing them. Looking back how no one took the suicide attempts, tantrums, and other things as a cry for help I don't know. Maybe I was just seen as a weak or lazy person. I grew up with nice parents but my extended family and culture is full of religious fanatics. They still believe mental illness is caused by demons.

For years I thought I caused this myself by being sinful. My sin was the abuse I was going through. I thought me doing that or allowing that to happen was sinning. Growing up in school I would hear the story of Maria Goretti, the saint who preferred death rather than to be raped. She is praised at the virgin martyr. It was a standard I didn't live up to, I chose to live. It's sounds so ridiculous now. It's sad really. All those years of pain for nothing. I still have only told my immediate family about my illness. I fear the stigma of sin and somehow having caused the mental illness myself. I'm posting this in hopes that if someone else has gone through the same thing please know you are not alone. It's not your fault.