Is It childhood onset schizophrenia or something else?

Okay, I have this family member who has anxiety, OCD, and depression. Alright, well, he's also really paranoid. He's only 12 now and he's been this way for awhile. At one point we couldn't get him to eat in resturaunts because he was afraid they might try to poison him. At first we thought he was joking since he kinda smiled and laughed about it, but after he kept asking us if we thought the food could be poisoned time after time again at resturaunt after resturaunt, and his tone of voice took on a serious tone and he actually started refusing to eat the food, we knew he was serious. He's getting medication and counseling and has been for awhile and it helps some. Sometimes I wonder if it is more than anxiety, OCD, and depression, but he's actually not the one I'm wondering about, however. It's his sister that has me confused the most.

The boy talks alot to his mother and the rest of his family so we kinda know what's going on with him. The girl is more reserved with telling certain stuff I suppose and she's not as close to me as he is, so when my cousin told me about some new developments with her, I was surprised. She spends a lot of time with our cousins and recently one of them pulled me aside and said she was worried about her. First of all she said that she was asking a lot about germs and safety lately and showing weird fears about them. We thought maybe she was picking that up off of her brother since he is afraid of germs and has OCD's about them, etc. So, that wasn't the main concern.

She said that my niece had taken several spells where she would be really quiet. Actually, I had noticed that when I was around her on her last visit. I thought it was odd because she is usually really talkative. Once my younger cousin asked her what was wrong.....she was acting upset, but she wouldn't talk about it. She kept saying she'd tell her later. At first I thought maybe she was upset that I was there, but looking back on it that doesn't sound right. While she can get jealous, she isn't the type to be quiet about it. She would have told me to my face. However, this wasn't the main concern, either.

Turns out that when she got my older cousin alone she asked her if she had been good lately. I wouldn't think much about her asking that, either since I had given her a hard time about being "bad" or "mean" recently. I guess I shouldn't use those words, but she really is mean sometimes. So am I, though and it still hurts to hear it. Anyways, here's where it gets worrisome. She said that she had bad words in her head and that "They" were telling her to say them. My cousin said she acted ashamed of this and never elaborated on who "they" were. My cousin also said that my niece seemed to have made a point to wait till she was alone to talk to her about it. She also said that my niece is worried that she is saying the words even though she isn't. She said that sometimes she thinks she has said them or might have said them or something like that, but that she has not said them in actuality. I don't know if "they" are voices in her head or if "they" are simply her own thoughts that at her young age she is unable to distinguish as her own. I mean I hear myself talking in my head, but I can tell it's me. I wondered if she couldn't tell it was her......but if she's saying "they" I must wonder if there is just one voice or multiple unique ones. If there are many, chances are she isn't just hearing herself thinking.

She is 7 years old and will be 8 this year. I know that is really young to develop schizophrenia, but it is possible and it was one of the first things that popped into my head. I don't know what to do because she made my cousins promise not to tell and they only told me because they were concerned. If we tell her mother she will likely tell the child that she knows and then she will never tell my cousins anything else since she won't trust them. I think it is important for them to keep the trust open. However, I am concerned for her. If this isn't a passing thing, she may need help.

I would encourage you to talk seriously about getting the two kids into therapy. Some of their feelings and, more importantly there perceptions may be skewed somewhat.

My son was diagnosed as having schizophrenia at age sixteen. He had been in counseling since he was seven years old. I truly believe that early diagnosis is vital. I think of the years when we struggled with him. If he had been diagnosed sooner I believe that he wouldn't have had to go through all he did.

Sweetngentle

Be careful about trying to diagnose her so young. Yes, some kids do develop this kind of illness, but they are a lot rarer than people think. The huge number of hasty diagnoses made in children that are not mentally ill at all but simply trying to come to terms with their world as it changes means that people think it's more common than it is.

My eldest is eight; she's been having symptoms that would be diagnosed as schizophrenia in an dult for a year or so. But she isn't ill; she is just an intelligent, imaginitive child who's brain likes to fill in the gaps for her. She also has thoughts that bother her - 'bad' thoughts. The thing is; kids hear and see all sorts of things they don't understand and are not equipped to deal with - on teh news, on television programmes, conversations they overhear. At the same time as dealing with that, they have to fit it in to the morals that we teach them; adults have a hard enough time doing that - to a child, it can sometimes feel that their own thoughts and feelings are taboo, even though they're perfectly normal. Often hearing voices is a person's way of distancing themselves from thoughts they find hard to accept as their own. In a child, they also feel the need to say bad words; kids find swearing irresistable and yet also frightening at the same time, for example. It sounds more that she's trying to deal with something like that than developing schizophrenia.

With my daughter, we spent time reassuring her that even though she did things and thought things that she felt were bad, that she herself wasn't; that everybody has bad thoughts, and what she needed to do was accept that and forgive herself. My second daughter is now 7 and starting to go through teh same thing. Growing up in the world now is a really scary thing; kids have a lot to learn to live with, and they're finding ways to deal with it. When they're having problems dealing with it, then you get this kind of situation starting. It doesn't mean they're mentally ill - it means they just need some sympathetic help to come to terms with their expanding world.

I'm sure (especially if you're in teh USA) that you could find some therapist who'd happily say she's ill and hand out pills; but these drugs do cause long-term irreperable damage to the human brain, and that kind of diagnosis will probably also set her up for a life of illness; in effect, the problem is created.

I'm not saying mental illness doesn't exist in children; but it is much rarer than statistics would have us believe. We tend, as a culture, to be far too quick to class difficulties as illness, and treat it as such. More often than not, these kids are absolutely normal human beings, with absolutely normal reactions to the world *for a child*. They need help to deal with their own experiences and understand themselves and the world they're growing up in, not a diagnosis and a prescription.

My eldest hardly hears her voices any more. When she does, I know she's worried about something she's having problems understanding, or feeling bad for something she feels is wrong in her own thoughts. We talk, and she moves on again. She's doing really well; she's a much happier child now than she was. Nobody would ever look at her now and think she had any kind of mental illness.