Did anyone among you know they were developing SZ?

A really simple question.

Did anyone among whom suffers of a full-blown SZ (no matter if under control or not) know something was terribly wrong with them when they were in the prodromal stages of the disease?

Did you notice any difference in your thought patterns, anything at all odd with your behaviour? Did this bring you to seek medical help?

This questions interests me an awful lot, so answers would be very appreciated.

Take care!

I thought i was in a class of my own and that is the main reason i did not connect with people.
I felt really great during developing it minus the anxiety with people, i was in two realitys and kept them separate from people.
Things got harder when these two realitys collided together and that's when i knew i was a paranoid schyzo.

I'm not diagnosed by any therapist and i still refuse... i'm sure i'll manage to hide it somehow... cope with it.. i think not.

My Schizo was brought on by drug use. I used marijuana and Acid and shrooms alot in the late 90's and things seemed fine. then I started using Meth and anhydros and things went very bad. It started by thinking that everything that everyone was saying around me about any topic was about me personally. Like if someone was talking about there fishing trip somehow I was the fish i the story and somehow everything that anyone did seemed to apply to my thinking.

I had no auditory hallucinations but then I started trying to use tv shows and songs as weapons to fight against my perceptions that I belived others were using by flinging the tv show or song at me to make a point. still no hallucinations. Then in 2001 shortly after 911 i started to hear people talking in my head but i didnt know that they were. i thought people were gathering in the next room and stepping up to a microphone and talking through a speaker about all aspects of my life. i thought there were cameras and microphones and speakers in my car and all over my house. otherwise how would anyone know what i was doing and be able to comment on it.

The hallucinations only happened when i smoked meth or anhydros. and then they would go away when I came down. then one day it clicked in my head that they were not watching me on camera they were responding to my thoughts. after that point the voices never stopped or subsided. i went weeks without sleep. then in 2005 i had had enough and sought medical help.

i am now on disability because i cant focus and have a problem being around people so i cant work and i am now taking zyprexa which work really well for a few days. all the voices gone. but now they are back so im thinking i need something else. I am a lot better now am off the drugs and can cope much better with it. but still when im out of my house among people i think they are in my head and i cant deal with that.

plus all they crazy $#%^ i talk about with them and the way i act with them to me is shameful but it *****'s me up and i cant deal with it. so i feel bad being around the people. As long as I can get to sleep at night i can put up with it but it's really annoying. So i guess the best advice is not to use hard drugs and don't make everything about yourself. When you do that the hallucinations feed into that and in your mind the world warps itself around you. like a self fulfilling prophecy

I've had voices from a very young age. I started having other hallucinations around age 8. Everyone just passed it off as an over active imagination and nothing was really done with it. I think I was around 22 when I got the diagnosis.

I never really noticed it until I started living an adult life with kids of my own. I always just thought that was me and that was that. There was no real point at which I did or did not have symptoms in my mind.

I knew, I have heard voices as long as I can remember, and then the voices started to change and I would go into a fugue type state, where I'd blank out for hours. I sometimes lost time as well. As soon as I told my psychologist that I heard voices when I was a kid they told me about schizophrenia. and I knew the warning signs. As soon as things started to change I started researching schizophrenia again. Then I got diagnosed. I think I've just about left the prodromal stage. but since you asked about whether someone knew during the prodromal stage, I think the answer still applies, but I'm not, sure. Hope this helps.

i have schizoafective...

i started having trouble sleeping, i would wake up and feel really scared and wasnt sure why...another big thing, BIG thing, was that I started to hate being around people, like in stores, and stuff..i couldnt stand being around people, i felt an aversion to anything social. I became very withdrawn and irritable and on edge about small things and alot of anxiety..

While I was still in my prodromal stages I started doing weird things that I thought would cure my developing illness. I felt discomfort and felt there was something bad developing. Some exples of what I did that would aparantly cure my illness.

-jump in the snow wearing only boxers after a sweat lodge.
-take an anti dizzines drug called gravel
-I thought drinking a small coffee would heal the development(I was not a coffee drinker habitually)
-went to an accupucture clinic complaining my mind was cloudy

In the end I developed the full blown illness, until this day I don't know what would have been the way to avoid developing it and having a cessation to it after the prodromal stage. I hear many go through the prodromal stages and dont develop the full disorder. psychoative drugs greatly increase the risk of developing the disorder after the prodromal stage or should I say during, unfortunately my prodromal period encouraged me to experiment with cocaine and some liquid drug I took, I was told it was liquid MDMA but am still not sure what it was.

dextobra wrote:Did anyone among whom suffers of a full-blown SZ (no matter if under control or not) know something was terribly wrong with them when they were in the prodromal stages of the disease?Did you notice any difference in your thought patterns, anything at all odd with your behaviour? Did this bring you to seek medical help?

I don't ever recall thinking I was getting sick with a mental illness during my prodromal stage. I believed everything I was experiencing was real. I believed I was special and that's why I experienced 'special' things.

I was aware my experiences were changing, it just was not illness and no one would have been able to convince me otherwise.

Actually, I remember my brain feeling foggy and feeling like something was in my head. I did become convinced I had a brain tumor because of it. CT scans proved otherwise though, but I still didn't believe the scans lol That's the only type of sick I thought I had.

Hey Dextobra, please read your PM box.