There's been a lot of talk lately about
catching the first signs of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, which is what I have,
and other disorders like that, but those signs can be really hard to catch even when you're the one
experiencing them. So I wanted to share a little bit about my experience with the beginning stages
of my schizoaffective disorder. When it comes to schizophrenia spectrum disorders, there is often
what is called a prodrome and that is that sort of beginning period right before a true psychotic
break where the first symptoms will really start presenting. I've lived with depression since I
was very young, probably four or five years old, so I was very familiar with all the classic
depression symptoms - feeling worthless, feeling hopeless, hurting myself,
having ideation, and things like that. But when I was in the summer before
my senior year of high school, those feelings changed. At the time, I thought
it was just a different type of depression, but all I knew was that it felt very different
because I didn't feel worthless and hopeless. There wasn't a sadness. There wasn't a loneliness
or an emptiness. It was completely blank - like even empty is a feeling; I just felt like a
completely blank slate. I had no problem going to work I had no problem going to see friends if they
made plans, but I had no motivation to make plans on my own or you know to make plans with friends
to do anything. I had no motivation to really do much of anything and I started sleeping maybe two
hours a night at the worst I would just lie in bed awake all night. I could take sleep aids and they
wouldn't always help. I just felt like I was just existing, and I was okay with that. I wasn't upset
about it. I wasn't lonely or anything like that. And it felt like I couldn't even move sometimes.
I would be lying on the couch watching TV, and by watching TV I mean staring blankly at the
screen while things happened on it, my movements when I would get up off the couch were slow.
I didn't feel like I could move much faster, but I would force myself up and once I was up it
became easier. Once I got busy doing something, once I was at work, once I was out with my friends
things became much easier and I found my emotion and I had fun. I could, I could go out and I
could enjoy myself. I could enjoy spending time with my friends. I could enjoy my job. But then
when I left, when I left that situation where things were fun and exciting, I wasn't able
to recreate that on my own. I couldn't go home and find joy in you know doing something that I
loved or anything like that. It was almost like being around other people was what helped me feel
anything really. I could go hours without saying a word and I could acknowledge that that seemed odd
but I had no real desire to change it. I was just kind of observing everything that was happening
and there was nothing heartless about it, there was nothing totally emotionless and dead inside
about it or anything like that. I was just kind of the calm observer. I didn't feel detached. I felt
completely a part of the real world still. I just, I just existed. At times it wasn't
distressing to me to just kind of float along in the world but there were other
points where I, I was confused by it and I didn't know why it was happening. I didn't know really
what was going on because it was so different from the depression that I had experienced previously,
and looking back now it was probably more like the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, but, at
the time, I didn't even know what those were. Outwardly, what people saw was probably either no
change at all because I was able to enjoy myself when I was with friends and I was able to be more
talkative and more active and things like that and when I was at my job or or doing things that I
loved like horseback riding, but otherwise it honestly probably looked a lot like depression,
maybe even more so than the actual depression that I had felt for years and had really hidden.
But, at least for me, the difference was in the way that I experienced these symptoms. The the
lack of motivation, the anhedonia, the apathy, the social withdrawal - all of those are the same
things that I had experienced with my depression, but it felt very, very different. Now, I don't
want anybody to panic or to go out and diagnose anybody based off of this video because these are
just my experiences and these types of symptoms appear in many mental illnesses and brain
diseases. The point of this video really is just to take things seriously when someone comes
to you and they're feeling different and they're feeling off or they seem off or they seem confused
or anything like that. Just take it seriously. Pay attention. And don't just brush it off because
the sooner we can get people help the better.
