I’ve never talked about this but I appreciate the question and all the answers because I feel like schizophrenia is so stigmatized that I have extended family who I don’t even tell I have it, although I do have a good inner circle type support system. I think for me, there wasn’t a clear beginning because through my teens I felt like everyone around me was talking about me and staring at me more than normal. I had an inner voice that turned into multiple voices that were so mean to me and some of them were very convincing that people around me were trying to harm me. It turned into feeling like spiders were crawling in my skin and I’d cut myself to try to get them out. My mom saw this and put me into an inpatient program even though she didn’t know why I did it, just that I did. I was as honest as I could be with the people there and that’s when I was first diagnosed but after getting out my mom didn’t care to keep up with my treatment since both of my parents are pretty absent, my dad also has schizophrenia and I harbored a lot of anger and resentment for how he treated me as a child and was in denial that I could be like him. It took a lot of struggles, an abusive relationship, and finally opening up to better members of my family to get real help and since then, with medication I live a pretty happy and fulfilling life. There will always be highs and lows but I know what’s going on now since I’m not in denial and I have support for when I get off track.