Paranoid Schizophrenia

I have Paranoid Schizophrenia. I was diagnosed in 2005 while I was in the Army. Even though I was diagnosed with it then I do believe I had it all along even as a child. After being diagnosed with it I was in denial because I thought about all the things I have heard about Schizophrenics. And I thought to myself that is not me at all. The more I learned about my illness I came to terms with it and realized that I do have it. It is a disability, an illness and over the years I have come to accept it. I didn't know too much about Schizophrenia other than what I had heard on TV or from other people. Society as a whole makes Schizophrenia sound bad and those who have it or tagged insane or crazy. I don't think I am insane or crazy at all. I wouldn't say that I am entirely normal but I am not crazy or insane. I guess you could say I am unique, different than others. And I don't mind being different than others. When I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia I looked back on my childhood and thought about things I had done and how I used to think and realized that I obviously had it when I was a child too but was just never diagnosed with it then. I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Depression as a child but never the Schizophrenia.

I was diagnosed wit Paranoid Schizophrenia, which is one of the many different types of Schizophrenia. Paranoid Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness in which a person loses touch with reality (pyschosis). I am still somewhat in denial about that, I don't think I lose touch with reality but I guess if you were around me you could say otherwise. The classic features of Paranoid Schizophrenia are having delusions and hearing things that aren't real. I see things and I hear things that others cannot see or hear but they are real to me. And I believe those things are there because I can see them with my eyes even if no one else can see what I see or hear what I hear. Sometimes when I go into a Schizophrenic Episode depending on who I am around it freaks the person out. But most of the time as long as I take my medicine I am okay. However if I don't take my medicine on time and its late at night the delusions appear. My Schizophrenia is worse at night that is why I try to go to bed at the same time every night and make sure I take my medicine and don't stay up too late. The longer I stay up usually the worse it gets until I take my medicine and go to sleep. It doesn't help that on top of that I have Manic Depressive Bipolar Disorder. And at night my mania comes out and I can't sleep which leads me to having insomnia. Which I used to have really bad until I was put on one regular shift at work and now I go to bed at least by 10pm and get up early in the morning. Before I was working shift work and I never went to bed at the same time and most of the time I would stay up late because I had insomnia and couldn't sleep and didn't take my medicine like I should have been taking it. That was years ago and I am doing much better with sleeping now and taking my medicine on time.

With Paranoid Schizophrenia, your ability to think and function in daily life may be better than with other types of Schizophrenia. You may not have as many problems with memory, concentration or dulled emotions. However since I have ADHD I have a huge problem with concentration, have since I was a kid. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in elementary school and put on Ritalin and Wellbutrin. Paranoid Schizophrenia is a serious, lifelong condition that can lead to many complications, including suicidal behavior. And I have experienced this most of my life being that I have had suicidal thoughts many times even trying to attempt suicide and never succeeding, obviously. I was always depressed growing up my whole life but I had a good home life and my parents love me and treated me good it was just a battle within my head. A battle that I felt like I kept losing and I did lose the battle several times but I have always fought back.

Here are some signs and symptoms of Paranoid Schizophrenia:

Signs and symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia may include:

• Auditory hallucinations, such as hearing voices
• Delusions, such as believing a co-worker wants to poison you
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Emotional distance
• Violence
• Argumentativeness
• Self-important or condescending manner
• Suicidal thoughts and behavior

As I mentioned above I hear things; voices, noises, things others do not hear but I can hear them. I have a big problem with having delusions as they call it. I am a very paranoid person, it used to be very extreme but with taking my medicine its not as bad anymore thankfully. Sometimes it gets on my nerves being this paranoid and I feel sometimes like I get on others nerves. Thankfully my girlfriend is very understanding of my illness and has learned to cope with it and knows how to handle it. I have always had anxiety that seems like it will never go away. I am on medicine for my anxiety and it helps especially when I am having a panic attack. And in case you've never had one of those I will tell you it feels like an elephant is standing on your chest and you get chest pains. The anger part has always been with me, even since I was a child. I don't know why I am angry but I have always been like that. I was an angry child growing up and I hate to admit it but I am still an angry person. Sometimes I go into anger fits of rage. I don't know why I am an angry person, I don't guess I have a reason to be angry but at the time when my anger shows I do at that moment have a reason to be angry. I took anger management classes but that didn't help too well, really just kind of made me angrier because I felt like it wasn't helping me but I did listen. The emotional distance is something I face, I don't like getting close to people and even my good friends or my best friend for example I distance myself from. I have season depression and in the Winter I stay to myself, my best friend however probably wonders what is wrong with me but I am like a hermit and just don't go out much if I don't have too. And I don't talk really about what's wrong with me because I feel like no one will understand me. Ask anyone that knows me I am very argumentative. I used to argue with my parents when I was a child. I gave them such a fit always arguing with them and being in my mind a bad child. Maybe I wasn't a bad child I just had behaviorial problems or maybe it was because of my mental illnesses but I used to cuss my parents a lot. Now that I am an adult I feel so bad for the way I acted as a child, if I could go back and do it all over I definitely would have been a better child for my parents. But when I became an adult I started treating my parents a lot better and stopped arguing with them, stopped cussing them and I started appreciating them more and acting better for them. I love my parents very much and I can only imagine what it was like raising me. It was a task for sure because I was a handful for them. No wonder my mom and dad have high blood pressure with the way I acted. Like I said before, growing up especially in my teens I was suicidal and I used to cut myself with anything I could. I was a cutter yes, I didn't do it for attention because I mostly hid it from everyone. I did it because it released the pain I was feeling inside and it made me feel better.

Key symptoms

Delusions and hallucinations are the symptoms that make paranoid schizophrenia most distinct from other types of schizophrenia.

• Delusions. In paranoid schizophrenia, a common delusion is that you're being singled out for harm. For instance, you may believe that the government is monitoring every move you make or that a co-worker is poisoning your lunch. You may also have delusions of grandeur — the belief that you can fly, that you're famous or that you have a relationship with a famous person, for example. You hold on to these false beliefs despite evidence to the contrary. Delusions can result in aggression or violence if you believe you must act in self-defense against those who want to harm you.
• Auditory hallucinations. An auditory hallucination is the perception of sound — usually voices — that no one else hears. The sounds may be a single voice or many voices. These voices may talk either to you or to each other. The voices are usually unpleasant. They may make ongoing criticisms of what you're thinking or doing, or make cruel comments about your real or imagined faults. Voices may also command you to do things that can be harmful to yourself or to others. When you have paranoid schizophrenia, these voices seem real. You may talk to or shout at the voices.

I always seem to think the worst of people when I first meet them. I don't trust a lot of people therefore I don't have a lot of friends. I most of the time think people are just wanting to be my friends because they want something from me and that they're using me for something. I have over the years learned to live with the voices and things I see and mostly ignore them the best I can. As a teenager the voices were unpleasant and they would say things like I was fat and that I am ugly. They would point out all of my insecurities which just made me feel even worse about myself. I have built up my self confidence and I am not as insecure about myself as I used to be. One time when I was a teenager one of the voices told me to put a spell on my mom. So my best friend and I put a spell on my mom to make her have nightmares. Years later we reversed that spell and my mom said she didn't have nightmares anymore. My best friend and I were into witchcraft.

Paranoid schizophrenia and other forms of schizophrenia are brain disorders. Genetics and environment likely both play a role in causing schizophrenia.

Although the precise cause of paranoid schizophrenia isn't known, certain factors seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering paranoid schizophrenia, including:

• Having a family history of schizophrenia
• Exposure to viruses while in the womb
• Poor nutrition while in the womb
• Stressful life circumstances
• Older paternal age
• Taking psychoactive drugs during adolescence

Signs and symptoms of schizophrenia typically develop between the teenage years and the mid-30s.

Left untreated, paranoid schizophrenia can result in severe emotional, behavioral, health, and even legal and financial problems that affect every area of your life. Complications that paranoid schizophrenia may cause or be associated with include:

• Suicidal thoughts and behavior
• Self-destructive behavior
• Depression
• Abuse of alcohol, drugs or prescription medications
• Poverty
• Homelessness
• Incarceration
• Family conflicts
• Inability to work or attend school
• Health problems from antipsychotic medications
• Being a victim or perpetrator of violent crime
• Heart and lung disease related to smoking