It's impossible to pinpoint the exact moment I developed schizophrenia. You can pinpoint the year (2004), but this disorder is something that develops over time, as fast as that process can be.
Understanding schizophrenia fully is similarly impossible. The causes are mostly unknown, boiled down to a variety of personal, genetic and environmental factors. Researchers know that extreme stress and drug abuse are the most common things that trigger the onset of the disorder, but many are stumped even trying to determine whether someone has it (diagnosing schizophrenia is complicated and there's no straightforward test for it).
Approximately 1 in 40000 people will have developed schizophrenia before the age of 13- for that reason, I am statistically an abnormality. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about that, at least for now. It certainly makes one feel lonely, wondering if anyone will ever truly «get» it, but it also makes the rare moments when you find someone that understands it on a personal basis all the more relieving. Sometimes, that's the best you can get- relief that you're not the only one.
Considering I've had this issue since before I even entered the 1st grade, I've gotten plenty of practice in masking my symptoms. That, along with a fuckton of medication, keeps me «normal» enough in the eyes of others. Again, this is something I don't know how to feel about- should I feel lucky I am this coherent or something? Lucky that I can distinguish what's reality (well, reality according to the majority of the population) and what's not?
In talks with my psychiatrist, he straight-up told me that I wasn't lucky at all. I suppose he's correct. Having your entire life defined by a disorder in such a way that you don't even remember how to think in any other way, it can be scary.
Fear held a tight grip on me for a long time. Fear of rapists, stalkers, spies, anything that would want to harm me in a way that wouldn't result in a swift death. Regular school bullies would become people spying on my every move to keep pestering me, doctors would become monsters who wanted to take advantage of my body. For a while I'd try to protect myself against these perceived threats with ritualistic practices (everything I'd count had to end on an even number, all phrases had to be structured with some degree of hidden meaning), but after a while they stopped working and fear gripped me even more forcefully.
That fear did come from a very real source. Sometimes I doubt that the sexual abuse that triggered my schizophrenia onset was even real, but why would a child make that up? Regardless, because I was afraid of everyone, I told no one about any of my bad experiences. After all, I couldn't trust anyone, and who would believe me anyways?
Of course, those things aren't true. These were things I believed in, in a state of mind so chaotic that it would be impossible to deny them. They're all in the past.
The past may haunt me, but I'm doing a lot better nowadays. It's strange remembering anything from back then, even the better memories have this looming bitterness to them caused by years of untreated mental illness.
Yet I move on, as do most other people. Schizophrenia took a hold of me once, but I can proudly say I tamed it. It might have hurt me a lot on the past, but I accept it now. What else could I do but that?