Anyone else with a schizophrenic relative?

[Lakme]

I was just wondering if there was anyone else who had a schizophrenic relative who was dealing with anxiety about the disease.

My mother has gone through a multitude of different diagnoses, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and somehow autism (this was at cedars sinai by the way)

We always knew her for use of meth, I've never touched a drug in my life and I spent a majority of my life trying to be a good person. Thinking about it I think I've avoided most risk factors except extreme stress, and after she became homeless i spent most of my time with my father. I got past my fear of physical illness and now I'm dealing with this. I'm just glad I'm going to see a psych soon.

Is there anyone else here who has a relative with schizo or other SMI who's worried about it or conquered their fear?

[AntsyVee]

I have a mother with schizoaffective disorder. When I was younger, I worried about it more, but now that I'm in my mid 30s, I've pretty much stopped. She has estranged herself from us, and I also was raised mostly by my father afterwards. I had years of therapy though to help me deal with these issues. I'm glad you are also pursuing that route.

I do however worry about postpartum depression, as my mother had it horribly after my birth. It it one thing that has made me hesitate having children.

[Lakme]

I have a mother with schizoaffective disorder. When I was younger, I worried about it more, but now that I'm in my mid 30s, I've pretty much stopped. She has estranged herself from us, and I also was raised mostly by my father afterwards. I had years of therapy though to help me deal with these issues. I'm glad you are also pursuing that route.

I do however worry about postpartum depression, as my mother had it horribly after my birth. It it one thing that has made me hesitate having children.

I was in counseling before. I've heard that the ones who are worried about schizophrenia-related disorders when it's in their family are the ones who don't get it. I don't know how much truth there is to this but as far as I've read there's never been a case of someone who was worried about developing schizophrenia who developed it and there are fewer cases of those who developed schizophrenia with a schizophrenic family member than those who don't, or at least they don't mention it. There's also never been an instance of the illness before it happened to my mother. I often wonder if I would have gone mad by now after all that's happened to me.

It's been over a year since the severe anxiety started and even longer since I started to experience depression. I haven't gotten worse from what I can gather and I've gotten better in some areas due to going outside and vigorous exercise. I'm much better than I was back in November. I was falling apart thinking that I was dying from pancreatic cancer, imagining my own funeral, etc.

I guess that's a plus but it worries me. My mother actually showed up last week, albeit not knowing I was here at my grandmothers house. I have this tendency to lose weight whenever I have an anxiety attack and I have to lift weights to keep myself from getting too skinny. It seems like no matter how much I eat my metabolism refuses to comply when I freak out, but as long as I keep my routine up my anxiety doesn't come back. People think being so skinny is cool but I wish I was 145 again. I'm glad there's at least someone on here I can relate to. It was beginning to bother me.

[AntsyVee]

You are not alone. There is also another person on here with a schizophrenic sister, and a few with schizophrenic friends.

Did anything trigger the severe health anxiety?

Are you in contact with your mom or are you trying to keep your distance?

Anxiety affects weight a lot. I have the opposite problem.

[Lakme]

You are not alone. There is also another person on here with a schizophrenic sister, and a few with schizophrenic friends.

Did anything trigger the severe health anxiety?

Are you in contact with your mom or are you trying to keep your distance?

Anxiety affects weight a lot. I have the opposite problem.

Nothing in particular. I started to get panic attacks because of work and because I don't like being around my uncle or his family. They're in a weird cult like subset of christianity and they used to let their kids aggravate the living hell out of me. I was getting used to it for a while, then my other uncle passed away and the downward spiral started. I started to experience significantly more anxiety than before and one day I got food poisoning and when I woke up something weird was going on with my vision.

I didn't know what was going on and I still kinda don't know how to explain it but it was like there were floaters everywhere. I'm sure you can probably guess that I've been worrying recently that this is a hallucination as it's persisted constantly for the past year but it actually went away when I was on antidepressants. I also don't see it when I'm outside or wearing sunglasses

I can't actually remember if the floaters started first or if it was the rings around lights. But yeah, I went outside one night and realized that something was off. I looked up "rings around lights" and sure enough google was telling me that I was going blind. I ran to the optometrist and she told me nothing was wrong so I found something else to worry about.

Edit: I am not in contact with my mom. She's homeless, she's an avid drug addict and she refuses to take her medication. It's been like this for years. Sometimes I question if she's genuinely schizophrenic or if it's just the drugs/personality. She doesn't scream to me like any of the other homeless mentally ill who shout at people on the sidewalk but she did tell my grandpa when he was trying to get her a cellphone that he can't because "they" were listening (you know the government or whatever.) I would like to believe that she was bipolar with psychotic features but the diversity of her different diagnoses makes it all the more fun to fear if any of this is ever going to happen to me.