I know I'm a weird case and I don't carry a dx of schizophrenia. And I have some issues now that are due to bipolar and maybe other things. I don't really carry a full diagnosis. My technical diagnosis is bipolar NOS with possible psychotic features, because all I have is a story of something that happened to me that isn't happening now and no means to get back into a pdoc regularly.

But....

If I had gone in to a pdoc at the time, I wonder if I would have a dx of schizophrenia or schizoaffective.

Because my delusion lasted at least 5 years, but possibly longer up to 7 years at the longest. It drove me to do things like call the police because I thought people were sneaking around my yard at night. I would tell anyone who would listen. I wasn't isolating, and I was functioning well enough. I had good grades in school, but I was only taking 3 classes per semester and one was usually an art class or theatre class. I couldn't hold a job and I never got my associates degree from community college. I went to college from 18 until I was 21, when I dropped out mid-semester for no reason at all. In that time I tried 5 different jobs. The longest job I held was 6 months, the shortest was 3 weeks. My self-care was fine at that time in terms of being showered and dressed and even wearing a little bit of make-up. But, I was still disorganized in general. My room was always a mess. My backpack was a mess.

I don't know, it's a big giant "maybe" but maybe not.

But, the real question I have is what made that delusion stop? What happened? It was locked up in my brain suddenly or faded? I don't know. But I completely forgot about it until that fateful day when I happened to drive passed the building that triggered it to begin with. And when that happened, why did I suddenly realize it had all been something unreal?

I can't say I'm a recovered high functioning schizophrenic. But I can say I had something very major happen to me that effected my whole life in my late teens and early 20s and something that wasn't treatment or meds made it stop. In fact, 0 awareness that anything different or unusual going on with my thoughts or behavior. Any pranoia I have now is minimal in comparison to what I experienced back then by comparison. I have so many questions. Will it come back? Was it just a weird phenomenon? I will never have answers, I've decided.