[teenwitch1997]

I stumbled upon a video of a man describing his struggle with schizophrenia over the years, and the years preceding his diagnosis and it really frightened me because I related to a lot of the things he had to say. I didn’t know some of these things weren’t normal. I am 17, so it’s still very early for me, but I’m afraid that I’m experiencing early warning signs.
I wanted to write out the things that I have experienced that made me begin to worry after watching that mans videos. I’m wondering if any of you can relate to this, or if you think it’s probably not anything to worry about.

I always fear the house is burning, to the point of I smell smoke, and I can’t sleep because I’m so afraid. I check all the appliances and heaters, and theres never anything there, and my family looks at me like I’m crazy.
I have heard small things occasionally, usually more frequently when I’m stressed out. The first time I can remember it was when I was 14. It’s often someone calling my name, or family/friends talking when there aren’t in the house with me. It’s never more than a sentence, and usually less than that. Sometimes it sounds like its in a room adjacent to me.
I have believed secretly since I was 14 that someone in my family was being inhabited by an evil demon/alien. I always kept it to my self, and I finally told my therapist about it after four years.
I am terrified of the inside of my house, I’ve had two panic attacks because I was alone, in two different house I’ve lived in. I think there are demons/monsters in certain rooms that wait for me to pass by. I have trouble sleeping sometimes because I think they are watching me.

I am reluctant to breech the subject to my therapist, because I know he’ll think Im being hypochondrical.

[Sometimes psychotic]

So psychiatrists and psychologists are working out early warning signs right now---some people that have them go on to develop sz others do not. Some people start on a low dose of anti-psychotic however this is highly controversial as the meds are not benign. Some people are just more colorful than others, some develop a related personality disorder. Its highly variable and even in the best of studies only around 40% of the people selected for further study go on to develop anything. Other studies use cbt to logically think through the delusions/hallucinations...this is pretty much harmless and is generally a good thing for everyone to have. In terms of prevention...first breaks are often associated with stress so try to manage that...pick up yoga or something calming etc. Other than that it will either happen or not, there is no prepping for it.

[ZehR]

I'm also 17 and take low dose antipsychotics because I can't yet handle the hallucinations/delusions from Schizotypal PD (Which rarely turns into schizophrenia). SometimesPsychotic is right. Maybe Schizophrenia can be prevented with early intervention. Stress triggered my first psychosis and it was getting worse and worse until i took antipsychotics. I hear about people with schizophrenia describing their onset as a switch that went from on to off but it's not always like that.

What you're describing sounds like you are going through a lot of stress which causes paranoia, anxiety and so on where you could go into psychosis if you have a predisposition for psychosis I think. It WILL get worse if you don't calm yourself down by doing something like running, cooking idk don't listen to loud music because for me it made the voices worse.

It seems a lot like the stress that I was in 2 years ago right before psychosis. A lot of people that have Schizophrenia can think of at least one thing that could of triggered it. My cousin likely got paranoid schizophrenia from smoking too much weed. It's good that you have insight because I didn't know what was going on.

[Sometimes psychotic]

The effect of drug use on the age at onset of ... [Schizophr Res. 2014] - PubMed - NCBI

Have to agree with ZehR...you can get an earlier onset with substance abuse...so avoid that as well...