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So I am a female, 21 years old, and I have this imaginary friend. His name is Ben. Ben came to be when I first moved to North Carolina when I was 4 years old and didn't know anybody. He's always looked the same, but has not always acted the same. When I was younger, he was more of a playmate and supporter (even though sometimes I would imagine him spanking or being aggressive with me). I always had social issues (e.g. I would get a panic attack when I said something to someone and they responded with "what?", as in they didn't hear me or understand me. Never able to keep friends. These days, Ben has been a constant voice in my head, telling me to stab my fiancé, kick the dog, scratch my face, etc. He can be very condescending to me and tell me I'm worthless, I'm a terrible person, I'm a slut, everyone around me wishes I was dead. On the other hand, Ben is extremely protective over me. If my fiancé and I are fighting, Ben wants me to protect myself and hit him first, "don't let him pin you down, attack him first." If someone outside of my head is being rude or mean, he tells me they're wrong, I'm beautiful, I did my best, etc. So he reverts back to the supportive friend he was in the beginning. There are times where I have gaps in my memory. One time, my fiancé was talking about when his mom took us to Olive Garden, and I had NO memory of it. Ben proceeded to convince me that Drew (fiancé) was confusing me with an old girlfriend, until he got his mother on the phone to calm me down and convince me that it was actually me. There are so many incidents like this where I don't remember conversations, events, even entire days. I feel like Ben might be taking over maybe? Also, I hear other voices, see other hallucinations, but none are as, I guess "important" as Ben. This is a very scary situation for me. I have attempted suicide multiple times, stabbed an ex roommate, stabbed my fiancé, hurt my pets, etc. I have also had psychotic outbursts where I tried to bash my head into my driveway, slice my face up (which resulted in my fiancé having to pry the knife from my hands which almost cut off his thumb). I haven't sought help because honestly, I am very scared to lose Ben. I feel like I am vulnerable without him, and I would be missing a huge part of myself. I don't want to be doped up on drugs and I don't want anybody to take Ben away from me. Ben was there for me when I was raped at 13, and has protected me from a lot of situations. I don't want to lose him, but I cannot stand to see everyone around me continue to be hurt by me and by Ben. I don't know what this is, I've tried to do my research and it doesn't exactly fall into dissociative identity d/o, or schizophrenia. I need help figuring out what is wrong with me.

One of my brothers is 21 years old. He was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and OCD when he was a young kid. Since he was around 16-ish years old, he's told us that he hears voices that talk to him and have conversations. He is dead-set in his belief that there are "multiple universes or realities". His stutter is very, very bad; it seems like it worsens as he ages. Often when I'm conversing with him, his sentences get all stutter-y and disorganized to the point where he says he forgets what he was going to say. He has to have a nightlight on at night when he sleeping or otherwise he says that "murderous" creatures are going to kill him. He gets very very very upset when we try to reason with him about his beliefs in multiple universes and monsters out to get him at night. He's like a brick wall about it, honestly. Through one ear and out the other. This has been going on for many years and it's so horribly worrying, especially because I won't be at home with him hardly ever once I start college in August. He doesn't remember our cousins, aunts, or uncles until he sees them again and he says things like "How could I forget her/him?!" but days laters, he's forgotten who they are all over again. He's completely socially inept. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article describing the symptoms of schizophrenia and now I'm afraid that he might have or is developing schizophrenia. I'm aware of his behaviors that are from his OCD, ADHD, and autism. I can recognize them most of the time. If anyone here has been diagnosed with schizophrenia or is close to someone suffering some schizophrenia, could you please give me some of your thoughts/opinions? I'm worried, but am I overreacting? Am I just confusing some of his autistic behaviors for schizophrenia symptoms?

I am an Italian young girl. Way more young than someone can think. But not that much young. I have schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and really, REALLY bad anger problems, and nobody takes that seriously. I started knowing I had schizophrenia when I was 8, by seeing a shadow of a little girl with red eyes following me and saying mean things to me, and it's been going for 4 years now. One particular thing that has started this year is when the voices tell me to do something and I ignore it, they start screaming, which makes me scream too. That makes my family think I'm totally insane. For the depression and anxiety case, I started knowing I had them when I started posting drawing online. I got many haters because I drew with a mouse, but actually I really did appreciate my skills. But then, everything fell apart, and everytime I drew I started crying and hyperventilating, so I stopped drawing and rested. I even had some deadlines, like for a galaxy drawing that I had to make, my deadline was at Wednesday, but I started my drawing in Tuesday. I got so scared, so I decided to delete the deadline and never finish that drawing. I still have it on my art folder. For my anger problems, they are caused by the lack of eating and sleep I have. I am a girl who barely sleeps and almost never eats, and even if I try to take naps or I try to get a snack, I either feel sick, or my body literally refuses. Whenever someone speaks to me when I'm busy, I start screaming and threathen them, but I really don't want to do that. I even have suicidal thoughts. I tried to suicide 20 times in this year. I don't even know how many times I did the past years. Pills, hanging myself, cutting myself, jumping off my window and even poison myself (only once). It never works. I always wanted someone to help me, and seeing that this website is about helping people with my same problem made me feel more safe. Thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't disturb anyone. Have a good day. -Alice

Hi everyone. My name is Haruka. I'm 19 and struggling with schizophrenia, along with other mental illnesses. I started getting symptoms of schizophrenia around 2009 and was diagnosed in the following year. I used to be on medications but my insurance deemed prescriptions for mental illnesses as "unnecessary" and are no longer covering. Therefore, it would be very expensive out of pocket. So, I've been off meds for about two years, going on three. Some days are worse than others, as you all may understand. Sometimes, I'll go for weeks without having an episode! And I'll think I'll be fine forever!! Only to find myself back into the small dark hole. I'm currently learning about herbs and crystals to help cope with my schizophrenia. I really look forward to being a part of this community. Too many times I have wanted to talk to someone, ANYONE, about an episode I recently had but my "best friends" are never there when I need them, and my family chooses to ignore my illness. Even if no one replies, it'll be nice to just put out my thoughts. If you've made it this far into my post, thank you for listening.

Hi there. I'm 20 and I've been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia last year. I'm really scared and I just want to talk to anyone. Thank u for reading this. With love, Maris.

Today is the anniversary of my diagnosis and I wanted to celebrate by telling people how I was able to recover from Schizoaffective. When I was diagnosed, everyone told me not to listen to myself, treated me as if I was crazy all the time and told me I would never recover. I had no self esteem. My future seemed horrible. My life changed around because I read a couple of books by crystal hatfield. She taught me to write positive affirmations so that I could focus on the positive. When I focused on the positive, I saw new opportunities where others saw none. She taught me how to deal with the numbness of the medication and how to accept myself with the diagnosis. Her books can be purchased for what you can afford to pay (ie, even free if you really need it) and can be purchased here: https://gumroad.com/l/VsYSt. I now live a life where I enjoy everyday.

My sister is 61 years old. She was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic when she was 21 years old. My parents have taken care of her for her entire life. My mother died almost 12 years ago and my father died a year and a half ago. Luckily my father set up a trust fund to provide for her. My sister lives by herself but hasn't taken any medication for the past three years. She is getting further and further detached from reality. My brother and sister and myself are fearful that she will hurt herself or get into an accident. We are not sure where to turn. She will not go to an assisted living community and I'm not sure there is not one who take her. We love her and want to make sure she is happy. She stopped taking her medication because she wanted to be "drug free". The condominium complex she lives in wants to kick her out because she isn't obeying the rules. She basically is living in just her bedroom because she is afraid to go in the other rooms of her home. We need advice as to where she can go to live the remaining part of her life. She is a sweet person that loves music and loves to paint. I can't bear the thought of putting her in some sort of institution.