Have you ever known of someone who was diagnosed with schizophrenia later in life?

Weirdly, the partner of my FIL was recently diagnosed as a schizophrenic at the age of 78. She has always been a bit “touched” but her mental health deteriorated significantly over the last 3 years. She is now in an assisted living facility that specializes in working with older residents with severe mental illness.

My mother's aunt was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in her early 40s. Leading up to this she had short periods of really odd behavior. After a couple of rather bizarre episodes, she was diagnosed and put on some sort of drugs. She was fine as long as she was on her medication. On a couple of occasions, though, she went off her drugs and all hell broke loose. Her husband was supposed to administer them, but she convinced him that they made her feel tired.

I read somewhere that women have an increased chance of developing schizophrenia after monopause.

[quote]monopause

Oh, dear!

I'm so embarrassed.

Yes, me! For about 10 years, starting in my 30's, I was getting more and more paranoid about my neighbors, thinking they were messing with me. Then one day, about 7 or 8 years ago, I started hearing someone saying my name all day long. It literally just turned on one day. Luckily medicine has taken care of both problems.

I lived with a schizophrenic. I'd found him on Craigslist. Nice guy, great apartment reasonably cheap.

After I moved in, he started telling me how the neighbors were out to get him. That they were cooking meth. I never saw any real evidence of it.

He thought that neighbors were sending sound waves into our apartment, which was causing the furniture to move slightly. He would measure where it was each day.

He thought the neighbors were sending radiation into our apartment. He purchased styrofoam panels, which he placed all ark nd his bed to protect him.

One day, I came home and he'd moved his mattress onto our balcony, and he'd spray painted DRUG DEALERS on it, with an arrow pointing toward the neighbors with the supposed meth lab.

The next day, when I got home, the landlord was there. After he left, Tyler said to me "would you help me move my mattress to the curb?" And for the rest of the time I lived there, he slept on top of his wooden box spring every night.

Not formally diagnosed, but my mother (71) believes that the son of the family that used to live next door gets under the house every night, pumping toxic chemicals through the floor to drive her out of her home. He also, skillfully, gets into the attic through the walls, rearranges the contents of drawers, steals things only to return them later, paints her foundation and chisels cracks into the driveway. Every night. He has an app on his phone that blocks her security cameras from recording him. She often sits in silence and darkness so he can't track her movements. Most of her windows and doors are barricaded. She is consumed by it.

Targeted Individuals are a real thing. Voice to Skull/Microwave hearing effect/Frey Effect are very real. Law enforcement agencies all over the country have obtained this technology and they're using it willy nilly on people.

Don't shoot the messenger. File this away in your memory bank so you know if and when it happens to you. That's all.

Please remove the tinfoil hat, r9!

R9 is probably schizophrenic. I've seen whole forums, hundreds and hundreds of pages, of these people (undiagnosed), utterly convinced they are being bizarrely targeted.

No. I've never worn a tin foil hat, R10. R11, no, I've never been diagnosed with schizophrenia OR suffered the symptoms. Also, I have never beeb a raging cocaine addict! Uh hem!

No, but hang on and I'll ask the others.

Louise Howell

A friend has always been different but around 40 he became convinced he was being followed by secret police. Virtually everything thing he did with an electronic device, which he became obsessed with was constantly "hacked." The micro dust came later it covered everything it is controlled by "scaler waves" and organizes itself to upend his life. He washes his sheets and clothes obsessivley. I can't interact with him much anymore, all he does is try to convince me of Q anon theories and speaks of little else. He lives with his mother who encourages his behavior for her own reasons. It's all very bizarre. He is very narcissistic and his condition justifies his behavior wich [justifies his condition a circular mental gymnastic.

I think I'm developing schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (close to 40), although my diagnosis has always been bipolar disorder. I've always assumed I had social anxiety, but now I think it's more of a schizotypal trait, combined with paranoia and suspicion. I have many other reasons to think I have some schizophrenic tendencies, including odd/magical thinking, lack of motivation, and a lack of meaningful interpersonal relationships. I've always been a loner but it's getting much worse.

Adding to r16: I've been wasting time by reading about different theories of schizophrenia. Eugen Bleuler believed that schizophrenic traits fall on a spectrum, with some people manifesting schizotypy that never develops into full-blown schizophrenia. I've long known something is wrong with me, but also figured I wasn't schizophrenic. The "schizotypy" model makes more sense.

Well, R17, that introductory phrase with colon does strike some of us as schizotypy, certainly.

Mary r18!!!

So many people with the magical thinking. If I eat pork I'm unclean etc. Lots of schizos out there.

There's more to schizophrenia than magical thinking, r20.

But I suspect you knew that.

There is, but... religious people? Self-righteous kind of crazy.

I thought that if schizophrenia didn’t manifest in one’s teens, it was extremely unlikely to present later.

Maybe that’s an old wives’ tale, tho.

My grandmother was diagnosed as schizophrenic in her eighties. She had always been mentally ill, just not formally diagnosed until she was in a hospital. She was paranoid and sexually perverted. I don’t even want to think about it.

My spouses mom. She was in her early 40s. Destroyed her. Apparently, she was always a little off but went off the deepens after having her last kid. There seems to be a connection to later childbirth and schizophrenia onset.

What decade was she diagnosed, r24?

Bettie Page was diagnosed in her 50s

I’m R25. As mentioned by previous posters, religious fanaticism was first sign my mother in law was I’ll. She became obsessed with a priest who had to take a restraining order on her. She went to the pulpit during a service, humiliating her kids who were in the pews. There was a sexual element to it, too, but my spouse refuses to talk about it.

Absolutely tragic. She was an amazing woman who was struck down in her prime. Mental illness is awful.

Kim...

R16 please seek help. There is effective medication and support systems. Don’t try to navigate through this without help. DL loves your crazy ass! Reach out for help!

Britney J. Spears definitely has either full on schizo or schizo-affective disorder. But she was probably diagnosed long ago and that part of her mental illness has been (largely) kept under wraps.

She deleted her Insta yesterday YET AGAIN after another bunch of word salad posts. I'm sure it will be reinstated tomorrow though in time for the release of her horrific collab w/Elton John.

Male skizos are the most fearsome

Thanks r30

I have a friend whoose sister is on the bi=polar spectrum. She cycles in and out, and it's not severe, but it is difficult to cope with when she is in a manic phase. She's very emotional. She started showing the symptoms when she was in her early 40's. At least they were more noticeable.

I used to work in mental health---occasionally you do see schizophrenia that's first diagnosed in 30s/40s/50s or in older age. The older age thing often has been seen as a manifestation of depression. in middle age, it does seem to happen more in women than men. But I also can recall a 40-something man who had had a schizophrenic episode in his 20s and then did fine until 20 years later. All that said, most schizophrenics have their first episode in their late teens or twenties and continue to have episodes.

I rented a room from a woman in her 60's who had it but I don't know when or if she was ever properly diagnosed. She went the ultra religious route...I'd hear her at night having strange conversations with "angels" as she referred to them. She was often yelling at them, though and talking in a weird way that almost sounded like she was possessed. The sad thing was, she was a nice lady but she would work herself into these fits. She let a woman from her church rent a room eventually and that woman was also schizophrenic. I used to come home from work or hanging out with my friends until 2am and I would quietly go into the bathroom to get ready for bed and almost every single time I did, this woman would come out of her room and tell me she was praying for me. I finally told her to knock it off. But a few weeks later, she was arrested for walking down the street at 4am and pounding on a neighbor's door. When they opened the door, she told them she needed to witness to them about Christ and forced her way inside. It was actually sad but I'm glad she got arrested and hope she got some help. I moved out shortly thereafter.

[quote]He lives with his mother who encourages his behavior for her own reasons.

Curious about what these reasons are. Any intel R15?

[R26] She was diagnosed in the mid 1980’s and died in the mid 1990’s. The theory was that she had been abused as a small child.

Eldergays in Palm Springs know what's up.

My grandmother was diagnosed in her 80s. Her kids always knew she was cruel and more than a little "off", and just chalked it up to agoraphobia, addiction to evangelism, and downright meanness. She did not attend the weddings of any of her children, and never visited any of her 13 grandchildren. The only time I saw her out of her house was at my grandfather's funeral. All of her kids kept her at arms length.

I think one reason she was never diagnosed is that she never saw a medical professional. She had a telephone 'relationship' with a homeopathic quack and she got pills via the mail. Finally she was put into a care facility in her 80s where she was diagnosed.

I did not see her in the last 23 decades of her life.

So your grandma was 230 r40

I can also relate to the hyper-religiosity mentioned upthread, although I always thought it was related to bipolar disorder, not schizophrenia

This happened to an in-law of mine in her 50s, after she started taking diet pills (which we found out later). Her symptoms were paranoia about her husband and the government spying on her through the computer. She wrecked her life before she got help. But - she finally got help about a year after it started and quickly got back to a more healthy state.

Op is it you?

Yes, but only a female. She was about 52 when diagnosed and never showed signs until about 50. Literally, she was 100% well adjusted, productive, and had no addiction or other major issues. Bizarre

DL: elders can be trendy, too!

This isn’t exactly in answer to your question, OP, but this thread dredged up a memory I’ve always felt bad about.

Years ago, I worked in the part of Seattle that gifted the expression “skid road” to the world. The original meaning had been that there was a steep hill above the water, and that was where logs were “skidded” down to ships to be transported elsewhere. After its legitimate purpose, the “skid road” became the synonym for “the part of Seattle where down-and-outters collect,” and then the expression spread to the world, and then, much later, that area began to yuppify.

By the time I worked there, attorneys, coffee shops, and a great bookstore had moved in, so I was on my lunch break, having a burger in a great little hole in the wall, when a woman came into the place who was having a loud and energetic argument with an invisible person or persons. She was really pissed off at them and finally concluded her argument with, “AM I TALKING TO MYSELF?”

She gave every indication of being righteously pleased that THAT had shut those motherfuckers up! And I had what I thought was a hilarious story to tell. Until people kept telling me that she had clearly been very mentally ill and tormented.

I’ve felt like a monster that I didn’t have even the minimal empathy to recognize her pain. I was just sitting there, thinking up one liners, like, “Bingo!”

So, yeah, mental illness is NOT a laughing matter. I realize now.

Yes. A meth head I know who went berserk on tina and now spends his days stalking his neighbors and posting in Targeted Individual forums.

I knew - worked with - an attorney who "lost it" over a several week period. The last week she had a handgun on her desk and would slowly move her hand toward it when coworkers would irritate her. Her manager told her to knock it off (Can you believe it, that she wasn't removed from the building?)

It ended with her climbing up on a hill and shooting. The sheriff's office was called and she fired at them, before her girlfriend was brought in to talk her down.

She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and that spared her criminal action. She was in her late 30s at the time.

R49 she wasn't removed? Just out of curiosity what decade was this? I'm assuming it definitely wasn't anytime in the last decade.

Apparently, schizotypal personality disorder sometimes occurs with bipolar disorder

[Quote] Yes. A meth head I know who went berserk on tina and now spends his days stalking his neighbors and posting in Targeted Individual forums.

I have two friends who dabbled in meth in the naughts—both stopped cold Turkey when they said they experienced schizo symptoms, particularly weird paranoia.

The very fact that schizophrenia can be mimicked by meth use show how mental disease is all chemical

No, YOU NASTY LITTLE HOMOSEXUAL BOYS!

Interesting, r52. I get awful paranoia when I smoke weed, and I wonder if people like me are predisposed to mental illness

Decades ago, I worked at a mental health crisis facility that was for subacute care, a step short of hospitalization. We took people in for transition after stabilization at the hospital mental health unit, or we became the defacto mental health unit when they were full.

One of the "stabilized" patients was a woman in her 40s who had attempted to kill her elementary school aged son by grinding pills into his milk. (He didn't drink it because it was bitter). She'd began to hear voices about the end of the world and believed she was being merciful by painlessly delivering him to heaven's safety. She was with us longer than the usual time limit (2 weeks) waiting for a bed to open up at Napa State psychiatric hospital. Though the hallucinations abated under prescription treatment, her delusional system was so strong and the potential consequences so dire (harassment or another attempt on her son) that she went in on an indefinite hospitalization.

What a tragic story r55

Bump

Thanks to whomever linked this. Someone I love dearly appears to have gone off the deep end. And at the risk of sounding schizophrenic myself, I don't want to post too many details because reads posts here too.

A male cousin was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in his 40s. He was always odd and fucked up, even as a kid.

He tried to kill himself because the FBI and mafia were after him.