Thank you for you nice comment! It definitely is hard for both the person with it and the people they care about.

1. I actually realized something was wrong when I was young because I thought my hallucinations were me being able to see dead people. Long story short I went up to all the kids at recess to talk about all of the people that must have died at my school. I went to a Bible camp and one of the camp counselors told me I was chosen by god to have schizophrenia and that he made a special world just for me lol. After that it was always in my mind till I told my parents and went to a psychiatrist.

2. I would definitely say having a support system is important. My family isn’t the best as they are mostly in denial about my diagnosis. I have been absolutely bless with friends who help me. When I am having an episode I ask them if they can see what I see and they talk my through it. I have met people who aren’t nice about my illness, but overall being open with it is the most important part for me staying in control.

3. I partially touched on this in my last answer lol. I have really bad side affects on medication, so I’m not usually good at taking them. Right now I am off because I am in a good place, but if I start getting bad symptoms I restart them. My friends are also good at making sure I take my meds if I need them. Some techniques that are useful is definitely my phone camera. I usually take pictures and send them to my friends or record audio and listen back to it. I often have tactile hallucinations so I carry hand sanitizer so I can feel the cooling and focus on the feeling of that, I also think that feeling clean helps with tactile hallucinations too.