Symptoms & Types

Signs of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia usually takes hold after puberty. Most people are diagnosed in their late teens to early 30s.

Schizophrenia changes how you think, feel, and act. It might affect you differently from someone else.

Schizophrenia can be hard to spot in teens. Sometimes it can be tough to see the difference between ordinary teenage moodiness and signs of more serious illness.

Types of Schizophrenia and Related Disorders

Mental health doctors used to divide schizophrenia into different subtypes. Now, experts talk about schizophrenia as a spectrum disorder.

People with paranoid delusions are unreasonably suspicious of others. This can make it hard for them to hold a job, run errands, have friendships, and even go to the doctor.

Someone with schizoaffective disorder has schizophrenia plus either major depression or bipolar disorder.

Schizophreniform disorder is a type of schizophrenia that lasts for less than 6 months.

Psychotic disorders are a group of serious illnesses that affect the mind.

This is what doctors call psychotic symptoms that come on suddenly but last only for a short time -- less than 1 month.

A shared psychotic disorder is a rare type of mental illness in which a healthy person starts to take on the delusions of someone who has a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia.

Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined.

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