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I had a friend in college that was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in her early thirties. She was also active in a number of organizations in college but could never afford a membership in a GLO. However, there was something always off about her in college. She displayed maladaptive coping techniques for stress and personality traits while we were in school. She also had a lot of great qualities about her too-one of the reasons why I really liked her. At the time, I just shrugged the negative off to people being different and grewing up in a bad family situation since her mother struggled to support her and her sister in a single-parent household. (Let us all be thankful that attitudes have changed since I was in college regarding single-parent households. ) But like I said she didn't start hearing the voices until she was about 33. When we meet for lunch after her diagnosis and a long hospital stay (we lived in separate parts of the country after school) she did tell me that her uncle on her dad's side of the family also had schizophrenia and her dad had a serious drinking problem. While I was not shocked at her mental illness-I was surprised.
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