I find it odd two girls having schizophrenia at an early age and meeting and becoming friends. Also fibd it odd those girls did not have all the symptoms. They only had 2 symptoms from what one can gleam from the documentary.
This site explains a little bit about it, treament and symptoms.
https://g.co/kgs/O8zo8y
Taken from Webmd.
Schizoaffective disorder usually begins in the late teen years or early adulthood, often between ages 16 and 30. It seems to happen slightly more often in women than in men. It's rare in children.
Because people with schizoaffective disorder have a combination of symptoms reflecting two separate mental illnesses, it?s often misdiagnosed. Some people may be misdiagnosed as having schizophrenia, and others may be misdiagnosed with a mood disorder. As a result, it?s hard to determine exactly how many people actually have schizoaffective disorder. It?s probably less common than either schizophrenia or mood disorders alone.
Diagnosis
If a doctor thinks someone has symptoms of schizoaffective disorder, they?ll want to know everything about that person?s medical history -- both physical and mental. They may also give that person a physical exam.
There are no laboratory tests to specifically diagnose schizoaffective disorder. So doctors may use various tests -- such as brain imaging (like MRI scans) and blood tests -- to make sure that a physical illness isn?t the reason for the symptoms.
If the doctor finds no physical cause, he may refer the person to a psychiatrist or psychologist. These mental health professionals are trained to diagnose and treat mental illnesses. They use specially designed interview and assessment tools to evaluate a person for a psychotic disorder.
In order to diagnose someone with schizoaffective disorder, the person must have periods of uninterrupted illness and, at some point, an episode of mania, major depression, or a mix of both, while also having symptoms of schizophrenia. The person must also have had a period of at least two weeks of psychotic symptoms without the mood (depression or bipolar) symptoms.
You can be diagnosed with Schizophrenia with only two symptoms, as long as those two symptoms are hallucinations and dellusions.
shareYou missed the point though, it's rare for their age and there's episides two weeks prior. Family and friends would have not missed that. Bella knowing for 7 years would have known for she would have been present for such episodes.
shareI'll also add Teachers never sent notes home and they were behaved at School with good grades. Mentally ill they would of had issues at home and School.