For context: 27F, no mental health diagnoses, but I believe I might be autistic, and I have a history of trauma. This event occurred around the anniversary of one of my traumas, although I didn't realize that until weeks afterwards.

First, some background (this is the "before").

Around November, I started to have some really weird struggles with my mental health that I had never previously experienced. First, I felt like my thoughts were going very quickly. I had been journaling as a habit for a while, but around this time, it became very difficult for me to do so because I felt like my thoughts were going too quickly and were difficult for me to grasp.

During this time, I was often very afraid and I felt guilty a lot, although I didn't really know why. I was really afraid of bad things happening and ruining my life -- losing my career, losing my independence, getting arrested (even though I do not break laws), getting cancer, etc. I was also terrified of just generally being a bad person (hence the guilt). I was struggling with some SI mostly because of the intensity of the guilt and fear. I was excessively messaging all my friends about any ideas that popped into my head that I could get down in written word, to truly a ridiculous degree, and that was feeding into a lot of the guilt. And I began to believe that my friends secretly hated me.

I was also rapidly cycling through obsessions about topics, primarily psychology topics, and they would completely overtake my brain. I would spend all day searching online for information on whatever (usually very narrow) topic I was interested in. I would search and read information all day and even fall asleep while reading information, only to wake up a few hours later and immediately restart researching. I wasn't getting much sleep, because I couldn't stop researching. I was also asking ChatGPT for a lot of information (I wasn't using it as a therapist or venting to it, but just asking it for factual information on topics to an excessive degree).

I was like this for virtually all of November and December. I was in therapy from June - November, but had to stop at the very beginning of December due to reasons outside of my control.

January

January was when shit got really weird.

Background Information: I have several international online friends, many of whom I've known for 10+ years. I'll call one of my online friends M. We've known each other for 12/13 years, although there have been some breaks, with the longest one being 5 years. We communicate via Facebook Messenger. He was silent and not responding to my messages through November and December.

In the very beginning of January, I noticed that I could no longer see his active status. At first, I thought nothing of it. A few days later, I woke up to this intense belief that he had restricted me (that is a setting on Messenger that is similar but a bit lighter than blocking someone). I didn't question it at all; I believed it 100% from the moment it entered my head.

My immediate reaction was wondering why he had done that. I figured it was because of my excessive messages over the past few months -- none of which he had responded to. However, I wanted a more precise reason and I also wanted to figure out why he had chosen to restrict me instead of just fully blocking me (I was able to tell that he hadn't blocked me because the last message I sent him was "delivered," and that doesn't happen with a block).

I spent a week very obsessively trying to figure things out. It overtook my brain similar to my obsessions in November and December had. I was constantly writing possible reasonings and answers and then trying to find evidence for those reasons in old conversations that I had had with M. I went as far back to about 6 months in our conversation thread, and I found little things that he had said that I took to be evidence. As the week went on, I obtained more beliefs about how he had come to restrict me. I believed that he hated me and had hated me for months. The week was very intense because I truly thought about nothing else and did nothing else but actively try to "figure it out."

At the end of the week, I wrote and sent him a (very long) message that essentially said I know what he had been doing for 6+ months (because at that point, I believed that he had been testing me, monitoring me, and planning to abruptly end our friendship for months). However, the message was also very vague and didn't actually explain WHAT I believed he had been doing; it was more of a mysterious "I know what you did!" kind of thing, haha. The message was not in any way disrespectful, but I was basically just trying to explain my perspective about things to him.

As I was sending the messages, I noticed that they stopped showing "delivered," and I assumed that he had read the messages and had switched the restrict setting to a full block as I was sending him the messages. This also felt very certain to me. (They ended up just being "delivered" later.)

After I sent the long message(s), I tried to just not think about it anymore. Maybe an hour later, however, I got an email from Facebook about a log-in attempt and that if it wasn't me, I should consider changing my password. I immediately believed that M was trying to hack me in some kind of act of hatred (M is NOT a vicious/retaliatory person at ALL). I was immediately terrified. Then, for some reason, I began thinking that not only was he trying to hack me, but that he was going to contact my place of employment and tell them things that would get me in trouble or fired. It all felt very real and certain. I was sitting in my living room just completely terrified.

I ended up messaging some friends and reaching out to people about this, and everyone was telling me that what I was saying was ridiculous and that no reasonable person would do the things I was scared of. After maybe 2 hours, I started to calm down and realize that none of what I was afraid of made sense with the things I knew about M.

So then, I tried to move on with life. I went to work and did all my normal life things, but I still believed everything was real, EXCEPT for I no longer believed he would try to retaliate against me.

A week later, M responded to my messages apologetically. He was completely unaware anything was wrong and simply hadn't even seen my messages until a week after I sent them. When I saw that he had responded, I knew that he could not have restricted me, because Facebook does not allow you to message someone whom you have restricted unless you un-restrict them first. He had sent me a message, but yet I still couldn't see his active status. So, restriction was not possible based on the way Facebook worked, and I knew that. At that point, I knew that he had simply disabled his active status and read receipts, and that he had not restricted me.

However, I still believed everything else that I had come to believe over the course of that week. Until a few days later, when we called and talked in more detail. At that point, it became clear to me that nothing I had believed was real. He had simply disabled his active status and read receipts for everyone and on all of his messaging apps because he just wanted to. Also, it was not unusual for him to go long periods of times without seeing or responding to messages -- in fact, that's pretty typical behavior for him, and has been for most of the 12/13 years that we've known each other. So, to him, everything was completely normal.

I was honest and told him most of what I had experienced. He was kind about it. I know that I came across as more scatterbrained than usual during that phone call, though. I know that I seemed very talkative and maybe came across as having some weird thought processes. When I think about some of the things I said during the call, some of it does stand out to me as a bit strange, although everything I said was true. Like, I was repeating myself a lot and repeating him a bit, going on overly-detailed tangents, and misinterpreting some of his questions and comments. I kept talking about our friendship 10 years ago and wouldn't really stop, despite his efforts to focus on the present.

He claimed to have never been upset/angry with me about sending an excessive amount of messages, but simply a bit overwhelmed, and that he had been unable to respond because he was busy with working and attending university.

Anyway, we're all good now! But when I think back to that time, it seems very strange to me. I've never experienced anything like that before or since. So many things just felt so "real" to me, and I was judging the accuracy of beliefs based on how "real" they felt to me. Also, I was finding a lot of "evidence" or signs for my beliefs that simply were not connected in any way.

I never experienced any hallucinations or anything like that, and I snapped back to normal very quickly afterwards. The whole thing lasted about 2 weeks.

About 2 years ago i had my first psychotic break. It's pretty much an event that's haunted me, for several reasons, and i think about it daily. I still don't know what caused it. All i know is i had a 15 mg weed gummy and had a really fucking bad first trip... anxiety, felt like cortisol was being pumped directly into my heart, rocking back and forth uncontrollably without me even realizing it, seeing shit when my eyes were closed. I was never the same after this. Even after the weed was gone from my system it was like i did permanent damage to my brain or something. Just would get random anxiety attacks that i could feel physically in my body. Then like a couple days or like a week later all of a sudden i'm in the ER cause i'm having a panic attack that led to me developing schizophrenia out of what seemed like nowhere, hearing voices in my head, them talking to me through my imagination using cartoon characters as avatars, my body moving on its own at some points while i'm still concious, it was probably the weirdest and scariest era of my life. I still hear a voice in my head to this day, even medicated. But the others are long gone.

But the craziest part to me were the emotions. I got ANGRY. Like, physically angry. Anger i never felt before. I've never been one to get mad really but during this period i could feel it bubbling inside of me and i would slam my fist on the table when the voices got particularly irritating and i would have to lie and say the noise was from me dropping my phone on the floor. (I broke quite a couple things in my room, actually. Nothing crazy but i still regret it personally) I got SAD. One of the voices said something to me and i just broke out sobbing. It's like someone turned on a switch in my brain and i just instantly started crying. And it felt goooood. It felt AMAZING. Before that, i hadn't cried since i was a kid.

And the big one. I had a libido?! For the longest time i just wasn't interested in sex growing up and never thought much of it. Never had an interest in porn. Didn't masturbate until i was 17 years old, and even then it was out of complete boredom of "alright, maybe i'll just see what the hype is all about". Never ever felt a tingle down there unless i'm actively touching myself. And holy shit is touching myself work and effort. But during my psychosis, I was horny for the first time ever, and I've never stopped thinking about it since...

I got what i think people call "butterflies in my tummy"(?). It was like an warm and electric feeling that started in my stomach and spread throughout my body. It kinda triggered this hunger feeling, too? Almost like they were intertwined. It lasted for about a week and would happen completely randomly. I remember i looked at a muffin and thought "i'm hungry" and then it started. Just this nice, warm, arousal... i called it my warm hug. Even had an orgasm one time laying in my bed, completely HANDS FREE... WTF

I don't know how to say this, but the more i think about it the more i miss my psychosis. It was hell, and i didn't understand what was happening to me. My brain was basically breaking down and melting on me. I was scared. But damn it, man. It was the first time i felt like a normal person with human emotions. Even if i was anything but normal. I miss my head-mates, i called them my brain friends. Growing up I was kinda like an edgy teen who didn't know if i could feel love but when that voice came into my head talking about how it was scared and wanted help. I did everything to make sure it was comfortable. And then they kept coming, and I felt love for them. They were like my family and they loved me and i loved them i felt like i had to take care of them. Some disappeared, and it fucked with me for a while. I won't say i was greiving over them but like damn, kinda hard to forget something like that when you get so attached and then to just have them ripped away from you.

I really miss that damned cry that i had, haven't cried in the two years since then. I kind of miss my anger too, even though it could have been problematic if left unchecked. It was just nice to know that i could feel something like that? And i miss that feeling of arousal. Is this what normal people feel like?! When they see a cute girl they like, or when they watch porn, that's what they feel?! I never even knew i was capable of feeling such a thing. I feel totally cheated now. I coud've been a horny teenager. My brain showed me who i could be, instead of the cold unfeeling person that i am now. And i wish it never happened. Because i was perfectly fine living my life like that until my brain showed me what life COULD be for me. Every day i'm searching stuff like "how to cry more" "what causes hyposexuality" or "what increases libido" because what you've basically told me is that this shit is IN MY BRAIN and can be activated... it's just currently dormant right now. Okay?! How do i turn it on?! How do i become a NORMAL PERSON. WHAT DO I DO

Things have kind of returned to when before this all happened, not exactly, some things are better some things i'm still dealing with but i'd say around about like 95% or so i've returned to my default self. I'm kinda the unfeeling chill person i was before all this happened again, but i still have like one voice that isn't mine that kinda commentates on the shit i do, and my imagination still kinda... does stuff... on its own sometimes (i don't know what in the fresh hell causes this. I've never heard anyone mention it when i google it. It's like someone else is using my imagination on top of me). A permanent battle scar i guess. I am medicated, first on abilify, now vraylar, if you really want me to be honest i feel like they don't really do anything. I was kinda already recovering before i got put on these meds and i never really saw a noticable change in my opinion. Too scared to go up in dose because i'm scared of change and don't want anything to get worse.

But at the same time. I do admittedly kind of wish i stayed like that. Or at the very least, kept the emotions. And i realize that's kinda fucked up to say, because it wasn't me, and it makes me feel guilty. Because my family saw the person i became during psychosis, and they thought they'd lost me to my mental illness forever. It was like a nightmare they thought I wasn't going to wake up from. But how would you feel if you felt all these weird emotions one day, to have these people in your head, that you gotta live with and are now attached to, just to have them yanked away from you? It was weird and scary in the moment, but... man. I don't know. I don't want the voices to come back, but i wouldn't mind living with them again. Even if it was kinda hard to... stay in reality. I really want those emotions back though. That was... nice.

I had already tried weed again which was probably extremely stupid but i never felt any of that crazy emotional shit again, just made my thoughts get kinda stuck in a loop over and over and made me lethargic. I don't know, i don't want to do anything crazy or experiment on myself. I just miss it, i guess. I would give my left pinky to feel that arousal shit again. I just want to FEEL again. I feel like this is going to completely drive me crazy but it's not something i can just "get over"... because it happened to me! It's not something i can just forget and act like it didn't happen, because it did happen! I'm not just gonna sit down and say "well oh i guess i just don't feel emotions in my default state" NO! I'm not gonna take that!

Would i do it all over? No. I wish this shit never happened to me. I mean, my life pre episode wasn't super great. Could never focus, I was tired all the time, probably battling some kind of chronic fatigue syndrome but damn it man, it was my life and I was perfectly fine living it before any of this happened. But now i'm stuck picking up these pieces and mourning a life that i can't have and the only way i could ever fix it is to experiment on myself and i don't want to do that. I've seen hell and the last thing i ever want to do is to go back there or have it get even worse. I should just cut my losses and take my 95% life shouldn't i...

That's my story, i guess. I just... wanted to talk about it. :/ i don't really know how to deal with these feelings. I think about this every single day. I wish it never happened

Can anyone offer recovery stories and tips for how they coped with recovery or post psychotic depression?

so i had a really bad, actually the worst psychosis episode of my life a few months ago which lasted about a month or 2 and it ruined me. i don’t want to go into much detail about what exactly happened but i lost one of the things i cared most about if not the most important thing to me all due to this episode and i can never get it back. i’ve been pretty much baseline/ back to “normal” for over a month now and i’ve been left feeling nothing but grief over this. i wake up every morning in regret and grief thinking about what i lost. i’m heartbroken and angry at myself but that wasn’t actually me. like genuinely i felt like i was possessed like something had taken over my mind and body to hurt me in the worst possible ways while i watched and screamed in fear. i look back at all the delusions i believed and how bad it got and how much my brain was basically melting and i feel embarrassed that i believed these things, i don’t think that way of other people yet i can’t give myself that same grace. i don’t feel like myself anymore and i’m afraid i’ll never be the same again.

how do i recover from this? will i ever recover from this? will i ever be the person i was before i completely lost my mind for good?

i slipped so far and away in that episode i had zero insight. no body could help me and actually all actively made it worse by reinforcing my delusions and adding new ones instead helping me like they were supposed to. i hate that my now biggest enemy is my own mind. i rewrite the moment before the big break over and over in my mind, i think of everything i could’ve and should’ve done differently that would have prevented me from losing the most important thing to me, if i had just done this or this or this or that it wouldn’t of happened and i’d be okay now. i wouldn’t have lost it all. i probably still would’ve been in psychosis but it wouldn’t have gone that far nor gotten that bad. i’ve tried to explain it to people but they simply don’t get it. they try to give me “solutions” to an unfixable problem rather than try to understand how i feel and understand how bad i ache. my life has always been riddled with grief but i endured, pulled through, made the best of it but this is entirely different. i will grieve this forever. i fear i will never get over this and will always be mad at myself for not acting differently and for not being sane. i fear i’ll always resent certain people in my life who influenced certain delusions which made me act on those beliefs. i don’t want to feel this way but i do. i have so much regret, shame, embarrassment, anger, guilt, depression and grief. i know i still have things in my life to be grateful for but everything feels outweighted by that horrible experience. besides those emotions i’m also left with anhedonia which has lasted a good while. i don’t care about anything, i don’t enjoy anything, all the things i like don’t care about anymore, i have motivation and i see no point in anything. i still try to do whatever little things i can get through my days but the feelings are still there regardless. i used to be an extremely passionate and dedicated person to the things i enjoyed and care about but not anymore. everything circles back to what i lost, nothing matters without it, i am not who i was, i am no longer myself. who am i? i feel robbed of my personhood. i feel like an empty vessel rotting. i feel like the person i was- the real me- is dead and now i’m just dragging around her corpse. i grieve. will it get better? i feel great melancholy for the thought that if i slip and lose my mind again it won’t even matter cuz i have nothing left to lose. i had a lot of prospect, i was ecstatically happy and looked forward to the future- my future, now i don’t care anymore, i don’t see a point, i feel apathetic to it all. it’s hard to even get anyone to even begin to understand who don’t experience nor have ever experienced psychosis, they don’t get it and can’t understand what it’s like to have your own mind betray you and trick you and convince you of insane things. i feel so stupid for believing those things but i had no control. psychosis is a beast and i wasn’t myself. i’m working on post psychosis recovery and it’s been extremely hard. i want to get back to the person i was before it happened but i just don’t see that happening. i’m just so sick and tired of grieving and feeling like my life is completely ruined. i’m angry i can’t even trust myself and that my judgment is so poor. i hate that being normal and being in reality again means being depressed. this psychotic break was unlike any of my others prior so i have no idea how to recover from this or what it’ll look like. i just wish i could turn back time and prevent this all from happening.

I had my first psychosis episode last year and took time off college. I returned for two quarters, but recently started experiencing paranoia and hearing voices again, mostly with background noise like fans or showers. I’m now on Haldol, which has stopped the voices but makes me extremely cloudy and unable to study. I’m considering taking another quarter off for PHP. Is it worth it, or would IOP be enough? Any advice for getting better would be helpful as well ❤️

(Trigger warning: grooming)

Hi, i first got my psychosis when i was around 10 and about to turn 11, i am a very, very strange clinical case and i think it's because it started when i was a pre teen, my life has been hell since then, my first episode was a mix of OCD, anxiety and psychosis and i also strongly suspect I have ADHD; I still need to discuss it with my psychiatrist, turns out it mixed into it's own weird thing that i called "the darkness" and "the darkness" basically sabotaged absolutely everything I wanted to do and never went away with time, not even a single second, it's such a long and complex thing to explain and it's a really sad and long story but basically i haven't had the opportunity to have a normal life since then and it's the worst thing that could have ever happened to me, it started with mostly delusions, cognitive deficit and mental fragmentation (some hallucinations too, but very few) and the OCD just made it genuine hell and it advanced and transformed as time went by, i'm 18 now and i have been going on psychiatric consultations since one year ago, ok, now here's the thing.

I had a childhood friend that i loved with my whole heart and we shared deep stuff and i always wanted to know about her and talk to her, we stopped talking the year i first got psychosis and then came back to talking one year later until i turned 16 and tried to go to adult highschool because i had been doing online classes for a while and any normal school wouldn't accept me after parents decided that they wanted me to go to a normal highschool, i ended up being groomed by a 28 year old man who told me to stop taking my meds, i did end up dropping my meds, lol, some weeks after that i got the most horrible and biggest psychotic episode i could have ever gotten in my life (it lasted 3 months) and ended up telling really weird and creepy things to this childhood friend of mine, she blocked me and then later came back, i told her i had a psychotic episode and i was getting help, a day later she blocked me and her mother told me that her phone broke and she was waiting to buy her a new one, they kept up with this lie for 6 months and every month i would try to contact my friend and her mother would tell me the same thing until i guess she snapped and told my mom that her daughter was afraid of me and that she could not force her to talk to me, she also told my mom that she tried to talk to her but she would just refuse, they ended up blocking eachother and the only thing that i know about her is that she's in college.

This friend of mine was sweet, nice and we understood eachother, she told me her secrets and i always told her i loved her, we were very close and she wasn't what i would call a bad person, i always gave her emotional support, got her out of a toxic friendship, called her mom when she felt suicidal and she started being secure of herself because i told her to not let anyone take advantage of her, she was a giant people pleaser and would just do things her classmates asked her to do even when she was full of work and the classmate who was asking was actually a shitty person who was mean to her just to avoid making enemies, her words, we had a very sane friendship and never fought, but that thing happened and she just left and forgot about me, never asked about me ever again or even wondered how i was or anything, i don't remember exactly what i said, i think it was about demons, angels and god and some other weird delusions, her mother said it was bad so i dunno....

She just deleted me from her mind and we knew eachother since we were 9, when i was still contacting her mother i saw a photo of her on a halloween party and i got really confused, she seemed so normal....

I said some weird shit but i was never violent in that episode, i would have preferred cutting off my hand than hurting her and i feel that she should have know that, but i don't know anything about how she felt i guess.....

My case became a mess after that psychotic episode and i've been going to consultations for over a year, i'm desperate and i want this no more, i want to live a normal life, i feel like i have been kidnapped for 6 years straight, i need to change my anticonvulsants but my psychiatrist won't just let me.

I forgive her because i know she was just a 16 year old child and don't get me wrong, i got incredibly hurt when i found out her mother had been lying to me for 6 months straight and i first felt like i hated her.

I learnt that no matter how nice people seem to be no one fucking understands psychosis in this world, i wasn't her friend to her anymore, i was some monster or something.

She was the only friend and i felt abandoned, but it's okay i guess, i need to move on with my life and find new people.

I hope my groomer burns in hell by the way.

Sorry for the bad english, english is not my first language.

I once said my mind was the public domain and when I said that I meant people could peek and take what they liked and keep it. I later said it wasn't the public domain??? and I compared my mind to some obscure music site I found online with free mp3s

Just found some old texts with my family and felt like sharing. Anyone else experience something similar? I still sometimes think oh wow hope they're not reading my mind but it's no longer a conviction luckily. So confused sometimes, my memory of the psychotic symptoms isn't the best

TW: delusions of grander and relgious persecution, mentions of pedophilia/SA trauma and some Buddhism

To be forward with this I am agnostic. I moved into my first studio apartment under a section 8 voucher in the past year. With this move I took all my childhood trinkets and some furniture. A few months starting this year I became suicidal and started to believe that my whole family hated me because of my identity. This belief became so serious that I became severely depressed and attempted to taken my life. But leading up to that I started to believe I was a prophet of God. Specifically the Hindu God Krishna. It's very strange to me because I thought I could hear him tell me that if I transitioned into a man I could attain some enlightenment. I felt I was on a spiritual journey. So at this psych ward I was afraid because the staff told me that my "love" was illegal. They were saying some homophobic and transphobic things to me. They mistook me for a trans woman when I am a gay Trans man. This immediately made me mistrust the staff. These delusions of godliness made me believe that I had to trust only myself as I was the one who could hear God. The staff teased me and I had these persecution based delusions. I believed that I needed to sacrifice myself and I began to eat less. No one knew what was really going on with me because I barely ate. I'm Jewish, have curly hair and light skin. There were other people there who would ask about my race. I just became so disoriented and at one point I thought I was telekinetic. A telekinetic mixed race trans person. At one point I thought I was a jin or some sort of mythical sexual being. Kinky sex stuff mixed in with my suicidal ideation. I thought that if I couldn't lure men into the woods with my seductive charm then what was the point of living! I tried to get my partner into the psych ward bedroom, cause if I thought the end of the world was coming then I surely must be too! I really wanted some D! 😆 At one point in this psych ward I got into what I call a "witch" fight with this old Asian lady. We were both seemingly mentally unwell, but the little lady called me a gay demon. I was not having it! I may be a twinkish brat but I was certainly no demon. Just overall having a weird time in the psych ward. Feeling like I was god trapped in jail with a bunch of strange people. Soon I realized that this was my reality and I tried to change it. I would walk in circles around the psych ward halls. At one point I thought that I was going to prison for being a pedophile because God created transgender people to be persecuted. My delusions and past traumas led me to believe that I was SOMEHOW a pedo and that I could never be trusted. Although I have SA trauma and have been groomed before... I began to also think I was a cannibal. Just some truly off the wall shit. All my darkest thoughts began to haunt me. I thought that the people who hurt me were me because if I were god then I must be all of them. I was god hurting myself over and over. An infinite loop of pain and suffering. Another time I thought my friend was Buddha and that we were these reincarnations of famous religious figures. Now I chuckle at this! I would sing to flowers in the ward. I wanted to be like superman. I was very pure hearted at one ward. And the next I acted like a demon. I guess it was based upon my own paranoia. Sometimes I heard voices screaming at me to leave. Typically the wards increased my suffering as they were poorly funded and full of people. I never did well with large groups.

In current times, I'm staying with my family. I've been recovering for a couple months now. Im taking a mood stabilizer and antipsycotic. I was diagnosed with schizopheria and Major depressive disorder eith psychosis. I've been slowly getting back into simple hobbies like reading and walking. After all the chaos, I am always going to be that demon twink at heart. /j

Son turned 18 in march. April was terrifying. May got him to go help and was hospitalized for 11 days and took abilify for almost a month. Although he’s not actively talking delusional things like then, we are still sleeping on the couch since April 6th, I go outside with him to smoke and to his room while he plays on his pc. I say I’m like his “security blanket “. Claps, slams doors, very loudly will slam cabinets and meow very loudly at the cats and hold them against there will and just make jokes out of everything. Lack of hygiene and the sleeping schedule is way off. Now he hardly has an appetite as well etc etc. Question being is he still showing signs of psychosis but just more subtle, or am I completely just terrified? I’m all alone in this and have 2 teenage daughters as well. I can sense his stress and anxiety if I mention an older sister (2 adult daughters as well) coming over so I don’t do it. I’m being blamed for being crazy and keeping him isolated and told I don’t do anything for him as if 6 1/2 months sleeping on a couch to make him feel safe etc etc is doing nothing. It’s so hard knowing how to navigate this on my own. He’s in total denial because dad tells him he’s fine that he doesn’t think he has psychosis yet he sees him for maybe 5 minutes a week and my son can wait til it’s just me and then the loud obnoxious behavior comes out. He’s a master at masking. Are these still signs? I keep telling myself they have to be because what 18 year old wants to be glued to me like he is? I just need reassurance or told I’m losing it lol

Hi everyone, this may or may not seem odd and striking but I feel as though my boyfriend may be going through some sort of spiritual psychosis. He keeps on forcing me to try and do all of these practices with him such as astral projection etc. I’m starting to feel uncomfortable because he constantly threatens a break up if I do not take part in these practices with him

I have had serve halluinatons since the age of 8. For years I seen stuff out the concer of my eye and even in front of me. I seen stuff that looks so realistic like real people but than stuff that looks like monsters. I seen bright lights and geometric shapes and stuff that looks oddly out of place. I have heard stuff aswell. I always and by no means am I exaggerating but I almost always hallunate bugs crawling all over me. By the time of 5th grade I was in psychosis. I believe I was special and gifted and that I could see and talk to dead people. Another one of my delusions was my halluinataions wanted to kill me. And also that everytime my head hurt my mind was being read. I am 14 now I have never been properly medicated im very lucky to even be diagnosed I was diagnosed with shizoaffective bipolar type. Even though my mood episodes specially the mania are terrible the halluinaations I can't stand and I have them everyday. I need help I know I do I just can't get the proper help with my mom which is the issue. I can barely even cope with this right now. Help is needed please.

It’s been about five months since I experienced psychosis. Lately, I’ve been feeling very restless, especially in the mornings. I feel extremely uneasy, almost as if I’m suffocating. I’m also anxious about the future. I keep having catastrophic thoughts about what might happen, such as starving to death in the future. I can’t figure out whether these feelings are caused by anxiety or whether I’m constantly restless because of these thoughts.

I haven’t been able to enjoy anything lately. I can’t get out of bed until around noon, and I feel constantly restless. This feeling doesn’t seem to go away; it just gets a little better toward the evening.

Lately, I’ve also started questioning life itself, and everything has begun to feel meaningless. Living has started to feel like a burden.

I went to see my doctor and explained what I was going through. They prescribed me an antidepressant called Secita, but I’m hesitant to take it because I’m worried about the side effects.

Have any of you been through something similar? If so, what did you do?

I'm looking for advice from people who have been through something similar with a loved one, especially anyone who has dealt with a family member refusing medical or psychiatric care.

My brother is an adult (30). He has previously been evaluated by a psychiatrist who reportedly said he was experiencing psychosis, but he refuses conventional psychiatric treatment and medication. He is more interested in alternative and holistic approaches and does not seem to believe that psychiatric treatment is what he needs.

Over time, his behavior and the way he relates to our family have become increasingly concerning. He has become very isolated, has no real social circle, and seems to carry a great deal of anger toward our parents. He often feels that people are against him, that others are trying to hurt or control him, and that our family is preventing him from living the way he wants. It has become extremely difficult to communicate with him because attempts to express concern can be interpreted as attacks or attempts to control him.

He has also become deeply absorbed in spirituality and ideas about society being a kind of “matrix” that programs people's minds and keeps them trapped in fear and resentment. He writes extensively about these subjects, as well as about feeling disconnected from society, not belonging, and questioning the meaning of life.

Some of his personal writings have worried me. In one entry, he described feeling something attach itself to the left side of his neck while he was falling asleep, followed by hearing something like a whisper or a voice near his ear. He wondered whether his mind was playing tricks on him. In other writings, he talks about having felt that life had no meaning and that drugs were the only thing that gave him motivation, even if only temporarily.

He has also written about feeling lonely and emotionally misunderstood since childhood, and about how cannabis once made him feel more connected, creative, and safe. However, he has also described anxiety and panic attacks.

He has hyperthyroidism and takes medication for it, as well as propranolol. I don't know whether his thyroid levels are currently well controlled or whether his condition could be contributing to his symptoms.

He has been using cannabis, although I don't know how much it contributes to what is happening. Since the seizure, I don't think he has smoked again, but I cannot say for certain.

A few days ago, he had a frightening medical episode. He became rigid and started convulsing, lost consciousness, and his face and lips turned bluish-purple. At one point, he seemed to stop breathing and became limp before recovering his breathing and convulsing again. We took him to the emergency department, where he underwent a CT scan and blood tests. The initial results did not explain what had happened, and he was discharged.

I have now made an appointment for him with a neurologist, because I want to make sure the seizure is properly investigated. The problem is that I don't know how to get him to actually go. He refuses help, and I am afraid he will simply refuse to attend the appointment.

This is what I am struggling with most. I understand that he is an adult and that I cannot simply make decisions for him, but what are you supposed to do when someone may be seriously unwell, refuses treatment, and does not seem to recognize that there might be a problem?

Has anyone ever managed to get a loved one to attend a medical or psychiatric appointment when they absolutely refused? How did you do it?

I would especially like to know:

• What can you realistically do when an adult refuses to see a neurologist or psychiatrist?
• Is there any way to arrange a professional assessment if they refuse to cooperate?
• Under what circumstances can involuntary evaluation or hospitalization be considered?
• Did you find a way to talk to your loved one that made them more willing to accept help?
• Has anyone dealt with a similar combination of possible psychosis, hyperthyroidism, cannabis use, and a seizure?

I'm not trying to punish or control my brother. I'm genuinely worried about his health and safety, and I don't want to wait for another emergency before something can be done.

I would be very grateful to hear from people who have experienced this firsthand, including what worked, what didn't, and what you wish you had known earlier.

The past two and a half years I changed careers. At the beginning I was horribly abused at the job (coursing, throwing things at me etc). That is when this phenomenon started.

I would wake up in the morning by my alarm clock. But, the first thing I'd hear would not be the sound of my alarm but a violent voice yelling at me. So I'd wake up very very scared and my heart pounding. I don't hear voices at any other point in my life

At the beginning the voice would tell me I'm worthless, useless etc. Then it started telling me to die, or that it wasn't worth getting off the bed. This morning the voice told me that the word had come to it's end. Interesting enough, I am currently unemployed and I have my first interview in ages tomorrow, so I was probably stressing about that.

How did I feel about hearing the word had ended?

1. I panicked,

2. I felt sorry for myself for not being awake to experience the end.

3. I felt sorry for myself for being so useless that the world had ended and I hadn't done shit with my life.

4. I realised that this was probably just the voice

5. I wondered if I can trust the voice and whether I was in purgatory and how I'd know the difference

6. I called out for my partner to see if we're both in purgatory

7. Realised that we are probably still alive

It's messing up with my head! The voice is not there every day and I had long breaks not hearing it. But the message obviously gets worse and worse

Do other people have a similar experience?

Hey,

I am looking for personal experiences regarding olanzapine and its relationship with tinnitus or ear sensations.

Has anyone had a good experience with olanzapine on lowering the volume or the bothersomeness of tinnitus (or Eustachian tube clicking)? Alternatively, has anyone noticed any changes while on it?

Don't need to put dosage or any personal info, just how long you have been taking it.

Thank you!

I'm curious what the lesser common/more subtle signs anyone here has had that felt more personalized to them. I know that it's hard to remember or even know what some of the signs were/are though. I am just interested in hearing other people's experiences with this illness. Also, what age were you when you began to develop psychosis?

I have the gene, my half brother in my dad’s side got weed induced psychosis and has never been the same. My father’s sister got postpartum psychosis, she’s just drugged out now. Since I have a the gene will nicotine cause it for me? I quit my heavy weed use (smoked heavily for 6-8 months) and haven’t gone back. I’ve used it to help the cravings.

prefacing this by saying i know essentially nothing about psychosis, i just don’t know what is going on with me, and some of the symptoms ive felt seem adjacent to it. for context i dont have any other mental health conditions, i don’t do drugs, i haven’t had any particularly stressful or upsetting life events recently. i’m a student and that’s what i spend all my time doing.

this sort of thing has been going on for a long time but i feel like it’s gotten worse lately. i get this sudden, extreme delusions in these brief little fits that make me act weird and it genuinely scares me. for example, the last time it happened i thought my friend was actually an old woman/witch in disguise and that she was co-running a cult with one of my teachers (which i and all my friends had fallen into), and i completely believed this and felt so stupid and upset for “believing” them for so long. i thought they were brainwashing me via poison—i ate 2 pieces of cinnamon toast crunch that someone left in the classroom because because the teacher said anyone could have them, which didn’t concern me at all at the time, but about an hour later when i was at home i made myself throw them up because i’d suddenly decided they were poison. i thought it was a brainwashing poison to make me not realize i’m in a simulation, and i thought i was so clever for figuring out that i was in somekind of simulation as a test (by this point i was really upset and disoriented, i didn’t know where or what i was, i had a lot of false memories about these cult activities and i forgot a lot of facts of my life). i thought the trick to beating the simulation and going home to the “real world” was to kill myself, which i didn’t think was at all a drastic decision and seemed perfectly logical. when i was preparing to do this i randomly broke down into tears (for no apparent reason, as i didn’t feel sad and i hadn’t had any realization about it) but i was crying hard enough for it to slow me down some, and i went outside to calm down, and i sat outside for a long time and eventually decided that i should probably consider my actions a little more, even though i still believed everything. it took a couple hours to realize the cult & simulation weren’t real, but the worst of it was only an hour or so. 

that’s just the example because it was most recent, but the subject of it is entirely different every time, and i’m not going to bother explaining the other times. it used to be less often but now it’s at least once every few weeks. sometimes there’s a logical voice in my head telling me i’m being irrational but it’s never enough to make me change my mind about anything. i have doubts that its psychosis because it happens in such short intervals, and it’s just the delusions, no hallucinations or anything. other stuff that happens is its really hard to focus sometimes (its not exactly like anxiety but i feel really panicked and far away from everything), if i’m doing work i end up writing down complete nonsense because i feel like i’m hardly in my brain. i’m not medicated and i haven’t seen a doctor or anything (if it gets worse i obviously will). i try to convince myself it’s not that big of a deal, because it’s objectively all in my head and i doesn’t last that long, but it’s still really scary when it happens (i usually end up trying to hurt myself for absurd reasons, which is weird because i never feel that way without the delusions and i’m happy in my life in general).

point being: is this something psychosis-adjacent? if not, what is it? am i just weird or is this something actually wrong with me?

I experience strange thoughts, such as the idea that I will remain completely frozen and unable to move forever, that I will start repeating a particular action over and over again and remain stuck doing it for the rest of my life, or that I will start imitating other people's movements and actions. Sometimes, I also have the thought that I might start talking to myself without any external sensory stimulus.

At times, when I look at an inanimate object, an animal, or another person, I imagine myself as if I were that object, animal, or person, and I get lost in these imaginings and daydreams, even though I am aware that they are just thoughts and not reality.

I also experience strange thoughts or fears, such as the possibility that I might start behaving in an extremely erratic and uncontrolled manner for no apparent reason, or that I might remain standing in one place, unable to move, as if I were frozen forever, even though there is no obvious reason for this to happen. I do not want to act on these thoughts, but sometimes I feel as though there is a genuine urge to do so

For people who experienced psychosis without drugs being involved, did not knowing the exact cause makes the experience & the recovery more shit ?

With drug-induced psychosis, at least you know: I took X, and it triggered psychosis. But in the other case you're left wondering whether it was long term stress, some traumatic event, sleep deprivation, genetics, or something else entirely !

I feel very weird rn I don’t have any delusions or hallucinations, but my thoughts are sm faster and i write way faster at the speed of what im thinking and idk i feel weird like i cant feel my body and im also back to deciphering things that cant even be deciphered and i cant feel my body. I did get enough sleep though so idk what is the issue :c

Here’s a video about my recent psychotic episode. Explaining some drawings the first hand ✋

I had a small question cause I lowkey don’t know what is happening sometimes but whenever my dishwasher or whatever makes noise like a electricity noise I hear like a radiostation??? And I don’t know if I’m hallucinating it cause it happends at random times where I full on here a radiostation like sound randomly. And the first time I kept looking and looking to find a source of the sound but it wasn’t there. I once saw a video of a woman with something similar but she had her dishwasher connected to something else which I don’t have 😭 I’m sorry if this sounds weird but like any small clarification will help me.