![]() It’s like using an inhaler when your breath becomes heavy, rather than waiting to go to the ER with an asthma attack. It can be scary to realize that you are headed for a psychotic break, but it is possible to do things that lessen the severity of, or even avert, psychosis. It feels like I am drunk, when I am perfectly sober.Īs you learn how to manage your own illness, you might start noticing your set of symptoms. Even the sensation of sound seems to ebb and flow-seeming at first inaudible, then unbearably loud. I can become paranoid someone is in my house, when I know no one is. I could become lost in a place I have been in hundreds, or even thousands, of times. I may become clumsy, lack spatial awareness and feel as though I don’t know where I am. During these signs, we may learn how to intervene for ourselves.įor example, I have many (now) predictable warning signs. However, effective treatment is available, and over time we may come to recognize the warning signs of an episode. This can be painful to accept, and there is a certain grief in admitting we don’t always have control of ourselves. The reality is that you are just a human being-a beautiful one, who also happens to have a mental illness. But the reality is more complex, and a little more painful than all that. ![]() When you first experience it, you may remember stigmatizing jokes about “crazy people” you’ve heard or news stories of violent, “psychotic” people. The scary part of psychosis is usually the aftermath, when you realize what happened. This was because I was not educated about psychosis-even if I understood the situation was odd, I would not have known exactly what it meant. At the time, though, I didn’t understand anything was wrong, and even if I had, I lacked the language to communicate what I was experiencing. Now that I have more experience managing my illness ( bipolar disorder with a psychotic feature), I can look back on this experience and understand it. I didn’t eat during this time, and it never occurred to me that I should eat or that I was even hungry. I had no sense of time-many hours would pass, and I thought it had only been a few minutes. I locked myself in my bedroom for 48 hours and used a coloring book I had I did this because it comforted me, and it was also the only thing I could focus on or understand. It felt like I had lost my ability to process language. I couldn’t understand what people said to me, and I couldn’t talk. It certainly felt real, though.įor example, during my first psychotic break, it felt as though my cognitive abilities had reduced to that of a toddler. Your senses and brain colluded to fabricate something that wasn’t actually there. Sometimes it can seem ordinary because it was your reality for a while. ![]() A first experience with psychosis can be terrifying, exhilarating, disorienting or feel just plain ordinary. ![]()
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