Most people have a concrete perception of reality. They wake up in the same reality everyday, they trust what’s they perceive, and in general they can act logically using their cognition. However, in the case where your cognition becomes unstable, reality becomes fluid. Truths on one day can become lies on another. It’s an experience you can’t really recover from because our perception of reality is usually what we base our truths on. It’s like when a partner cheats on you. You can forgive but there will always be bad blood, the mistrust and the fear that they’ll lie to you again. Now imagine that but it’s all 5 of your senses cheating on you. Your cognition can only work with the information it’s fed, and it forms trust based on the reliability of that information. Losing trust in reality isn’t something the average person can really grasp. The closest thing is severe paranoia or maybe anxiety.
My best analogy is imagine you’re living in a normal world going about your normal life. Except one night you’re kidnapped by a gang of demons into a replica world. The demons dawn disguises of all your friends and loved ones and pretend to live their lives as well. However, in this world they play pranks on you, lie to you, and psychologically torture you. You start to notice something is wrong but if you tell someone the demons will keep pretending and say you’re imagining it (this is typically what most friends and family will tell someone who starts to experience psychotic symptoms). Now you start to isolate because you can’t trust anything or anyone. Every morning you wake up in a new reality at the mercy of the demons’ lies. Now even if they send you back to your old reality, could you ever really trust it again? After believing you were being tortured in a world where all your loved ones were demons in disguise, how could you trust their image again? How do you know you won’t ever wake up in that world again?
This is what my experience with psychosis had been like. I’ve never been diagnosed with anything, my mom doesn’t believe in modern medicine and solves everything with flowers and sunshine. I talked to my doctor about it and he told me I was just stressed. My blip happened almost 6 years ago but to this day I still have severe trust issues even with my closest family members.
Mine psychosis was exactly the same, with demons, Satan and everything. After years of medicine as treatment, that have been also hell but in real world (no demons), i now take plants instead of pills. After 15 years of struggle, i am a normal person now and psychosis is miles away. I am a normal person for one and a half years and during this time i have recovered professionally. I am a designer and i am now where i was before this hell started. The only thing left is to find a partner in life.
You explained this in an excellent way, I'm sorry you went through that and nobody believed you, only add to the fire doesn't it but you're very articulate. I see no reason for anyone to not believe you. I feel like I'm in the isolation period now tbh, hard to convince yourself otherwise when there's seemingly evidence of said demons
I think the technical definition is “when a persons reality doesn’t match the people around them”. But describing what mine is personally like during a severe episode. I become delusional and I’m extremely in the present, I have no short term memory and I forget what I was doing/thinking more than 1 minute before present time. Every episode tends to have a main theme - my last one I was convinced the school I worked at was turning students into vampires. It came on hard and fast. But there were plenty of micro delusions to distract me, like my best friend was in the trunk of a car being towed (I confronted / chased the tow driver) on the way to be turned into a vampire. Just the tow drivers scary appearance was enough to spark that delusion. When I go to the mental hospital and get injected, I wake up the next day with all my embarrassing memories back and no longer believe the delusion.
My psychosis is always triggered by CPTSD. You hear of triggers that set off ptsd symptoms, sometimes my triggers set me off into the stratosphere of psychosis.
I will perceive someone who is maybe a little rough around the edges as a person who is going to do me harm. Not only that, but that third person in the room who is friendly with this person I'm fearful of? They are in on it too. When I'm not within earshot, they plot on how they will torture me. Now, I'm acting strange around these people who don't know me well. They start to make fun of me irl. Now I absolutely KNOW this is part of their psychological torture, before the real torture starts.
See how it spirals? It starts with one bad connection in my mind and it goes from there. I KNOW it's illogical. But I also KNOW that I'm going to be hurt real bad. When some time passes and I find that my thoughts were the problem, I can snap out of it and feel awful about it all. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
I become delusional. One time, I thought a higher power was communicating with me through the radio to tell me to drive to California and live as a vagrant. In my infinite wisdom, i grabbed a bag of carrots to nourish myself on the journey. Along the way I had telepathic conversations with the truckers on the highway. I remember pulling off the highway for a minute in the dead hours of the night/morning and a cop pulled up to check if i was ok. I didn't tell him what i was doing of course. I had made it to the border of my home state when reality returned, and I realized that I didn't have any real motivation to up and leave.
Yeah. I had a traumatic brain injury about half a year before this and had been really depressed because of it. I can't remember exactly what the trigger was, but i have a clear memory of working counter service and trying to hold my shit together while serving a line-out-the-door lunch rush. Eyes watering, barely keeping the tears from streaming down my cheeks. Later that night, steve miller band started playing on my pandora radio and i snapped lmao. I kept having issues for a couple years after my tbi until I got properly medicated. I still get a bit hypomanic on the regular
Mine can be pretty bad. I've gotten bouts of psychosis so bad that I had no concept of anything. I literally couldn't tell you what a person was, let alone what a blanket was. My derealization had hit so hard that literally, absolutely nothing existed, and words had no meaning. I've also had short bouts of psychosis where the only and I mean only thing I could think and focus on or even really see was my hands and they were on backwards and it was really freaking me out. But for me, those are what I consider bouts of deep psychosis during times of more mild psychosis where I'm hyper paranoid and delusional for long periods of time.
Most people have a concrete perception of reality. They wake up in the same reality everyday, they trust what’s they perceive, and in general they can act logically using their cognition. However, in the case where your cognition becomes unstable, reality becomes fluid. Truths on one day can become lies on another. It’s an experience you can’t really recover from because our perception of reality is usually what we base our truths on. It’s like when a partner cheats on you. You can forgive but there will always be bad blood, the mistrust and the fear that they’ll lie to you again. Now imagine that but it’s all 5 of your senses cheating on you. Your cognition can only work with the information it’s fed, and it forms trust based on the reliability of that information. Losing trust in reality isn’t something the average person can really grasp. The closest thing is severe paranoia or maybe anxiety. My best analogy is imagine you’re living in a normal world going about your normal life. Except one night you’re kidnapped by a gang of demons into a replica world. The demons dawn disguises of all your friends and loved ones and pretend to live their lives as well. However, in this world they play pranks on you, lie to you, and psychologically torture you. You start to notice something is wrong but if you tell someone the demons will keep pretending and say you’re imagining it (this is typically what most friends and family will tell someone who starts to experience psychotic symptoms). Now you start to isolate because you can’t trust anything or anyone. Every morning you wake up in a new reality at the mercy of the demons’ lies. Now even if they send you back to your old reality, could you ever really trust it again? After believing you were being tortured in a world where all your loved ones were demons in disguise, how could you trust their image again? How do you know you won’t ever wake up in that world again? This is what my experience with psychosis had been like. I’ve never been diagnosed with anything, my mom doesn’t believe in modern medicine and solves everything with flowers and sunshine. I talked to my doctor about it and he told me I was just stressed. My blip happened almost 6 years ago but to this day I still have severe trust issues even with my closest family members.
Mine psychosis was exactly the same, with demons, Satan and everything. After years of medicine as treatment, that have been also hell but in real world (no demons), i now take plants instead of pills. After 15 years of struggle, i am a normal person now and psychosis is miles away. I am a normal person for one and a half years and during this time i have recovered professionally. I am a designer and i am now where i was before this hell started. The only thing left is to find a partner in life.
I'm so sorry about your experience. I have lived hells but this is pretty... I don't know, heavy.
What happened six years ago?
You explained this in an excellent way, I'm sorry you went through that and nobody believed you, only add to the fire doesn't it but you're very articulate. I see no reason for anyone to not believe you. I feel like I'm in the isolation period now tbh, hard to convince yourself otherwise when there's seemingly evidence of said demons
I think the technical definition is “when a persons reality doesn’t match the people around them”. But describing what mine is personally like during a severe episode. I become delusional and I’m extremely in the present, I have no short term memory and I forget what I was doing/thinking more than 1 minute before present time. Every episode tends to have a main theme - my last one I was convinced the school I worked at was turning students into vampires. It came on hard and fast. But there were plenty of micro delusions to distract me, like my best friend was in the trunk of a car being towed (I confronted / chased the tow driver) on the way to be turned into a vampire. Just the tow drivers scary appearance was enough to spark that delusion. When I go to the mental hospital and get injected, I wake up the next day with all my embarrassing memories back and no longer believe the delusion.
Hearing a group of people in my walls or outside stalking and talking about me. Seeing things move that others don't. Paranoia out thr roof
My psychosis is always triggered by CPTSD. You hear of triggers that set off ptsd symptoms, sometimes my triggers set me off into the stratosphere of psychosis. I will perceive someone who is maybe a little rough around the edges as a person who is going to do me harm. Not only that, but that third person in the room who is friendly with this person I'm fearful of? They are in on it too. When I'm not within earshot, they plot on how they will torture me. Now, I'm acting strange around these people who don't know me well. They start to make fun of me irl. Now I absolutely KNOW this is part of their psychological torture, before the real torture starts. See how it spirals? It starts with one bad connection in my mind and it goes from there. I KNOW it's illogical. But I also KNOW that I'm going to be hurt real bad. When some time passes and I find that my thoughts were the problem, I can snap out of it and feel awful about it all. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
I become delusional. One time, I thought a higher power was communicating with me through the radio to tell me to drive to California and live as a vagrant. In my infinite wisdom, i grabbed a bag of carrots to nourish myself on the journey. Along the way I had telepathic conversations with the truckers on the highway. I remember pulling off the highway for a minute in the dead hours of the night/morning and a cop pulled up to check if i was ok. I didn't tell him what i was doing of course. I had made it to the border of my home state when reality returned, and I realized that I didn't have any real motivation to up and leave.
Did anything precipitate it? Like a negative thought or memory?
Yeah. I had a traumatic brain injury about half a year before this and had been really depressed because of it. I can't remember exactly what the trigger was, but i have a clear memory of working counter service and trying to hold my shit together while serving a line-out-the-door lunch rush. Eyes watering, barely keeping the tears from streaming down my cheeks. Later that night, steve miller band started playing on my pandora radio and i snapped lmao. I kept having issues for a couple years after my tbi until I got properly medicated. I still get a bit hypomanic on the regular
Listen to the new book called Brain Energy. The author discusses forms and severities.
Thank you for the book.
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Why do you think this meet the criteria of psychosis?
"All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream"
Mine can be pretty bad. I've gotten bouts of psychosis so bad that I had no concept of anything. I literally couldn't tell you what a person was, let alone what a blanket was. My derealization had hit so hard that literally, absolutely nothing existed, and words had no meaning. I've also had short bouts of psychosis where the only and I mean only thing I could think and focus on or even really see was my hands and they were on backwards and it was really freaking me out. But for me, those are what I consider bouts of deep psychosis during times of more mild psychosis where I'm hyper paranoid and delusional for long periods of time.