#psychotic depression

[psychosiscupcake]

life with psychosis

[disabledprincesses]

Visual ID: one man, edited so that there’s two of them, sits in a bedroom facing, presumably, a computer. The man behind the one closest to the computer holds a fake gun, pointing it at the first man. The first man has text over him that reads “Younger me hoping I could have a cool disability like a robot replacement leg,” while the second man with the gun has text that reads “Adult me with POTS, autism, seizures, CFS/ME, FND, psychotic depression, NAFLD, etc.” end ID.

[pezpenser205]

ok so psychotic people. do you also experience that thing when youre doing well and youre fully medicated where you want to trigger yourself into psychosis or stop taking your medication as some weird form of self harm or just because youre fucking bored because theres no way im the only one that experiences this and i havent seen anyone talk about it

[inkdandimpulsive]

Having a disorder that has psychotic symptoms really makes you feel distant from the rest of the mental health community sometimes. For example, some of y’all are really comfortable saying, “I have these symptoms, yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m ‘crazy’ (or insert any psychotic symptom).”

So just a friendly little reminder to please be at least a little cognizant of us when you post about your disorder(s). I fully support y’all, but I don’t want to be put down so others seem more palatable to the general public.

[healingwgabs]

“Talk to a therapist” “go to the psych ward” are ableist statements and r not supportive to the psychotic communities who experience delusions of persecution and extreme paranoia who wont trust their therapist or the psych ward staff?? and are likely to get traumatized if they go to therapy or the psych ward in a state like that

Seen posts on here that recommend that psychotics (Doesn’t specify what kind) speak to therapists? And from personal experience I don’t agree (depends on what kind) and think it can be harmful. I was lucky enough to be given a few free sessions-my mom had something set up (like 3-the country I live in offers that to some ppl 🇨🇦 but my therapist) but it was during my psychotic depression (w chronic paranoia) and now I feel ways about seeing a therapist.. idk don’t recommend seeing one if ur like that, it was kinda traumatizing and it wasn’t the therapists fault

Everything is traumatizing when ur in a state like that :( still learning what triggers I got while like that esp having experienced things for as long as I have

I also never told my therapist about the psychotic symptoms I was experiencing during things, didn’t trust being honest about them with a professional at the time, just had to mask a lot. Didn’t tell my family either. I was rlly scared about the terrifying things I was going through internally

[cici-interrupted]

psychotic depressive

[schizodiaries]

my first psychotic episode

I wanted to talk about this for so long, so I’m finally getting it off my chest. I want to share my first experience with psychosis and how it affected me in the long run, and hopefully my story resonates with others as well.

This is going to be a really long post so I’m putting it under the cut.

(cw for descriptions of psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoid ideation)

It was around Valentine’s Day 2021 and I first started noticing something was off while I was at work. I was feeling unusually paranoid about everything. I would think people were following me to work, that my bosses were conspiring against me, or that customers recognized me from somewhere. This made me incredibly stressed from work, even more stressed than usual, and after my shifts I would sit in my car for half an hour in complete silence just trying to process everything that occurred.

After a few days I noticed I wasn’t sleeping well. I had trouble falling asleep and I was only getting a few hours of sleep each night. Not only that, but my appetite became severely reduced. I would constantly skip meals because I just didn’t feel like eating. My boyfriend actually noticed this and notified my mom, who tried making me my favorite foods but I couldn’t get myself to eat any of it.

At some point I started having ideas of reference. I would scroll through social media and think the posts had a special meaning behind them, or had some kind of code that needed to be deciphered. I would also misinterpret posts as being directed towards me when that wasn’t the case. For example one of my friends made a post about grief, and I thought she was describing how I was about to experience grief soon. Another friend posted “god is real” and I thought he was specifically telling me I was going to meet god soon. It was very confusing and off-putting.

Then came the voices. I began hearing whispers at night, which caused me to lose even more sleep, and they eventually turned into command hallucinations telling me to attack my boyfriend. This frightened me, and at this point I knew something was very wrong. I even tried reaching out to a crisis text line although it wasn’t much help at this stage. So I told my bf and mom that I was hearing voices and not getting any sleep and they encouraged me to call an advice nurse, which I did after a sleepless night. I described my symptoms to the nurse, who determined that I needed to be taken to the emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.

My mom and I got ready to go to the ER. This is when my psychosis really took off and reality started to warp. Notifications on my phone became the FBI searching for me. A noise at the front door meant the cops were after me. I was suddenly in major trouble because I chose to trust the advice nurse, who was one of them. On the drive to the ER, I had to ask to turn the radio off because it was talking to me. I also thought cars were following us and trying to contact me. I was having illusions of other drivers waving at me and asking if I needed help. Upon arriving to the ER, a security guard walked by and I thought he was there to arrest and deport me. While I was being evaluated I kept muttering nonsense to myself while the staff asked me questions about my symptoms. I was really starting to lose it.

There wasn’t enough room in the ER to accommodate every patient so I was placed on a gurney in the middle of the hallway with other patients. At this point I began to experience more delusions. I could feel one of the patients reading my mind and I complained about it to the doctor who evaluated me. I started to realize this was all fake, all staged, and there were actually people behind the scenes watching me like the Truman Show. I wasn’t really in the ER, it was all just a game. So I left my gurney and tried to escape, but a security guard stopped me, and we got into a minor physical altercation but no one was hurt. I calmed down and went back to my gurney. I talked to other patients and staff as if we were friends because I genuinely thought we were. I had absolutely no social boundaries, and even insulted another patient completely unprovoked. I felt like I had no control of my thoughts or actions at this point.

After spending the night in the ER, I was determined to be 1. gravely disabled (due to not sleeping/eating) and 2. a danger to myself, and I was put on a 5150 hold and transferred to a mental hospital. I still was convinced this was all part of some kind of game, and didn’t take it very seriously. So when the staff at the hospital asked me questions about my name, age, etc., I would give them false answers. Some of the other patients tried talking to me but I would brush them off and respond with something either rude or nonsensical. Why did it matter when none of this was even real?

The first night at the hospital was rough. I would sit in the admissions chair unmoving for hours, going through countless delusions at once. When it was time for dinner, I refused to even open my food because I thought it was a bomb. When I was finally made to open it, I refused to eat it because I thought it was poison. I tried hanging out in the day room, but I was bothered by the TV because I felt like it was talking to me. I also thought I recognized some of the other patients and tried talking to them like they were my friends, which they were put off by. When it was bedtime, I would wander the hallway like a lost child, wondering where the hell I was and why I wasn’t waking up from this nightmare. One of the MHT’s escorted me to my room and encouraged me to sleep, but I got no sleep that night. I was too terrified that the staff or roommate would try to kill me.

It didn’t get much better from there. I spent 11 days in the mental hospital and I was psychotic the whole time. I got into trouble a couple times, as my social boundaries continued to be broken. For example I would rummage through my roommate’s belongings, and one time I barged into my neighbor’s room unannounced because the voices told me to go there. I had multiple terrifying delusions about the hospital, including that they were performing human experimentation, that they were serving us human meat, and that they were killing patients. I was able to see a psychiatrist while I was there, who I complained to about my delusions. He informed me that I was experiencing a psychotic episode, and diagnosed me with depression with psychotic features. I was put on a bunch of different antipsychotics, including ones that had awful side effects like muscle stiffness and trouble speaking.

When I was finally discharged, I didn’t feel like myself. I was heavily medicated, and still psychotic. I was having a hard time adjusting back to normal life. I couldn’t take walks because I still felt like cars were following me or neighbors were watching me. I couldn’t go to the craft store without feeling like the employees were secretly talking about me or that other customers were calling the police on me. I was able to get a doctor’s note for work, but upon returning a few weeks later my work performance was severely impacted by my symptoms and medication side effects and I was fired. My life just wasn’t the same anymore.

When I finally started to come out of psychosis, it felt like waking up from a long dream. It was like I could breathe again, but I also felt like I left so much devastation behind. I started to realize how unacceptable my behavior was, how ridiculous my delusions were, and just how much irreversible damage psychosis did to my mental health. I felt like there was a permanent scar left on my psyche. I wondered if I could ever get my old life back or if I was doomed to be like this forever. I started to mourn the life I once had before psychosis, before I lost my mind.

Psychosis took away a part of me I can never get back. It took control of me and caused me to lose myself almost completely, as if I were possessed by a spirit. But it also taught me a lot about myself and how fragile the mind can be. Before psychosis, I took my mental health for granted. Now I’m grateful for every moment I feel mentally stable. I still experience mild psychosis every now and again, but none as intense and disruptive as my first psychotic episode. I think it’s easier to manage nowadays, because I know what to look out for. But psychosis has a way of creeping up on me when I least expect it and I can never be fully prepared for a psychotic episode.

I am now on medication that works for me and has minimal side effects. I have a good support system and I’m receiving therapy and psychiatric help. I think I’m taking good care of my mental health and I have not experienced a psychotic episode in months. I like to think I’m still recovering from my first one, even two years later. But now I’m slowly getting my life back, one day at a time.

[bipolarmango]

In February 2022, I was prescribed Seroquel for the second time after being off of it for three years (after first being on it for 12 years) to treat my bipolar disorder. I gained 17 kilos in two months and the medication was changed to Aripiprazole to control the weight gain but I kept gaining. By October 2023 I had gained total 26kg.

I saw my psychiatrist every month and every month I complained about the weight gain. His file clearly stated that I was anorexic when entering the hospital in December 2021 and it took two months for me to agree on starting the medication because I was terrified on gaining weight on the medication.

During all this time, I was told by both my psychiatrist and my GP that I should exercise more and eat less and the excess weight of the antipsychotic would go away. They both told me the weight gain was due to me eating more, even if I knew I wasn't eating more. In fact, I was sticking to my salads and even started a gym regime and still gained like crazy. I told them this, too, but was dismissed.

For the past seven months, I've put extra effort into losing the extra kilos. I've been working out at the gym four days a week for 60-90 minutes per session, walked for 45-60 minutes a day for six days a week, and eaten 1500 calories a day, and lost total five kilos. My personal trainer was mindblown for my lack of success.

This week, I finally book an appointment for a specialist to discuss the weight gain. My blood results came back pre-diabetic and insulin resistant, both something Aripiprazole causes. My TSH (thyroid hormone) has also increased almost out of the reference values compared to pre-Aripiprazole. My body mass index shows that my muscle mass is much higher than is necessary for a person of my height due to all the workout I've done as per recommended by my doctors, but the medication has totally destroyed my metabolism so my body is hanging on to fat like crazy. I'm literally a muscular fat person. I'm suffering from metabolic syndrome and my metabolic age has gone from 30 to 50 in less than two years. I am also heading fast towards a stroke and heart attack, and my cholesterol is skyhigh.

My message is: if you're put on antipsychotics, please have regular bloodwork taken. Your psychiatrist may not pursue them or advise you to do so, but your physical health may be in jeopardy. Exercise and healthy eating don't always help the case, even if the mental health personnel will have you believe so. I did exercise throughout being on the medication and had a healthy plant-based diet, yet my bloodowork looks anything but, all due to the antipsychotic medication.

[the-silent-fellowship]

Depression Plurplex Terms

[PT: Depression Plurplex Terms]

All flags where based off these interpretations(link), please check them out. Each name of the types and just the labels can be seen in the alt text.

[1 ID: none yet]

[2 ID: none yet]

[Reposting with versions without symbols]

[psycho-butnotpath]

I'm starting to feel unreal again

[flashbackonyourbehalf]

My head is the loudest place on earth

Please tell me how to turn it off

[queerpossums]

ack it feels like i smoked way too much and then ate a bowl of coffee grounds. salt hasn’t helped so it isn’t pots/neurologic issues. i need to sleep but i fucking can’t. it’s been days of feeling fucked in the head and i’ve been actively avoiding all risky activities and behaviors since i noticed shit getting weird. fuck fuck fuck i have to make it through the next semester and keep my merit scholarship. at least i’ve done a months worth of late work in the past five days

[theinfantboiler]

[healingwgabs]

does anyone else who's experienced extended periods of severe paranoia find it really awkward to be around ppl after the fact... like i thought u were trying to k*ll me for sooooo long? lol how r u though? like idk how to act fr guilt delusions in addition to this just means u get worse for having any bad thoughts, or feelings regarding those who you think r hurting you (no splitting, or psychotic rage that is potently there and killing you allowed) and your responsible for things going on around you this is also a really traumatic and confusing thing to go through

[bury-me-alive]

I can't be in my house anymore

I can't be at my house

I can't be at my job

I feel this huge fear I'm gonna fall into a big psychotic depression attack all over again

If I stay here I'm gonna k1ll myself

I'm so scared of myself

[bipolarmango]

ALWAYS GET A SECOND OPINION ON YOUR ANTIPSYCHOTIC MEDS.

I started antipsychotics the second time after a three year break in 2022. In the first two months, I gained 17kg without changing anything in my life. I asked for the doctor to change my meds. He did. I kept gaining until I'd gained over 25kg. I told my doctor I wasn't happy with the weight gain, he told me I should work out and control what I ate.

I started working out at gym four times a week (2 x 90min and 2 x 75min). I went for a 45-75min walk every day. I ate 1500-1700cal a day. I hired a personal trainer. I lost 3kg in four months. I hated myself. I started eating under 1000 calories a day.

Then I went to another doctor. He told me it was a small miracle I lost anything as the antipsychotic prescribed to me made people gain weight, even when taking a weight-loss med. The medication caused people hypothyroidism and metabolic syndrome. That literally no one ever lost weight with this medication.

For 1,5 years I had met with the first doctor every month and told about my struggle with the weight gain. Everytime he told me to take a look at my diet and exercise more.

The first time I saw another doctor, he told me it was the meds, not me.