Anyone who had long duration of psycosis

Long duration of untreated psycosis I’ve read can result in a bad outcome to treatment response.

Anyone here went through a long 8-12 months of untreated psycosis and turned out good? Any success stories?

1 Like

My psychosis started in december 2010. I started taking medication in september 2011. I could no longer function at that time. I recovered in october/november and got my life back quickly.

2 Likes

I was in denial and untreated for quite some time. More than 1.5 years, with some hospitalizations. I will just caution against trusting your own mind too much. And be carefull not to idealize the world, there are lots of junk out there.

Same here…

my parents used to dissolve the medicine in some liquid and administered it to me.

1 Like

Ive never taken synthetic meds more than once and I spent about 2 yrs where while I was awake I was constantly receiving thoughts and voices encouraging me to be violent , it eventually passed so now I get that stuff occasionally, when it first started I thought people were sending those things into my brain.

I was pretty psychotic for almost two years when I was 19-21. My first year was without meds; I suffered pretty badly as most people have. The next year I spent locked up in a psychiatric hospital and even though they gave me medication, I suffered the entire time with psychosis. Needless to say I didn’t function very highly for those two years.
I’m 54 now and I have worked (albeit, mostly part-time) for most of the last 34 years, I went back to college when I was 24 and I need four more classes for my degree, I have lived independently since 1995, I drive my own car and I take care of myself and most of my business. if you knew me when I was in my late teens and early twenties you would be amazed at how far I’ve come. Nobody would have predicted it.

6 Likes

When I first developed schizophrenia, started hearing voices, I was 19, and I didn’t get on meds or get diagnosed until I was 22. During that time I gave college all I had and for the most part tried to ignore the voices after having an incident of doing what they told me to and pissing off the hospital I was trying to volunteer for. I finished my second and third year of college, despite the schizophrenia and the voices, because I thought it was either God telling me to study or demons trying to tell me to get into trouble. I eventually spiraled out of control though and wound up getting two F’s at the university, and running around in circles doing just about every single ridiculous thing the voices told me to do. It just got worse and worse until I eventually thought I had to get myself thrown in jail or kill myself, so I called the police on myself, they sent me to the campus psychologist, and then I ended up being hospitalized and sent home. I haven’t been in a university since. I honestly wish I had dropped out of university my second year of college, or better yet, never went. I can honestly say that if I had just finished high school and then did nothing for the next seven years I’d be in a better position than I am now. I suspected that hearing voices meant I was losing my mind when i first starting hearing them, but I was afraid of being locked in a mental ward for the rest of my life. I didn’t know that they had gotten rid of those, and no longer lock people up for life. I honestly now wish they still did have asylums, because then I wouldn’t have to worry about becoming homeless or being a burden to my family. I wouldn’t recommend going through college without medicine. The psychosis combined with the pressure of studies is like it’s own type of hell. The only reason I wasn’t more upset about things at the time was because the voice claiming to be God kept telling me that I was guaranteed into heaven when I died, and kept telling me that I would have a successful life. Well, that definitely didn’t happen, no success here, and now I’m in depression again because I realize I could still end up in hell after all of this. I hope not, and I know some Christians believe in once saved always saved, but I have trouble believing that.

1 Like

yeppers… i had 9 months twice in 3 years

my sister , 14 years unremitting.

she died

I have had a 9 year recovery

1 Like

I went 6+ months without medication and was doing positively fine. Brain recovery was fast paced, dreams were glorious, and my mood was stable. I’d switch from mid to high functioning.

I was thrown back onto meds because my mother ratted me out to my case worker that I was lying about taking medication. It sucks that I had to lie to feel some trueness & freedom, but it was worth it.

Yeah I was active and unmedicated for a year and a half. I functioned very highly, but not socially. I was extremely fit and an honors student. I’m more just muscle bound and big now, but I keep up in academia and I do have a social life now.

Regarding being saved. Just continue to ask the Lord to help and purify and forgive you continously as we all should. As long as you stay close to him and do that.

Is it normal that the voices actually claim to be God?

My friend some weeks ago started to say that he now had the keyes to the world and that something big was coming his way. I dont know if that was his delusion or voice saying this.

In my case this is usually a give and take. What you describe here is not uncommon in sz. The feeling of something profoundly meaningful about to happen, but it being somewhat unclear what this event consists of. There is this sense of unarticulated meaning in sz.

Typically, delusions will develop from this to resolve the tension that this unarticulated meaning gives rise to. Voices would typically play into such feelings for me, but it wasn’t like they filled in all the blanks completely and I would just endorse these thoughts. Typically, my voices were very suggestive. Saying things like: “we got something in store for you,” indeed “something big is about to happen”, or “wait and see until you come home”.

What typically happened is that I would look for an articulation of meaning in my surroundings that would fit the voices’ vague suggestions, and then retrospectively interpret it as that being what the voices were all about. Thus, when I would come home, anything that wasn’t quite as expected would fill in this sense of meaning. This object that was out of place would be that thing the voices were talking about, and it was immensely important. Then you go on and enquiry why it is so important, theorizing someone might have moved it etc.

In my case, the psychotic experience is very much a search for new meanings. It is not so much that these are presented to me as clear-cut as ordinary meaning in the world is presented to one. This gives psychosis a mysterious ring to me - when in the midst of it. Typically I had to look for meaning, and ofcourse, I would find it, or rather, establish it. The feeling of inarticulate meaning is very pressing, and you want it resolved. I think this catalyzes interpretation - it is given a lot of free play to fill in the blanks. And there are a lot of blanks, in my experience.

1 Like

i dont know if it is possible. but i think i have been psycotic from birth. usally when i quit my meds i feel wery wery bad and if i didnt have meds i would kill my self. i was able to survive to age 24 when i started meds, i stopped beliving the psycosis and started being more smart about Things. questioning my self. i wouldent say the meds got me out of psycosis, that i did my self when i stopped beliving ewrything. the psycosis for me is a way of surving, the pain is to big. the unreal world of psycosis cna give me joy. reality doesent give me nothing… no and i didnt turnt out god. i belive myself that i have some of the of the worst cases of schizophrenia . if i was born in a age without medications i wouldent be alive. probaly many of you wouldent either be alive. i dont understand how schizophrenia can develop. it didnt develop it was always here. because of Chemical inbalance. and the only the only ■■■■■■■ way to fix this the most are With meds. if you cant handle reality you go psycotic without meds. but i didnt start to do wierd stuff until the age of 21 and 24. maybe i am wrong about developing psycosis. i cant og back to who i was. when i stop my meds i og crazy and at the end its to much pain. i wounder if you People wery really normal at the beginning anyway. why should it be so different from me. its the same disseas… how can you just develop schizophrenia at the age of 19? the brain just changes? lol. you are not a child anymore. and how you wiewed the world before. doesent work anymore. because as you age yuo become smarter and learn.

1 Like

Thank you :slight_smile: I think that is how it works too

I was psychotic for around 8 months before I was admitted to a state hospital where they didn’t care if I had insurance or not. I wrote a book about what I went through and it’s available on amazon. Nobody cares.

1 Like

what’s the name of your book?

if you put “schizophrenia autobiography” in the amazon search window it comes up number one…“OUT OF IT - an autobiography on the experience of schizophrenia”…anonymous. The front page of this site has the first thirty pages under “success stories” if you want to dabble…thanks for asking.

5 Likes

Ill buy it the next time I buy something from amazon :slight_smile:

well, thank you !! that’s awful nice of you. are you new here? I don’t remember seeing you on here before?

yeah I’m new :slight_smile: I like to read autobiographys on sz and I’ll be helping you also so that’s good

1 Like