I started getting psychotic in 2009. Small baby steps towards the complete crasch I did in 2010. Got meds in 2011. I’m not where or who I was before my break. I don’t believe I ever will.
After I was diagnosed… there was a point in my 20’s were I was finished with the meds… the docs… the rules of the house… everything that existed…
I left the family nest and went homeless 6+ months… just lived in some of the parks and shelters in our city… I was very psychotic then… The constant theories in my head… the constant mistrust… (I was naked in public a lot) I call those my rabid times. I was so out of it… I didn’t really get back to self realization until the cops took me into hospital.
I was not a good person back then… I don’t like looking back to that time…
Then when I got help getting off the streets… I was still not ok with the idea of meds or therapy… but I did drink and do drugs… I almost left this life… when I woke up and found myself not dead… that’s when I started to go to therapy and start legal meds… and not self meds.
My last psychosis was pretty bad (lasted about 4-6 months). I feel like I’m either over medicated or I have brain damage from it. I was so paranoid that I mostly feel ashamed and that it’s evident how stupid I’ve become. I was hospitalized a couple of months after it started but it took awhile for medication to respond. I think part of the problem was Topamax was causing part of my paranoid delusions. Once I got off that crap, my paranoia decreased somewhat.
But the strange thing I’ve always felt somewhat psychotic since I got sick (so about 3-4 years). The reason being is I was mildly confused (like mild delirium) and I had anxiety, fear, and a single delusion (no hallucinations though). When I told my psychiatrist this she thought I either didn’t know the meaning of psychosis (possible learning disability) or that I have a personality disorder like borderline personality disorder because they have psychotic breaks. Basically I had dissociation (derealization) and philosophical obsessions that were delusional or crazy, despite some scientists (even a noble prize winner) thinking the same thing (there’s even a video on it where he tries to convince people in a jocular manner). The difference being is it consumed my life and I felt nothing was real.
I also lied about hallucinating in the hospital (perhaps that’s why they gave me a schizo-affective disorder?). I thought one of the patients was going to kill my parent’s and frame me so I needed an alibi (ie I needed a reason to stay in the hospital longer).