Greetings, how are you guys tonight? I have some questions I feel some of you can help me with. First things first, I’m no danger to myself or others. No crisis or anything. It’s taken me a long time to post here for fear that I’ll be tracked and immediately drug to a hospital… but I see past that now. Sorry if I’m kind of all over the place. Let me just start:
I’m 21 and in college and things have been crazy for me for a while. Many months. I see lights, figures, hell, sometimes things just straight up move or slide around. I never hear voices… to me it basically always sounds like someone has left a TV on in another room. What really bothers me though is my inability to think clearly. Sometimes I can’t even understand something as simple as an episode of Spongebob. It’s just too much mental effort when I can just “blank out” instead. And of course I get scared over silly things… People following me, setting me up, trying to lock me up. Always something and everyone has noticed my strangeness and started being “concerned”. I started estranging myself from everyone and stopped picking up the phone around March.
I finally decided to get help last week and went to my doctor. I told her about the hallucinations and unclear thinking, though I neglected to mention the paranoia. She ran several tests on me and drew blood. To rule out anything physical I suppose… I’m going back next week. Does anyone have any advice about dealing with doctors and such? Also, my campus has free counseling and therapy services. What is that stuff like? What and how much should I tell these people? I’m just really afraid of saying too much and having my rights taken from me. That and healthcare is expensive and there’s no way I can afford to go to a hospital.
I haven’t been diagnosed with anything at this point. But I’m positive I’m experiencing some form of psychosis and I really, really just don’t know what to do. Thank ya’ll for reading this and I’m sorry if I posted this in the wrong spot…
I second what @everhopeful said; the best thing you can do is be completely honest and tell them what’s going on with you. They can’t effectively treat you unless they know what is going on. They can’t put you in the hospital against your will unless you are a threat to yourself or others. At least that’s how it is in the U.S.; I don’t know where you live.
I would recommend taking advantage of the free counseling/therapy.
Thank ya’ll for the responses. One of the therapists actually specializes in psychosis. I will call in the morning and hopefully get an appointment with her. 100% truth here on out. I would still appreciate anyone else’s input if they have any. Specifically, what was ya’lls first experience like talking with a therapist and/or psychiatrist? I know it’s probably nothing to worry about… it just seems kind of intimidating to me at the moment.
I strongly recommend you be as honest and open as possible or else you’ll never get the help you need. I wasn’t open about my psychotic symptoms for a long time in therapy for the same fears as you and it ended up wasting a lot of my time because it can lead to wrong or vague diagnoses and whatnot. You can’t be hospitalized or anything against your will unless you’re literally like I’m going to kill myself or someone else, or unless you’re like abusing a child or something.
I would then recommend looking for a private therapist who has experience with psychotic disorders rather than the school’s services. I say this because the school’s experience is usually with stressed out students. I have actually been sent away before because my school didn’t want to treat anyone who needed “long term” care. And if your school has group therapy just keep in mind that you will probably be one of the only ones with psychosis there. That’s just been my experience.
I am sza, went to a 4 year university post-diagnosis. My university also had free therapy. I tried it out, with mixed results. It was a good crisis thing, they’ll keep an eye on you, but for me they didn’t really believe I was sza because I was well into my recovery by that time, so they wanted to ignore it during therapy. I have found that not too many university therapists know first hand how to deal with a psychotic episode, not to the level that like a county worker down at the low income mental health care services unit, but they’ll make their best effort to find resources for you!
Some do have experience with dealing with psychosis, and if you get one of those that’s great. It was just my experience with about 3 community college therapists and 2 university therapists that they weren’t too exposed to sz’s in their academic work environment, according to them.
All in all, 3.5 out of 5 stars. I docked a star specifically because during midterms and finals week, they are so busy that it’s hard to get an appointment. They should really have like a semi annual crisis team ready at universities, since so many episodes happen during midterms or finals week. The lady in the therapy office once was overheard saying that finals week is extremely busy and everyone is “trying to get a note out of class”, which I thought was a little inappropriate suggesting that people were faking mental illness to get a passing grade, but either way, that comment shows how busy those times are.
Plus 3 stars for keeping a good eye out on me while I was in therapy, checking in periodically if I missed an appointment and asking if I was okay, and for being open to working with anyone who walked in the door, even if they didn’t believe I was sz (both thought I was too level headed and functional to ever have been sz)
That’s all I can think of! It’s really great to hear you’re open for help! Good luck!
Wow. Thank you Anna and Hquinn for the honest answers… I’m really glad to hear from people on my side of things. The only mental health facility in my area is a ‘community counseling center’… Is that what you mean by mental health unit?
I’m on my parents medical insurance… so does medical cover mental too? How much do you guys pay to be seen? How much for meds?
I don’t mean to come off as the Spanish inquisition…lol… I’m just the stereotypical poor college kid surviving off of ramen noodles trying to plan this out.
like many other have said, be 100% honest and open with your issues. I’m also one of those persons that wasn’t open to tell them what was wrong, partially not my fault, because I didn’t know what psychosis or depression was. You seem like a person that exactly knows what’s going on so be honest with the issues your dealing with.