My psychosis was worse when I was younger

DX'd - Other
1

Or maybe it just feels that way because before I gained insight I was so ABSORBED in all of it. It was just a crazy mess of getting messages from everything, fear, hallucinations, talking to things that weren’t really there, and just nuts. And I hardly spent a single night during my childhood not tossing and turning and sleepless from paranoia. Now that I have insight I just feel more…detached from what’s going on? Now that I avoid my triggers and learned how to control my startle response I hardly ever get paranoia attacks at night now…I haven’t had a major delusion in years…even when I get delusional thinking since I learned how to identify delusional thoughts they don’t last as long and I don’t get as sucked into them…I still hallucinate visually but my tactile hallucinations have mostly gone away and they used to be very severe…I mean my psychosis does flare up on occasion now but it’s just different now that I know I have an illness.

My depression meanwhile is trending the opposite way and has gotten worse and worse since it started when I was a child. Really it’s all bizarre. How has your illness changed since you gained awareness of it?

2

Sorry about your depression. I have heard from other posters on this forum that sz gets better as you get older for exactly the reasons you listed.

For me, I don’t know if it changed over time, but every instance of relapsing brought with it proof that what was happening to me was real. Then with medication it faded away and I could pretend it was just my imagination. The first time I had an episode I heard many voices talking to me at once, then it became two and then none. The second time I relapsed an older man’s voice took my jaw muscles and started moving them for me, in order to mock me. Now I tell myself that isn’t possible. And so on.

Any improvement I have now I attribute to meds and time to forget. Hopefully I won’t have another relapse.