One Person's In-depth Diary of Psychosis

The latest London Review of Books has a good first-person account of psychosis that illustrates the complex interlocking webs of ideas and perceptions that can occur in the more intense versions of the experience. Perhaps of interest to family members to understand the experience of psychosis better:

this is how it was for me. thank you for sharing this. I don’t feel I have this anymore, it seems to be gone, hope it doesn’t come back.

do you know, did he write this while psychotic, or write it after he was psychotic describing his experience?

I’m not sure - but if you read it, it seems that he’s written it after he was psychotic and he’s thinking back to the time when he was psychotic.

I wrote things while I was psychotic. and now I write about the stupid things I did when I was psychotic.

I had a psychologist tell me to keep a diary for a week, because I said I’m not sure now if it’s real or a delusion of reference. He read my diary and said ‘you sound lucid to me’.

how I got from lucid to full blown crazy I’m not sure, I thought it started when I thought there was a camera in the house. and then it escalated to it felt like people following me next, then I was a full blown mess. seems it took a couple months, built up slowly.

so now I even monitor if I want to talk to myself, I talked to myself all day back then. some days I feel like talking to myself more than others, then I get nervous and so far stopped myself I guess.

I’ve been working on a memoir. Unfortunately the day my Geodon kicked in I burned my psychotic journal full of documented hallucinations which I thought were real and conspiracy theories. It was maybe too ugly to ever be put out in public, it was written with deep anger and absolute hatred for everyone. I used to think that every living person was against me, taking part in a conspiracy to film me and make my life public like that movie The Truman Show.

I’m glad I destroyed that journal. I wrote it in red ink and it was incredibly vicious and hateful and absolutely psychotic in its content. Some things just need to be left behind.

But I have been writing about memorable moments from my onset to my recovery. It’s 60 pages so far. It’s a mix of the episodes and the peak experiences (Maslow’s psychological theory) that have happened from the age of 18 to 21. It includes everything from my first kiss to my first time pulling a weapon on one of my best friends and being surrounded by seven cops and committed to a crisis assessment center. I might be a straight A student and a powerlifter now, but WOW I was really not OK for what felt like a decade.

My uncle pointed out that I have had the emotional experiences of someone 10 years older than me, but I need to remember that other 21 year old college students are all infantile compared to what I have been through. It’s sort of frustrating, other kids mostly do not have the same values and lifestyle that I have, save for a few.

One of my good friends is on a fast-track dentistry program, he earned a BS degree in two years, he just got it and is looking for a dental school now. When he is in town, we hangout all day and avoid the other kids who are all smoking pot, drinking and doing drugs, basically “living once” or whatever kids justify their bullsh-t with.

I get really frustrated with my generation’s crap. “you only live once, so do drugs, maybe drop out of school, but most of all, be lazy and a burden to your friends and family”.

The drug kid and the alky kid in my group of friends get looked down on my the rest of my friends. Sure, we hangout with them, but when they get too messed up to make sense or pass out, theyre just useless meatbags.

Sorry to rant about stupid kids. I just pride myself by not being like them. I don’t really fit in all that well with a lot of kids I meet because of my relative maturity and discipline, but some people like me for who I am and that’s that. The more people know me the more they talk to me, unless they are just intolerant of people like me, disciplined and intense people. Im definitely not “chill”, I dont enjoy being useless. I can be friendly and crack jokes, only after work is done. I do loosen up after class and smoke cigarettes and talk with my friends, but only after I deserve to. I only hangout with kids who are good students.

I still have mine, I don’t think I can do much with it… it’s written in a special brail code and now that I’m stable, I have no idea what the heck I was talking about.

I have 27 pages of dots and the word CARROT written over and over… I have no idea why.

This guy has a great blog too.

Bridgecomet,

Can you share the link to his blog? I didn’t see it,

Thanks,

Hi Admin…
I cant find it now. I wonder if that post led me to something else. Now, I am wondering what the heck I WAS reading! Im sorry
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