i thought it was looking at me and judging..

I’m practically sofa bound or bed bound these days despite being on meds. I still hear the voices. They don’t command as much anymore but they put these lack of motivation filters on me so that I can’t do anything with my day. I’ve only just been allowed to go out for walks.

This episode and chapter has completely derailed my life and I feel trapped in this cycle full of emotional and psychological abuse.

Anyone else?!?

¿Alguien se ha recuperado de los problemas cognitivos causados por la psicosis? ¿Es posible recuperarse de la mente en blanco? Noto que mi cerebro quedó roto desde mis dos episodios, hay alguien que se haya recuperado?

Damn I'm headed back but this time I got to hold my phone. Decided to make this post as a way of saying THANKS to the local community on here. Hopefully not many of you are in a similar scenario. Wish me good luck! I'll get it straightened out this time..

I've been thinking too much about the government spying on me, and I think they've put cameras in my house. The cameras are so tiny you can't even see them with your eyes, it's military spy technology. Is it possible? I'm very worried

So pretty much I went into psychosis in 2021 at the ripe age of 18 for around 6 months was completely off the rules with delusions and voices and eventually got sober and started taking meds which worked then I got my tablet and started doing drugs on weekend again such as coke mdma and ketamine and it got to the point I was hearing voices and had probable 15% in control of my thoughts but wasn’t in a psychosis fully until I decided to get sober again. In the next 2 years I did coke 2 times which was a horrible experience and drank once also horrible. Relapsed on coke in December 2024 and have been coke multiple times a week ever since there was a period I was doing mdma 4 times a week and was drinking close to a bottle in a night and consistently experience psychotic side effects such as voices and intrusive thoughts and racing mind and nothing else. Tonight was really bad and I have decided I’m going completely sober again. I’m taking back control of my life from these diseases

i feel the intense anxiety and weirness again, im scared because it genuinely feels like people are just lying to pretend to keep everything going, im scared ill have a full blown psychotic episode again yes im getting help, this is somewhat of a vent, noone understands or gives a shit though which doesnt help

Something I’ve struggled to understand in these online communities is how suspicious people can be of psychiatric medication while being willing to take recreational drugs that can trigger the very conditions we’re trying to recover from.

I’ve experienced intense psychosis myself, which I suspect was at least partly triggered by cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms. It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.

Since then, I’ve tried numerous (cannot count on both hands) antipsychotics and SSRIs. After a long process of trial and error, I’ve found a medication that works and gradually reduced my dose under medical supervision. I’m now taking it every other day, with practically no noticeable negative impact on my quality of life.

I’m not saying psychiatric medication is perfect. Side effects are real, and everyone’s experience is different. But I find it strange that people can fear the potential long-term effects of prescribed medication while overlooking the psychiatric risks of substances they take recreationally.

We seem willing to accept uncertainty when it comes to getting high, but demand absolute certainty when it comes to getting better.

Questioning medication is reasonable. Treating street drugs as harmless while viewing medical treatment as the enemy is not.

I share this not to judge anyone, but to encourage a little introspection. I know how complicated, frightening and personal these experiences can be. We’re all trying to make sense of what happened to us and find a way forward. I wish everyone luck on that journey. 

for context, I am diagnosed with PTSD, but I really think it is CPTSD because my trauma flashbacks and panic attacks arent triggered by just one traumatic event. It’s triggered by multiple multiple traumas spanning over my lifetime.

recently I went to see a psychiatrist at a walk-in clinic because frequently I isolate myself and kind of “fall out” with taking medication or doing as I’m supposed to because of my intense fears and shame and guilt. I went to go see the psychiatrist at a walk-in clinic.I’m not even really gonna get much into the clinic itself because it’s not really relevant to my experience but I don’t have very positive feelings about the clinic to say the least after how ive seen them also treat other patients. This clinic is in Allegheny in Philadelphia.

I’ve had multiple bouts of psychosis over my lifetime and I have been hospitalized when I have fallen into psychosis at age 14 and one of my most common psychosis themes and delusions has to do religion either Christianity or I’m not really sure but I started having beliefs again that I have right before I go into a bit of an episode and I was having those beliefs where the Christian or catholic “God“ or some higher power was trying to send messages through me to tell other people because I’m supposed to deliver these messages to them and if I don’t deliver these messages to them, things aren’t gonna align bad things are gonna happen. having that happen before I you know, I really to see a psychiatrist when this starts up again I hadn’t slept for 2 days at that point and when I went to the walk-in clinic, my visit was very rushed. I was there all day. I got there at 11 AM and I wasn’t actually seen until around closing time and they really rushed .I told the therapist there about physical abuse going on with my relationship and she didn’t give me any resources about domestic violence or even really talk to me about it at all. She kind of brushed it off, which was kind of upsetting because I wanted to genuinely vent but also have a back and forth dialouge about it with a therapist.

but that’s besides the point when I finally got to see the psychiatrist ,(This is the part that I’m making the whole post about,) when I told him I’m getting feelings that I feel like God is speaking to me and I’m not religious at all. I’m spiritual, but I don’t follow any religion and I know these thoughts are unusual for me and I was hospitalized with a very, very bad psychosis at age 14, where the same exact thing happened to me that I thought God was speaking to me and telling me to basically preach all these things to people, and I even told him the very personal and this specific religious psychosis had to do with my childhood, the psychiatrist, then proceeded to tell me that God is (and he told me very literally not implying not figuratively). He told me literally God is real. He is trying to talk to you go home and listen to what he has to say listen to what he has to say and you’ll be saved. I repeatedly told him that I’m not religious. He asked me why I wasn’t giving religion a chance because of my bad experiences in the past, he then made me watch some sort of YouTube short or something like YouTube short video of someone preaching about God and about how basically you’ll be saved and that people that read the Bible were less likely to watch porn or something and more likely to be happy and be less depressed after reading the Bible every day and I really didn’t see how this was appropriate to say to me or show me in my situation I really felt like he was kind of entertaining delusions trying to preach his own religious beliefs to me.I really thought religion and healthcare are supposed to be separate unless someone wants religion involved in their like care and I repeatedly said that I’m not religious in that way and that that’s why I know that shits kind of getting out of hand for me mentally.he printed out Bible verses for me that I can literally post pictures of if you want, but it’s like Bible verses to help with anxiety and he asked can I print these out and Im very passive because I literally have CPTSD and I’m scared of asserting myself for telling people that I that I’m not comfortable with things cause that’s literally just been programmed since childhood .I was yeah sure you can print them out for me and I feel bad because he seemed like a nice person, but I just really feel like if I didn’t go home and then tell family and friends about the the I could’ve gone down a really negative way of thinking where I started to think God is really talking to me.

the psychiatrist even told me to go home and listen to what God is saying and then come back and tell him what he says. and then I was thinking it a test? Is he trying to test me to see if I’m actually having these delusions by like if I come back and it’s gotten worse I’m actually having delusions like I really don’t know what what it was. I’m very paranoid so I really don’t know what that was and then he started saying stuff about the world is going crazy and the devil‘s at work in the world and he even mentioned how AI is bringing us bad path.I started telling him that I personally believe myself that AI is demons we are harnessing and that you know that like the stuff from like the key of Solomon, you know it’s just kind of like that one meme where it’s like we trapped the demonsinside of a rock and got them to do our bidding stuff like that.He didn’t really agree with that or really say much about it, but then he proceeded to use AI in front of me to find a pharmacy near my house and then use AI to make some type of like seasonal plants list since I told him that recently gardening had been really really calming for me when I was feeling overwhelmed.I just don’t know why he said that stuff to me and I’m very paranoid and I’m trying to figure out like supposed to do is that legal. does he know that that was harmful or is he just really so lost by being like Jesus brain?because I really believe that anybody can have whatever religion they want and believe whatever they want but I really don’t think that psychiatry is the place to be pushing religion on people, especially people that have a history of religious psychosis, and that disclose that history and we’re coming for help. My friend was furious when I told her about this whole experience and they told me not to go back to that doctor and that she will help me look for another psychiatrist so that’s what I’m gonna do, but I just wanna know if anyone had a similar experience like this.

i felt out of my body on the way home and I had this feeling kind of creeped out like what if god is sending messages to me through the psychiatrist but I also felt conflicted like it was a test to mess with me. Has this happened to anybody else where a healthcare professional entertained their delusion?

Hey. Recently i had a psychiatrist visit and im trying to make sense of things. One of the disorders suspected are dissociative disorders and another is schizophrenia, which doesnt make much sense to me but i dont want to rule anything out.

Thing is, my sexuality has changed. Before it was a strictly aroace attraction for men, now the aroace aspect is partially gone and im attracted to both genders, but more feminine leaning. My gender identity also shifted towards less binary.

Just to point this out, this isnt something that scares or confuses me like similar stories ive seen say. Its more like a natural thing for me - yeah, i like women. Its just like someone flipped a switch and now this is normal.

My question is, would it be possible for schizophrenia to do that, delude someone or hallucinate being attracted to a gender theyre not?

i didnt know psychosis can cause pupils to dilate?? im scared because im not used to seeing this... i think i noticed one pupil dilating more than the other at some point, but i also remember being agitated because anytime i tried to get a picture, the flash would mess it up. so maybe im not dying. i dont know anymore. super frightening. dont trust doctors.

How’s life after psychosis? Have you fully recovered? Is the quality of life same as before?
I’m struggling to find a job. I’m wondering if it’s all due to these episodes.

My bf started a psychosis episode around 3-4 weeks ago. In the first 2 weeks, his delusions were really intense, like thinking i was cheating on him, all his passwords got leaked by his friend, he wanted to hire a lawyer for his youtube videos so he can make money back that he lost?? He’d also post to social media everyday, multiple times an hour. He was also more erratic and violent it seems, like punching the walls. idk, just a lot of weird stuff.

In the past 1.5 weeks, hes gotten to a psych ward, but they let him leave too early because someone punched him and he lost 2 teeth. They told him to go fix his teeth. I really hate that they let him out because he still is not better. Idek if they gave him meds while he was in there. He came out and his sister told me that he left a voicemail to his psychiatrist. He told his sister that he didn’t like the psychiatrist in the psych ward and will only take meds from his regular one. Idk if hes made an actual appointment since then though.. He also tweeted saying he “basically has schizophrenia”. I don’t think he does, but does that show some sort of self awareness? Before the psych ward, he refused help and thought he was feeling good. He also is not posting to social media everyday or liking a bunch of posts. Hes posted maybe like 10 tweets/photos/etc in the past 5 days.

Something off still though is that he won’t talk to me. He is very stand offish and cold towards me. He won’t text me no matter what i text him. And like i brought over soft foods and gatorade for him yesterday but he just texted me to never do that again.

I keep clinging on to any bit of hope that hes getting better but idk. I think today i will see if we can have social workers come visit him to check on him. Maybe they can see if hes made the appointment yet.

Does anyone have any insight? Or opinions? Idk maybe it’s wishful thinking that hes getting better.. it might just be nothing. I don’t live with him rn either so i cant see what he’s doing all day..

Basically, after doing some reflecting recently, I have realized that I experience paranoia every single day without fail. At some point in my day, no matter what occurs, I have such loud and intense delusions. Most of the time it's about how others are viewing me, and they are never positive. I am constantly concerned that I smell, have something on me, or am just plain ugly. It interrupts my ability to think clearly and focus no matter where I am working. If I'm in a library I worry too much about seeming performative, when outside I fear I'm not supposed to be there, and at home I just feel like my parents want me to hang out with them instead. It feels like socializing and being in public comes so easily to my friends, and I'm stuck hearing a voice telling me that I'm always messing up and missing invisible cues. I used to think that these thoughts occurred only when in a full psychotic episode, but my mental state does not seem to matter. I literally went out with friends today, was having a wonderful time, but I still very frequently thought about what EVERYONE at the venue was thinking of me. Even when I'm completely alone this thoughts still haunt me by reminiscing on past experiences. I plan on probably bringing this up to my psychiatrist next time I see them, but I wanted to get this out somewhere quickly.

I need advice on how to recover from an awful episode. I’m a week out of hospital and on 2 antipsychotics.

It’s been my worst episode yet. I don’t want to go into details but I think I’ve got ptsd from it. I keep having intrusive memories about it and what happened.

Right now, I feel emotionally numb but anxious a lot of the time. I feel like I can’t feel my positive emotions, only negative.

The future seems terrifying for me. I’ve had so many episodes over the years. I don’t want another one.

Please help me find a way forward, what helped you recover yourself after a horrible episode?

Last summer I started a new medication, and it quickly started spirals of reality for me. I was constantly worried about the people around me dying, if they are pretending to be real or not (even though I KNOW they’re real, there is just no way to actually prove they are), life after death, etc.

Since then, over a year later, I am constantly having dissociation, derealization and depersonalization, constantly feeling like “oh shit i’m alive right now and experiencing this”, although it is very hard to describe.

I am scared, I don’t know what is happening to me.

I've been living in constant dissociation since I was a teen, and over the years the separation between mind and self has steadily been growing. The net effect is that I feel less and less grounded, and the world/life has slowly become more of an idea rather than a felt-experience.

Despite years of therapy and various meds, nothing has slowed this progress. So last year I took some high dose of psychedelics hoping it would "wake me up" from the dream state I have been trapped in (aka DPDR). Unfortunately, I experienced what is called spiritual psychosis, and I became convinced that I was god and that all of creation was simply a creation of my consciousness - a very solipsism like idea.

Since then I've struggled a lot with reality. To me, the drugs opened up my mind, made me aware that all my life I had assumed reality was some fixed structure of aging, existence of others, death, and everything we've come to know. And now I saw a different perspective on reality: what if this was indeed all some giant dream? What if I exist as some other non-understandable form and in my loneliness created this entire universe to entertain myself?

By nature, these are existential questions and not psychosis. What makes it fall into psychosis for me is that I am no longer certain that my previous notion of reality was correct. And maybe this god perspective reality isn't correct either. My point is that I don't know what's real, and I don't know what's happening.

The more I think about it, the scarier it gets, and the more confused and in my head I get. Sometimes I think I might "think myself out of existing", because I too am simply a dream element. And I am so not grounded. I think that I choose to live in my former idea of reality where I am corresponding with you all out of cowardice: I fear that the truth might actually be that none of this is real. And I hate knowing that I'm too weak to accept truth.

At this point in time, I can no longer trust my mind. I cannot know reality. Rather, I am still trying very hard to reconnect with emotions and get out of dissociation - perhaps then things will be clearer. But the more time goes on, the more I start to question if dissociation is even real itself (i.e. is dissociation the mechanism allowing me to exist as a dream, and being awakened is leaving the dream). I fear one day I'll be so disconnected that I won't even trust my memories anymore. Clearly I am struggling a lot with reality. It is so strange to be so aware of my mind failing me, and seeing all the crazy things it is coming up with.

Has anyone had ECT for psychotic depression? Looking for experiences and advice.
I was diagnosed with psychosis in 2024 and initially prescribed sertraline and aripiprazole. I gained weight and my cholesterol increased while taking them. Having worked out for almost 20 years, these changes added to my depression.
I switched from sertraline to fluoxetine, but the side effects and suicidal thoughts got worse. I also switched from aripiprazole to risperidone, which gave me restless legs. I’m now taking quetiapine on its own, without any antidepressants, but it makes me sleep all day.
I went through a painful friendship breakup and experience flashbacks about that situation and other things from my past. At one point, I was hearing around 50 voices; now there’s one remaining. I also experience depersonalisation, feeling as though I’m outside my body watching myself.
During everyday activities, such as showering, I sometimes see faces that seem to scream or talk at me. My brain also shows me images of other people doing the activity I’m doing, almost as though they’re mocking me. These experiences are distressing.
My psychiatrists have applied for ECT for me. Has anyone had ECT for psychotic depression? Did it help with depression, voices or similar experiences? What side effects did you experience, and has anyone had lasting recovery?
I know everyone’s experience is different, but I’d appreciate hearing your experiences and any general advice.

I had a pretty bad episode. My first full blown psychosis episode. I was calling my family and going kinda crazy. I was hospitalized and now I’m pretty stabilized. I’m not gonna smoke any more weed for a while now. But I really wanna start smoking again, but it’s hard to accept I should really stop forever.

Now this is what I really want to get off my chest:

When I got out of the hospital, the next day my aunt took a screenshot of my Snapchat profile. I think I’m not in psychosis anymore. But I feel like I’m being paranoid about this. I know she’s talking about me. Why else would she screenshot my profile? She took a screenshot and then didn’t say anything to me afterwards. I really need some words of advice. I feel like everyone thinks I’m crazy because of my episode. This family member had been weird towards me and my parents in the past. Her son was spreading lies about my parents and I know this part isn’t psychosis because my mom told me this before my psychosis episode, and I can confirm it with her. Her son has also been accused of rape and during my episode I was so scared of him. I’m just so worried that people think I’m crazy now.

I don’t see my therapist for a while. I will talk to him about this when I see him next. I have a lot to talk to him about. This is really hard to talk about, honestly. Ive finally accepted that I had a psychosis episode and I just need support from people who understand.

Many people online(some in this sub)and maybe even my psychiatrist? Idk. Are saying I am in psychosis. I have bpd and bipolar 1 but I don’t think it’s psychosis this time. I feel like I’m being targeted. That they got to my family and they are making them do this or maybe convinced them in some way to do this to me. They have always ignored me or talked over me or talked down to me some but it has ramped up recently. Now all of a sudden I’m someone who has lied, manipulated, taken advantage of, and many other things to my family my entire life. All of a sudden my mother is saying that I do things like lie all the time without even realizing I’m lying. That any time I say I’m upset or say I’m being manipulative. That all I think about is myself. That I think the world revolves around me. I don’t think that. I just don’t like how they won’t talk to me. They act like I’m not even there. This has escalated so much recently. I’m even getting a lot of threats from my mom and she has even mocked me for bringing it up. She threatened to punch me in the face. Throw me out. Shoot me in the head. Many different things. She talks to me like I’m a waste of spaces. The voices I have heard say I deserve to be abused. That I deserve this horrible treatment because of how horrible of a person I am. I just can’t believe the idea that I’m in psychosis again. I can’t. Because if I’m not in psychosis then that would mean that everyone in my family fucking hates me and idk what I would do with that information. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I really wouldn’t.

Some time ago, I got hospitalised for wanting to reach my internal organs. I tried this by several means: digging a gash in my abdomen, inserting sewing needles and scissors into abdominal wounds. Fortunately the only complication I got was I nicked an arteriole. My psychiatrist agreed that what I experienced was psychosis in the form of an invincibility delusion believing that I couldn’t die and Olanzapine helped calm down the urges. I don’t have any anymore. But could I truly have died from my behaviour?

When I was around 16 or 17 years old, I was struggling a lot mentally & emotionally. I was very depressed and had severe anxiety. I also smoked heavy weed back then, which made everything even worse. At that time, I was bullied at school, where people would only act 'nice' to make fun of me behind my back. I also went through sm friendship drama and really bad family issues at home as well. I always felt so lonely deep down, and I had trouble focusing in school due to undiagnosed ADHD.

This one time, I got laced while smoking a joint; I went through derealization & depersonalization for that whole year, which made me quit weed back then. From Grade 10 to 11, my life did not feel real. I feel like I was stuck in a simulation, and that everything was a 'distraction'. At times, I felt really high even when I was sober. I isolated myself for a semester or two; I barely socialized, and I would even go a week without interacting with anyone at my high school.

Then I started to get EXTREMELY paranoid; I thought everybody in my life was against me. I thought everybody was talking shit about me behind my back, which made me cut off a lot of my innocent friends. I unadded SO MANY people. I unfollowed hundreds of people, and I removed friends/classmates on every social media app. I also got VERY spiritual and thought everything was demonic. At times, I also felt like I was hearing sounds or seeing figures that weren't really there. I thought I was very different and more mature than everybody at my age. I questioned the purpose of life and the afterlife A LOT. Whenever I would see a stranger, I always had this strange feeling that they would stalk or hurt me. I lost interest in doing the things I once enjoyed. I became very serious about everything. I felt super ALONE on the journey. I'm also Catholic, so I was able to read my bible more, but I definitely overlooked certain things and took things very negatively about the world.

I’ve never felt this way before, and used to be confident and sure of myself. Since my psychosis, I’ve been questioning myself, and not knowing what to do in social situations. I find myself being more quiet, and not knowing what to say. I shake as well, my hands especially.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Any advice? Thank you