Content Warning: Mention of suicide
I remember the day I first began to experience psychotic disruptions in my life quite vividly. It was a very unprompted occurrence at the time, but looking back, many things in my life hinted towards its possibility. My deep depression at the time, my father’s personal history of delusion, my newer internal stressors I shared with my mother. That day, I was the most productive I had been in months, and it was propelled solely by fear and confusion. I was under the belief that soulless apparitions were whispering in my ear, endlessly telling me to follow their commands or they would personally drag me to hell. Taking a shower for the first time in how long and doing my school work wasn’t a personal accomplishment to me, but a laughable spectacle for the ‘things’ that watched me overhead. I felt like I had been reduced to a zealous court jester for those in the shadows. It was the scariest things no sane person would ever want to experience, yet I pushed myself to stay silent throughout.
I was silent because I thought nothing could ever be this serious and this “silly”, as ironically silly as that sounds now. I was silent because as much as I saw inexplicable, shadowy figures in corners or heard mournful cries to ‘just kill myself already’ from otherworldly sources, it could have only been “self-imposed” and “justly deserved.” For months, I sat in silence. I held back everything I ever wanted to say for it to ‘just stop’ behind an act counter to the king’s court—through small smiles and wrinkled eyes at the dinner table, at school, in my own privacy. Everywhere became a labyrinthic prison enveloped by glaring eyes and unwelcoming specters and I tried to make that normal.
I suppose it felt “dumb” to speak up then; like somehow, my pride had found a place in the problem. I never admitted I could have been dealing with some semblance of “psychosis.” I recognized something was wrong, but no matter how many times I landed upon the same purple links day after day, “it just couldn’t be me, because maybe everyone was right; I’m a chronic overthinker, I’m a natural attention seeker gone too far, I’m that victim of God’s wrath my father had always warned about”, and nothing seemed wrong with any of that.
I had inflicted such a powerful delusion upon myself through persistently pushing those accusations of “shame” and “rightful punishment” onto my shoulders from that late March up to the end of the year. In the end, I never formally came out upon the issue. It was only through a specifically loud psychotic break that my mother intervened and brought me to a psychiatrist, and only far later than that, after objectively worse occasions, was I diagnosed with MDD-PF. And I wish everything before that bubbling point wasn’t so.
I wish that it was me that willingly sought help instead. I wish that someone had been there to assure me that this was a very real issue I was experiencing; because I didn’t need to see any more purple links and I didn’t need to just “let out a few laughs and see where it took me.” What I needed was someone who could tell me upfront that I wasn’t being overdramatic, or “extra”, or an attention seeker; just someone to remind me that I wasn’t alone. I let it go on for so long, and no one should have to do that.
To many, “psychotic” means crazy, dangerous, or even murderer. To others like my father, “psychotic” describes the holy experience of being “chosen by God.” It is frustrating how these sentiments have been perpetuated into this current day. Psychosis is a medical disorder. It is a real mental illness characterized by a complete disconnect from reality. Hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking are all signs of this illness. Never was psychosis a “spiritual infusion”, and never did it imply a future filled with malice for those afflicted. If a person dwells or even thinks for a moment that they may be in a psychosis, they should be taken seriously, just as much as any other illness would be taken seriously. It is so easy to invalidate yourself and convince yourself otherwise of this illness, and that’s part of what makes it so necessary to address.
If I could go back in time and speak to my former fourteen year old self, I would urge them to get help and assure them that they weren’t alone. In the end, psychosis is a serious issue, and no one is “sillier” or any less of a person for it.
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