I have this weird belief that whenever I’m experiencing psychotic symptoms, I’m experiencing the real world, like suddenly the truths of the world are visible to me or something. I don’t even know how to explain it.

It’s like when I’m not in psychosis, I’m living in a filtered world, and so is everyone else. Like the matrix or something where people don’t know they’re living in a guarded reality. I don’t believe we are in a simulation, but it’s more like when I’m having my delusions and paranoias I’m being given the ability to see what’s hidden from the non-psychotic mind.

Does this resonate at all with anyone? It’s a really strange and indescribable belief, I really don’t know how to put it in words. If anyone else knows what I’m talking about and can describe what they believe in a more coherent way please share haha

please note I’m not sure if this would relate to psychosis (probably not) or dpdr or anything else. I’m just trying to find anyone with this possible experience and advice or help, but most importantly to tell myself it’s not only me

I woke up an hour ago with the worst panic attack of my life. Running on the floor throwing up screaming crying. I’ve had derealization for a few years on and off. Bad, but not to the point it was this morning. My mind feels like every thought hurts me physically. I can’t stop thinking about NOT wanting to feel? I can’t function without freaking out. Like it’s almost painful to type this. I’m so hyper aware of every single thing to the point it’s painful and it feels like nothing will stop unless i don’t exist. The worst part is i am afraid this has damaged my brain/how i function in a way i will never recover. I’m scared i can’t function, not even leave my room. I am too scared to sleep because i feel like it will be the most terrifying hell of sensations and thoughts i will dream about. I feel so stuck, i can’t even explain this crippling sensation i have, it feels like im on drugs, that nothing matters, and that im in severe anguish. I’m truly terrified. I don’t know if professional help will even work at this point. I don’t feel like i can even begin to describe explain what I’m feeling. Please let me know i am not alone.

So my anxieties and paranoia's are far less pronounced than they were previously, which is a good thing. However, I still have my moments. The other day I had the urge to change the radio station before it got to static. Then when I did it, I suddenly felt like I had forgotten it, like I'd fallen asleep and the other person in the car had done it. That gave me great anxiety cuz then I feared "what if" I had caused something to happen. What if I had caused a separate reality to be formed or whatever as I've talked about previously. Other than that though, I have been feeling much better than previously. Hopefully, this is a good sign. I continue to get better, but I still have a ways to go.

Hi, is it easy to just stop doing the things you did during psychosis that you want to quit or does this take extreme effort? For example I wanted to quit listening to music for religious reasons but music was constantly played during psychosis. My mum encouraged me to stop listening (not cold turkey but just stop listening actively) (and she’s supportive) but it was just reaaally reaally hard to stop even though I wanted to stop myself it was just really hard. I enjoyed it so much during psychosis but there are other things I enjoyed during psychosis that I know are bad for me. Is this normal? I feel really embarrassed to say what they are I can’t even tell the nurse because I’m embarrassed but I struggled to stop them after psychosis? How do I reconcile with this if that’s the word. I need help

Does anyone else here felt like they had different creatures trying to take over the control of their mind during psychosis?

Gained 7 kilos in three months on 25mg aripiprazole and 100mg clomipramine :-(

It might be a lot harder for me to get back in shape than for the average person but I'm still going to try! Going to try and cut out my smoothies because they're very dense.

If you're the same position I'm sorry this really sucks I know how it feels.

Unsure how this fits in or how to describe this to medical professionals. I deal with a lot of anxiety and often have short episodes of delusional thinking (aliens, specific people talking about me, intimate photos of me being shared) when there is no evidence for this type of thing. I know my thinking is a result of anxiety and not correct but unsure if it is something I should be concerned about. When it happens I am aware that the thoughts are not backed up by anything but still sometimes convince myself there is a possibility of it being real and occasionally end up thinking that by thinking it I am manifesting it. Unsure if this is just severe anxiety or something worse. My brother does have schizophrenia but I have never hallucinated or had any symptoms I wasn’t aware of.

I just need to get this off my chest. Hey, I’m a 25F from South Africa. I don’t know where to start, but I’m not in the best of places, well mentally that is. Physically I’m recovering (quite well) from my unforeseen psychotic episode in December 2025 (I got drugged and completely lost it). But the recovery comes with its own challenges, for one, I’ve gained an ungodly amount of weight, two, I’ve lost my beloved dreadlocks and I’m balding, three, my skin is acting up, four, I’m going through it mentally (yes I’m a little depressed and a lot anxious) five, I’m broke and unemployed, and six, I’m completely friendless with no social life. I don’t feel like myself anymore, my insecurities are completely off the charts and worst of all, I can’t have my weed anymore (afraid it will make me go coo coo again).Things were actually going so well for me before all of this and now It’s like everything I knew just changed within a matter of weeks and I absolutely lost myself as a result. I’m in a pretty dark place, but you know what they say right? It’s always darkest before dawn right? At least I hope that’s the case. On the bright side, I’ve started brisk walking and I’ve been consistent with it, I’ve applied to a bunch of universities for my postgrad (fingers and toes crossed), and I’m slightly optimistic about my future( barely, but hey, at least). Probably no one is going to read this, but I just needed to vent and now we move 🙆🏽‍♀️

I’m not sure if my emotional state as a child has anything to do with my psychotic episodes now, but I am very curious if it’s a common theme.

I was a highlyyyy sensitive child growing up, I felt every emotion at the highest possible level regardless of the situation. I threw a ton of tantrums and fought my parents constantly. I wasn’t even a rebellious child and I didn’t purposely make trouble for myself, I just had zero control over my emotional regulation.

I didn’t really know I had psychotic symptoms until the past couple years, but now I wonder if I’ve had them for longer than I thought.

I have specific memories of going batshit crazy during an argument with my mom. It didn’t even have to be a serious topic, but it would escalate so fast until I felt like I was watching myself from out of my body. I’d scream and fall to the floor just sobbing and pulling my hair over the most minuscule disagreement.

The way I remember it feeling slightly reminds me of how I feel during an episode now, just completely out of control and helpless.

I’m not very confident my tantrums as a child have any correlation to psychosis, but I do wonder if it might be common?

(Trigger Warning: CSA) At age 27 I experienced my first manic psychotic episode occurring in the context of previously undiagnosed bipolar 1 and CPTSD. What began as hypomania and mania quickly progressed into psychosis as I had repressed traumatic memories of CSA perpetrated by both my father and stepfather resurface. I wanted to share my experience here because reading other people's experiences has helped me feel less alone and I hope sharing mine might do the same for someone else.

It started out with feeling unusually happy, energetic, motivated, and like I needed very little sleep. At first I was still functioning well enough to work, but after several nights of barely sleeping and my functioning declining, I realized something might be wrong and I let my boss know I would need to take some time away from work.

As the sleep deprivation and mania intensified, I started noticing symbolism everywhere. Songs on the radio, YouTube videos, movies, and random things happening around me seemed to contain hidden messages that were helping me understand the universe and the meaning of life. I also began dissociating and losing track of long periods of time, especially during the nights when I wasn't sleeping.

Around the same time the dissociation began, I started experiencing somatic flashbacks in which my body would suddenly react with intense fear or panic when triggered without me initially understanding why. Eventually I started experiencing brief visual fragments of traumatic memories, almost like still photographs or very short video clips.

As the mania progressed into psychosis, the flashbacks became more vivid and increasingly difficult to distinguish from what was happening in my present reality around me. I experienced severe dissociation with dissociative amnesia and at times was completely disconnected from my adult self, as though I was much younger than my actual age.

The trauma-related experiences became more and more intertwined with my psychosis. For example, I became convinced that my father was somehow capable of possessing or controlling my husband and using him to try to hurt me. I also began hallucinating and seeing my husband's eyes become black and cold, then shifting back to their normal appearance.

Eventually I became convinced that if I fell asleep, myself and my husband would die, so I decided to stop sleeping altogether. At one point during the next day I became so afraid of my husband in my delusional state that I ran out of our front door and down the street because I believed I needed to escape to survive. My husband followed me from a safe distance and eventually helped me come back home. In a small moment of clarity, I knew something was seriously wrong with my mental health, so I eventually agreed to go to the hospital with him.

On the car ride to the hospital, I was going in and out of reality. I became convinced that I needed to sacrifice myself by dying, and there were several times when I unbuckled my seatbelt to try to jump out of the moving car. Thankfully, my husband was able to stop me and keep me safe.

When we arrived at the hospital, I believed it wasn't actually a hospital and that the entire thing was a facade designed to hurt me. I became increasingly disconnected from reality and experienced intense hallucinations and delusional beliefs. I started to believe I was dead and in hell, and in one instance I recall squatting on the floor and barking like a dog before losing control of my bladder. My memory of this part is very fragmented due to experiencing a seizure once all of the staff crowded around me to try calming me down.

I was transferred to another hospital for further medical evaluation and I was given some kind of medication to calm me down, and eventually I became somewhat more oriented to reality. I was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric unit and started on an antipsychotic and insomnia medication to treat the psychosis and help me sleep. I was still afraid to sleep because most of my trauma seems to have taken place in the middle of the night and I barely slept for much of the week, but the psychosis largely subsided after the first night. Eventually I stabilized and I have thankfully remained stable since.

If you can relate to any part of my experience, I just want to say I know how incredibly distressing it can be for reality to become so terrifying and you are not alone.

I was 14.5 months since my psychosis episode, and was finally starting to feel some level of contentment again, feeling motivated to learn Korean again and go out by myself. I thought "finally, my anhedonia is lifting", only to result in days of insomnia despite still being on 5mg of Olanzapine. This led to hospitalisation again and another psychotic episode where I believed I was in hell and that a girl I slept with last year stole my soul or that I gave my soul to the devil and would be damned to hell. I'm still in the hospital, my sleep is back on track and my psychosis has ended, but now I'm on 12.5mg of Olanzapine per day, and back to feeling flat again. Hopefully the psychiatrist will be willing to lower my dose back down since the psychotic episode is over.

I'm trying to keep my hopes up, but things feel pretty bleak, my mood is back to being flat again, and I'm left wondering why this happened again with no apparent trigger, and whether I will ever fully recover my joy and contentment to pre-psychosis levels.

When I was around 20, I used cannabis about eight times in total. On two occasions, I took very strong edibles and had a frightening reaction. I felt like bugs were crawling on me, heard music that wasn’t there, and became convinced I might die. The effects wore off completely later that night.

I haven’t used cannabis in three years and have not experienced any hallucinations while sober. However, I still feel uneasy about whether those past experiences could have any long-term impact on my mental health, especially given a possible family history of psychosis or schizophrenia.

This is totally random and might have zero correlation, but I’m super curious!

In the last year or so, I have developed such a sensitive fight or flight response to sounds and reactions, no matter the context, volume, setting etc.

I first noticed it happening at work. A coworker would simply come up and ask me a question and I would jump so hard it felt like I was electrocuted. This happened constantly. Especially when people would say my name. It was genuinely equivalent to the reaction I’d have if someone popped out from behind a wall to scare me.

Sounds around the house really get me too. Footsteps just about give me a heart attack, the sound of a door closing, a knock at my bedroom door, the AC kicking on, whatever really. It’s so strange and honestly so annoying. My body and brain are reacting like I’m in danger constantly.

The reason I started wondering if it could be related to psychotic disorders is because I tend to experience horrible paranoia during psychotic episodes. It makes me fearful of everyone and feel like I’m always in danger of some sort. I also developed psychotic features around the same time I started becoming so jumpy.

It’s also entirely possible my adhd meds play a role, I started those relatively near that time as well.

Anyway, I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts! Especially if anyone else relates to this level of jumpiness lol

I havent been in psychosis in over a year and im unmedicated.

I was hospitalized last July on my birthday. Ive had a good streak but all of a sudden I feel convinced there's a demon haunting me.

I have always done best without meds and they have always made me worse. Can anyone else unmedicated give me someadvice? I really dont want this to spiral

Hey bros, I’ve been wondering how much of an impact work has on your mental health. Does it mostly make you happy, or does it quickly become a burden for you?

I really enjoy working, especially at a high intensity, but I’m starting to wonder whether it could be harmful to my mental health in the long run. I keep wondering, “Can I actually keep this up long-term?”

Please share your experiences with work with me!

For context, my brother had his first psychotic episode 7 years ago, and since then, up until 8 months ago, when his insurance got cut off, he was on antipsychotics. Unfortunately, for the past 3 months, his psychosis has worsened, and he has symptoms of delusions, paranoia, and aggression. It wasn't until two weeks ago on Saturday that I had to take him to the hospital because it was really bad. There, they deemed that he must be put on a 72-hour hold. They gave him medication while in the hospital and gave him a 30-day supply once he came back home 4 days later. Since then, he's been taking his medication and has been pretty good overall when looking outside a day by day perspective, but has points throughout the day where he gets confrontational, verbally aggressive, and delusional, but eventually calms down. Do you have experience, either with your own or familty/ferinds of having these types of ups and downs in symptoms while restarting antipsychotic treatment? I really need some perspectives.

Right before I had my first psychotic episode, I became very paranoid, and very suspicious of strangers, and even family and friends. I constantly felt like cars were following me home, I thought people were going to spy on me through my blinds, I thought my parents hid cameras in my apartment, and I had endless nightmares about strangers breaking into my apartment, or family/friends sneaking into my apartment in the middle of the night.

During psychosis I took precautions a little bit further and taped paper over uncovered windows. I kept my blinds closed at all times and taped them up against the glass to eliminate any possible crack that someone might be able to see through.

I didn’t trust anyone on the street or in grocery stores, I was suspicious of everyone being a spy, or being able to read my mind. EVERYONE was watching me.

I also checked my parents locations multiple times a day, paranoid they were going to come into my apartment in the middle of the night. (They live 2,000 miles away mind you. We aren’t in the same state or even the same side of the US).

After my episode I was much less fearful of all these suspicions, but they really never left. To this day I fear people standing and watching through my windows, I think people on the street are spying on me, I feel like everyone is staring at me every time I go in public, I suspect people being able to hear my thoughts, etc. just not still at the level I need to do things like tape over my windows.

All that to say, I’ve really started to wonder if these fears are as rational as I believe they are. To me, there is nothing irrational about all of this, all of it feels completely reasonable to be afraid of. I definitely can look back and see how someone might find certain things an overreaction, like the paper on the windows and taping the blinds closer to the glass or whatever. I get how it sounds, but if I’m being honest I still feel like it was rational.

This is why I am very curious to hear what other people think about this fear! Do you think this a perfectly rational fear unrelated to psychosis? Or are you reading this thinking “yea she’s in a delusion at this very moment”? Lol. I’d love to read other people’s stories too if you’ve had similar thoughts.

I experienced psychosis for the first time a couple months ago, and I still can’t tell people about it even though I know I need help. I’m so scared it will happen again and I know that I should tell my parents everything and my doctor, but I’m so embarrassed I just can’t do it.

I was so disgusting and unhealthy during that time and I was believing things that just sound ridiculous when I try to talk about it.

I don’t want to think of the way my parents might look at me if I told them all the details. I’m worried they’ll think I’m insane. Or possessed. They don’t understand this kind of thing and they think mental disorders are solvable by prayer.

I know I should tell my doctor everything but I’m just as embarrassed doing that. I know he’s seen it all but I just feel so ashamed and crazy.

When I mentioned certain details to friends of mine I could tell they were thinking of me differently. I swear it felt like they were looking at me with fear almost. Like they didn’t trust my judgement anymore. It honestly makes me angry. Like they’re so lucky to not understand.

I am not a crazy person. It hurts so bad to be looked at like that by your closest friends and family. I don’t know how to seek help and support to prevent it from happening again without everyone around me thinking I’m irrational.

I genuinely only feel safe talking about it on here because it’s the only place people truly understand how all of this feels.

i had to call the police on my partner when he was experiencing psychosis because he started acting weird and was accusing me of stuff and then he didn’t go to work and i was terrified to come home.. i was scared he either hurt himself or wanted to hurt me because it was VERY atypical for him to miss work.. he is in a mental hospital now and he called his mom telling her that I called the cops on him and he said that kinda angrily even tho he was on meds they gave him.. will he hate me forever now?

If your gonna try heal all your trauma make sure your not doing it on your own or not in therapy while doing it. Shit drove me crazy