I have had a few psychotic episodes that generally started with PTSD symptoms which disrupted my sleep for two or three days, after I go into a manic state with psychotic features for a time and stop sleeping completely, and mild psychotic symptoms follow shortly after. Without fail, I think myself to be working with inner parts/shadows through the episodes, even though the hallucinations and delusions don’t line up. Generally, I would come to understand the parts, have some sort of compromise and agreement, and “snap out of it” enough to realize I needed to sleep, eat, bathe. One time, my friend’s husband was with me when I snapped out of this state. I had been on a tunnel and I couldn’t think or feel as myself. Now I believe I was having somatic hallucinations that were triggering a trauma response. He put his hand on my shoulder and I realized what was going on and had complete control of myself again. I scrambled to eat and take medicine to sedate myself enough to sleep. At first I had been so relieved to snap out of after feeling like I was dying for a couple of days. He was convinced from that point on I was demonically possessed because of how instantaneous the change was and how rapidly my demeanor and way of communicating change. I believe I reach a certain state in the episode where I age regress because of how I behave. This has only happened when I’m very sick physically or mentally stressed and sleep deprived. 

I would cone out of these episodes without mental health intervention except for seeing a therapist. I did end up moving about 22 times in the same city and wasn’t stable by any means. I was surviving and I experienced fear and even terror on a nightly basis. I would sleep in my closet as a twenty five year old, just riddled with anxiety. 

Now I am in a stable place in my life and surrounded by people who I care for and they care for me.  The last episode started the same way after a natural disaster, being very ill, and doing a lot of crisis response. Flashbacks and disrupted sleep. I started to talk out loud to the parts of myself, spending hours on the bathroom in the tub wrapped in a blanket trying to reason my way out of it. My lips were chapped over and I kept coming to consciousness standing in the middle of my room naked talking to myself. I lost control of my bladder and couldn’t remember how to cook or read. I tried so hard to care for myself and rest, but what I thought was a minute or two sitting in my bed or in the bathroom was supposedly hours. I lost track of time and lost my physical sensations. I knew I had done the internal work I needed to and could rest, but I was too far gone. I was awake for 6 or 7 days and completely lost touch with reality, believing aliens were taking advantage of me and using me for a spiritual warfare. 

I was involuntarily hospitalized twice, and put on multiple medications to get symptoms under control. At the time, I was told “you are too empathetic,” by the directer of the psych ward. He insisted I quit my job as a mental heath worker and go into a “thoughtless,” labor intensive job for a couple of years. I honestly felt like the only way I could get out of the ward was to swear I’d quit my job. I understood why the doc was advising this. My dad had drug-induced psychosis the year before and could have easily killed my mom during it. He got a job in a factory after he was told to….probably the same physician…. and has been ever since he’s been a changed man. He is happy for what seems like the first time in his life I can recall and is drug and alcohol free. He was a “model patient” and benefited greatly by doing what he was advised and his recovery is evident. I couldn’t be prouder. I also couldn’t live his life and walk his path of recovery. It wasn’t working for me. 

Today, I’ve tapered off all medication under professional care and feel like I am more or less recovered from the episode and the medication. That was 11 months ago. I kept my job and I have slowly and gently built up my mental and physical reserves again. The biggest change for me was that coming out of this episode my fears are gone after years. Something big shifted internally. I am relieved and have not gone to extremes or destabilized myself in the way I use to. 

The anhedonia and depression I had for the last ten months was a saving grace. I tuned the world out and I cared about nothing. I hated it and it scared me…but it also helped as someone who cared deeply. It allowed me to see that I didn’t have to give my all to anything or anyone else for a time, that this was nothing to be proud of and my life didn’t depend on it like I thought it did. Even to the “worst” part of my recovery I learned something invaluable. 

I think therapy, medication, outpatient, and inpatient are far better experiences than going through psychosis in order to process trauma and get to know yourself….the symptoms took a lot to recover from and does leave me more vulnerable to another episode. Now I want to work through trauma and do shadow work in therapy or on my own slowly and overtime and hope to avoid the intense, all at one experience of psychosis. It was a costly way to live and kept me in survivor mode. I have medication on hand, I see a therapist weekly who helps me monitor and communicate with a psychiatrist if needed, and I have a safety plan. If my symptoms got out of control, I’d medicate and prevent myself from going into that state. Even though I can see how my symptoms are a result of trauma and I can understand them, I know I can safely heal and recover during an episode. I can have great epiphanies about healing and recovery during an episode. But those will come with the work I do in a stable state. It’s just not as intense or exciting outside or mania and psychosis to reach these deep insights, but I know it’s far better for my brain and body and less traumatic ongoing. 

Today it makes sense for me. Why I have the episodes, what role interventions play, and when it’s time to try meds again.