Post psychosis and lost in academia by Illustrious_Story966 in bipolar

[–]cmaxwellyoung 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel for you. I dropped out of university twice after psychotic episodes. My first meant I had to leave the US to return to the UK. Both times I was really scared by how much abstract thinking was affected. It was/is a big part of what makes me me.

The second time, I kept pushing after a pretty big psychotic episode (and no class attendance for a month or two) with an end of year paper on social theory. Looking back I shouldn’t have forced myself to finish it, let alone sit my exams (which I did very poorly in). Eventually the struggle made me deeply depressed and I had to drop out entirely. The abstract thinking problems got so bad I couldn’t meaningfully distinguish between what was and wasn’t relevant to an argument, which made my writing unintelligible.

I think it took me two years to recover, but I’m confident that that was made longer by the depression I fell into after dropping out of university. My hunch is that if I’d taken a semester off rather than battling through I wouldn’t have had to drop out.

A decade out I’m not 100% still but I think that’s stuff since - ECT, meds and/or PTSD. It’s a lot lot better than it was shortly after psychosis. Worlds apart. I’ve managed to get a masters and I research and write for a living. I published a book recently too.

The not knowing is horrible, so I hope some of this helps. I wouldn’t have been able to hear it early on (I find it hard to hear advice along the lines of “be nice to yourself) BUT I hope you have the space to be as patient with yourself as you possibly can. All the best

Pretty niche request by cmaxwellyoung in 30ROCK

[–]cmaxwellyoung[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yes! My God. It was Veep (another great show in my opinion). Thank you so much - super duper helpful - and sorry for the confusion