How has mental illness affected your life?

Sure, I don't mind you asking at all.

Symptoms

- Hallucinations (tactile, auditory, visual. My main thing is hearing voices)
- Delusions (e.g. thought projections, grandeur stuff)
- Extreme paranoia (thinking people are spying on me, trying to kill me, etc)
- Distorted sense of visual perception (though they think that could be mild epilepsy)
- Self-harm (though we managed to quickly get that under control. It was quite scary and not within my control for a while)
- Suicidal thoughts/tendencies/attempts
- Mixture of agoraphobia and claustrophobia (mostly the former)
- Out-of-body sensations
- Body and brain reliving last year's psychotic episode (which was far worse. Again, this is beyond my control. I really wish I didn't have to relive everything: it was awful enough first time round)
- Generalised psychotic attacks, some of which have no identifiable triggers. We've worked out academic libraries and religious buildings are triggers

When this first started happening to me at uni, I honestly had no idea what was going on and was terrified but couldn't articulate it to everyone. These days, I'm aware that what's happening is abnormal about 90-95% of the time, since mine is a seemingly milder form of psychosis. I'm also incredibly self-aware, which is what has made it so hard for them to diagnose me. That said, it doesn't make it much easier to control and there are times when I almost completely lose control of my brain, with near-fatal consequences.

As for coping, I'm a tough cookie, far more resilient than I realise, have lots of loving and supportive friends and family members. I'm quite religious/spiritual and take a lot of comfort in and strength from that. I have an incredibly active guardian angel

Thank you for taking the time to reply Quite an extensive list of symptoms you experience. It is good to hear that you are self aware and conscious of what is occurring for you, I have been told by my psychiatrist that those with self awareness and insight are more likely to have better long term prospects than those who lack insight. It's just unfortunate that even though one can rationalise that an experience is out of the ordinary, it doesn't change the fact that it still occurs. Life would be much easier otherwise!

Do you take any medication to help you? Also what do you think of diagnosis? As in would you find a conclusive diagnosis helpful or counter productive?


These days I'm not so sure I agree with labelling unusual experiences as psychotic and thus medicalising them, maybe I've been reading too much Romme and Escher though I've been under the mental health services for nearly 3 years now and I'm still no closer to being 'cured' so I'm investigating alternative avenues and perspectives.

I interpreted it as the latter; done it, stopped, then started again. But I honestly don't know for sure.

Yeah, you should be alright. You may even find that your GP's willing to bend the facts slightly to help you - I know my Mental Health Worker encouraged me to still give it a go even though I've probably stopped and started at least 15 times.

I've never seen a doctor about mine, but i self harm and i feel very alone and as if i don't know who i am at all. I have been through stages of obsessive exercise and a month or so when i barely ate.
Would this be taken seriously by a doctor?
I'm 18 and sitting my A levels soon and i'm scared i'm ruining my chances by feeling like this.

Hmm, I have a bit of a paranoid obsession with aliens. Every night when I go to sleep, I check my bedroom, check the back yard, and scan the dark corridors of my house for aliens lurking and watching me, sometimes I imagine that I am interacting with them. There have been a few times where I worry that they have infiltrated my dreams or something. I think it's just my overactive, paranoid imagination combined with OCD. I'm not sure how to explain it to people without making it sound psychotic.

Have you told any medical health professional this?

Not yet. I haven't had the chance, not heard anything about a psychiatric referral yet. I might mention it to my GP on Thursday, though it might be more trouble than it's worth to say such things. They could send me straight to the loony bin if they don't listen to what I'm saying very carefully. Not a good thing to do just before exams.

Well they haven't sent me to the loony bin yet and I doubt they ever will, so I'm sure you'll be OK to mention it to your GP

That's a bit of a relief, though I'm guessing it depends on the doctor. I really should. At least, it could speed things up a little

Try not to worry about the psychiatrist: it's likely it might not be as scary as you think. I've got a very nice psychiatrist

Hopefully. I've never seen one before, or any senior mental health person. I've seen a nurse therapist and a nurse counsellor but noone else so I'm really scared, I'm not sure what they're going to ask. It's up at my GP surgery though so that's comforting at least, I trust my GP so will try to remember she's only 4 or 5 doors down the corridor.

The first time I saw my psychiatrist in London, we had a chat through symptoms and he asked some questions about those (clearly mentally crossing off possible disorders as he went along) and asked a bit about my home and uni life It was a similar case with the one in Oxford.

It's mainly about establishing why you're there and what they can do to try and help you. They're not out to get you

That's reassuring, thank you should be alright then. My GP thinks they'll just refer me on to pyschology, but we'll see. My mum said that as my anti-depressants are working I might not even need any help, but I'm not so sure if that's true. Ah well.

Gosh, I'd forgotten about this thread.

So far 10 weeks of psychotic episode and no sign of it ending anytime soon. My meds have been increased and I've been given a new diagnosis of nonspecific psychotic disorder. Nonspecific coz I'm that special and confusing. Urgh

hey, are you in relapse or is this your first episode?

if in relapse, what is it like to relapse. are you aware of what is going on? or does it seem totally new?

i'm on aripiprazole 5mg (cos it zonks me out) and just wondering what to look out for etc and what it will be like say it does happen again.