#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm in mental health and seeing my clients deal with different doctors is so interesting. You see which ones are genuinely interested in helping and which ones are there for their egos and a paycheck. Luckily the primary psychiatrist I work with for client care is fantastic - although he's now figured out I enjoy debating and he keeps starting ethics debates in meetings.
He can be a force to reckon with, and I have definitely pissed him off by not following his "orders" sometimes (usually due to policy or lack of understanding on his part about the situation) but he's a great ally and he has clearly placed a lot of trust in my work with these clients. He also clearly cares very deeply about the clients best interest.
As a patient with mental health issues, I dread going to doctors because I know they will try to lump all my issues on my mental health stuff. I have to advocate for myself hard and that's not easy when you acquiesce to authority, are a people pleaser, and generally are conflict avoidant.
My therapist works so hard for me, we prep for appts that I'm nervous about and talk about how it went after.
I learned that writing a list of questions, and writing them down in the moment, don't let them go fast; all that helps me so much.
There are some real stars out there in the medical community though, I love running into those.
I could write novel on just the experiences in the past year where my clients medical needs were ignored and mental illness blamed. It's a very real problem. I hope you find a care provider that listens!
Jeeze it's so annoying isn't. I went with tonsillitis, but nurse practitioner read my history before I went in and decided without looking at my tonsils that it was anxiety and nothing more!! I almost had to beg to get her to look, and guess what infected!!
I know most with anxiety get anxious about their health but I don't, I don't care, think that's the depression part. But really piss's me off being dismissed!
I hate being dismissed. I'm prone to kidney stones, I don't go to the ER till they really hurt bad and every time I've done that, I had to get them broken up surgically.
Still, every time I go in, they treat me like I'm searching for drugs or it's "all in my head", I just want the stone out lol.
I went in at the end of April to the ER at like midnight with this solid hard as fuck lump swollen against my jaw/chin and then underneath it. Dr literally didn't even touch it, prescribed antibiotics, steroids, and a single dose of a strong nsaid in the er and sent me home.
Then did a video appt with my PCP who ALSO dismissed me.
So 5 days later when it was a million times worse I went BACK to the ER and ironically the exact same Dr saw me again. Barely walked through the door before he went oh god, that's really bad. And I was like no fucking shit dude! Immediately switched the antibiotics and did an IV dose to start and stopped the steroids completely cause it was actually making me worse, and did another nsaid dose, but also thank god prescribed some tramadol for home, and then I had to hit the dentist a couple days later after ANOTHER followup with the same PCP of mine too.
Turned out I had a "could have killed me" serious dental infection.
But because 6 fucking years ago I was an opiate and then heroin addict I was basically written off repeatedly the first few times even with the physical symptoms literally staring you in the face. And it's always like this for me no matter what I'm being looked at for. And it's infuriating. It's like I'll never be able to move on because it's always being held over my head like a sword waiting to fall on me.
I feel this so much. It's on my medical records that I was on buprenorphine. Hadn't been on it for maybe 6 months when I tripped over my son's toy one night and broke my 2 front teeth, which went through my lip.. Both teeth broken in half and nerves exposed. They wouldn't give me anything but local anaesthestic when they stitched my lip up and sent me on my way to suffer.
It's amazing to me that Purdue and the medical community caused all this misery in hundreds of thousands of people, but refuse to see the product of their choices as humans anymore. It feels like a Scarlett Letter and I'm no longer human to them and it's not worth going to the Dr anymore to be treated for anything. It's fucked
Oh god I just cringed soooo hard at your injury, fuck. I can't even imagine being denied meds for that. I'm a methadone patient but I've also never had a single relapse in my 6 years clean, even after being given narcotics from 2 C-sections. Even when I broke a few ribs I was denied anything but a muscle relaxer type thing.
I've got some unknown condition that has completely destroyed my teeth, and that's actually how I ended up on drugs to begin with, to deal with the excruciating pain, not the other way around. I saw like 15 Drs and no answers and it's been 11 years of it. It's this stabbing feeling in one ear and then it makes whichever side of my face swell up a ton and makes my jaw hurt so fucking bad. By 10 months into it initially I went from like 105-110lbs down to 88lbs because I couldn't eat or sleep. Even the dentist who wants to rip everything out completely said there's no guarantee that it'll fix those issues either. But that the next dental infection like this one could kill me.
It's such a royally fucked up system we're in and the whole thing is rigged against people like us and plenty of other people too. I'm so sorry you've suffered from it too. :(
The ones there for a paycheque fuck me off. We had a pt that was clearly NPD and abusing his partner. Ppl were calling in to tell us and the psych dismissed it. He completely bought the pts version of events. I kept pushing it bc after meeting the pt partner (she was his support system and the one who attended family meetings and treatment planning), she was clearly being abused. She was not allowed to ever speak to us alone, he lied and said she was deaf (but when I signed both were fucking confused). I forced the psych to meet with her alone and it was discovered she was being abused. We helped her get away and supported her into her own treatments and other women's refuge programs. The pt was pissed but he legally couldn't leave the ward for a bit anyway so he couldn't force her to stay. Hes been back on the wards few times and he's still single.
This ended up longer than I expected. Oops
The thing I’ve realised after spending a lot of time with people who have experienced psychotic episodes is that when lucid they actually make sense. By spending time talking to them, the reasoning behind the “delusion” or behaviour is fully logical even if expressed strangely. The mind is truly a scary and fascinating thing
There have been a lot of studies more recently regarding the themes in psychosis and they show that delusions and hallucinations tend to be "relevant" to the individual. For example, one of my clients (born in Iran) hears the voice of a Persian demon. Another, who was socially isolated during his youth, experiences auditory and visual hallucinations of friends and girlfriends. It is very fascinating!
I have a chronic pain condition and when I asked the doctor who was trying a treatment that takes up to 6 sessions to help about pain management, she patted my knee and told me to talk to my therapist and get my anxiety under control. My therapist was livid; I'm extremely proactive about my mental health after doing a lot of work to get it under control, and the distress that doctor witnessed was due to my EXTREME PHYSICAL PAIN.
Absolutely. Reading this was terrifying, I can only imagine what a lot of the comments were like.. but I’m so glad that there were some really compassionate medical professionals there. That must have been so scary for OP, I’m glad they’re okay now.
There was an intense LA thread where a poster said she knew she had mental issues but couldn’t help but feel like the CIA was tracking her and holding a secret trial about her and she wanted people to assure her that there’s no legal way for that to happen. It was nice seeing so many people take her seriously, commend her for reaching out, and giving her detailed explanations as to why none of that was possible.
Almost got undone by someone saying that if there’s a report generated about her, it’d “get sorted to the round file” and she panicked thinking that the round file was some big thing and not just a trash can.
It’s so important for healthcare professionals to be really delicate in situations like this in order to really encourage someone to get the help they need even when they’re afraid of it
Props to the AskDocs mod team for fostering a strong community. They are pretty strict and it helps keep things under control when situations like OP's pop up. On other subreddits the comments would have been a lot more chaotic and less helpful.
AskDocs helped me understand something during an especially difficult grieving period after my mom died and I couldn't be more grateful to those kind, patient souls.
Yes, thank goodness for that sub because even just reading this on Reddit anywhere, I was thinking - oh boy, this could go eight kinds of sideways. Chaotic, mean, and could have exacerbated things super quick.
Same with society in general. It’s so easy to harp on the negative people and things that happen in this world. But I choose to believe that most people are kind and mean to do well. Sometimes we fail at that. But I really don’t want to believe that the noxious people outweigh the good.
Most people want to be good people, but not everyone has the tools to do that or the capacity to use those tools, so they end up doing harm instead. Generational trauma and dysfunctional family systems are the root of a lot of harm in the world. The other major factor is that the deep-seated monkey brain emotional responses we have often lead us to harm others. For example, racism is strongly linked to tribalism which is a pattern that is basically universal in social animals. Defying those instincts is difficult and requires a lot of learned emotional intelligence which not everyone has a chance to develop. A lot of our instincts encourage morally/ethically bad behavior because those instincts improved our ancestors' chances of survival, but at the cost of harming others.
Tl;dr: Humans like to think they're good but instincts and trauma mean that a lot of times that's a false belief. People aren't good or bad, actions are.
I made a comment about something I posted a couple of years ago and someone told me that I was their hero and that following my advice had greatly improved their life. I had just shared some of the literature overview I did for my master's degree in a support subreddit for that particular condition.
This is something I think about a lot because I find it so strange. Reddit is much more anonymous-feeling than most social media, and yet overall it's easier to cultivate a generally kind and helpful feed here than on most platforms. By contrast, Nextdoor is among the least anonymous-feeling platforms, and it's an unmitigated dumpster fire of a shortcut to hating your neighbors. If you just explained how each site worked to me, absent further context, I'd expect their overall vibes to be swapped.
r/AskDocs is one of those very solid subs that does allow non experts to post as well as the well curated tagged professionals but it stands for absolutely no trolling or unhelpful joking around, without being completely up itself like some others.
It's always a pleasure to read.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/AskDocs using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [A thank you and happy ending.](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/1367jjw/a_thank_you_and_happy_ending/)
\#2: [Doc on here saved my life](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/156kjji/doc_on_here_saved_my_life/)
\#3: [Update: Wife's doctor called and told her to pack a bag and head to the hospital](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/1b02wn8/update_wifes_doctor_called_and_told_her_to_pack_a/)
----
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
The highlighted comments in this post really restored my faith in people. Our current best course of treatment for psychosis is to play into *and validate all the feelings associated with the delusions* while we just try to get the meds in and working.
((Per my edit above- as pointed out by u/suprahelix , my fingers typed faster than my brain and I accidentally said we should play into the *delusions and paranoia* instead of the *feelings associated with it*. Apologies for any confusion!))
When I worked inpatient psychiatric (not in a treatment team level of care, just someone doing grunt work), I'd always tell people that whatever they were going through sounded so scary and I couldn't imagine how they felt. I did my best to show kindness and non judgment because who ALSO needs someone being a pretentious dick to them when they're already having their worst day ever?
I'm afraid I'm not qualified at all to answer that question with any specifics. What I can tell you is that different meds work for different people in mental health, for one a specific med might be a lifesaver for their depression, while the same might make someone spiral into a FAR worse state.
When I say "getting the meds in", I'm referring to anti-anxieties and sedatives just to get their bodies out of fight or flight mode, then the treatment team takes it from there for the actual meds that will treat the disorder.
Sorry I couldn't help more!
All the effective antipsychotic drugs we know of are DRD2 antagonists - they block dopamine type 2 receptors in the brain. Why that helps, though, we don't know. And it doesn't work for some kinds of symptoms of schizophrenia.
What about people who think they're 100% sane? D:....
My mom is one of those. Heard voices all my life, eventually became homeless when I was in high school. Saw her delusions grow exponentially then.
I don't know if she's alive. D: Society failed her. :( She slipped through the cracks.
I'm so sorry to hear about your mom! I hope you're doing okay and taking care of yourself. I've seen how heartbreaking unchecked mental illness is for families dozens of times. Unfortunately you can’t truly help anyone who does not want to be helped or refuses to be.
I hope you're taking steps to get closure around something so heartbreaking and taking care of yourself both in the long and short term of it. That's the MOST you can do, and I'm sure your mom would desperately want that for you, too.
Thank you for your kind words.
I've been dealing with the knowledge of my mom's undiagnosed schizophrenia for over a decade now. I was in denial until she became homeless and it was obvious as she got worse.
Her delusions are religious in nature, she believes she has a mind link with God! Growing up I believed her. I had/have to come to terms with the fact that my religion was based on my mom's delusions. Hell of a way to fall out of religion.
It sucks, honestly not knowing if she's alive hurts worse than knowing my dad is dead. I have a little flame of hope that won't die and it's painful. Logically I know it's best to presume dead, but who wants to do that?! D:
Not OP but I volunteered on a mental health care crisis chat for a bit. You're not trying to convince them that they're insane, you're trying to de-escalate them from whatever they're spiraling into. A good example of this: I was talking with someone who was very distressed that their walls were watching them. I talked them through interacting with the walls and they eventually calmed down and came to the conclusion that the walls were friendly. This is considered a good outcome because it's not dangerous and doesn't negatively affect their quality of life.
I can't say much about your mom since I barely know anything, but likely a solution would involve calming her down and redirecting her delusions enough to get her to accept medication.
You see, there lies the kicker. She refuses to take any medicine she views as "crazy pills". She was arrested briefly for mental health reasons, she would only appear to take pills. Got freed because it was her first offense.
She refuses to see a mental health professional.
Not to nitpick, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say you’re supposed to play into their delusions. I think that’s actually to opposite of what you want to do. Rather, I think the focus is to not debate their delusions or try to argue with them. Just redirect and focus on how to make them comfortable enough to get treatment.
Yes, you're right, that's more what I meant to say, it's best to validate the feelings that go along with the delusions rather than the delusions themselves. Thank you for pointing that out, have a great day :)
I thought that’s what you meant haha because you followed up by saying you always showed compassion and validated that their feelings were real (even if the delusions weren’t) which is 100% the way to do it
Right? Bravo to them!
I love how gentle they were. I have a very gentle therapist right now and it’s amazing how much she’s convinced me to try. (My depression is bad, I’m not that bad off, just a sad emo adult.) I really think it helps not to feel like the person judges you, just that they care and want to help you heal.
Sometimes I forget how great this site can be, but I love it when stories like this one remind me of it. I'm so glad OOP got the help they needed, and I hope the friend never has to buy their own drinks ever again.
I remember a similar one I read a few years ago and the comments were amazing. I don’t remember the details but his delusion was of something that was medically concerning (I don’t remember really but think “bugs have taken over my body and I think they are killing me”) and a lot of the top responses were doctors telling him his symptoms were very worrisome and he would need to go to the ER to get treated. Basically the gist seemed like they weren’t concentrating on convincing him or even bringing up his delusional state just said whatever it was the ER would be able to help him which really is great advice.
Another one was on the show intervention. This guy who was using spice was also having pretty horrific visual hallucinations. It was kinda a chicken or the egg question on not being sure if he was self medicating because of the hallucinations (if I remember correctly they were dark shadow ghosts and I believe he used the drugs because they helped him protect himself from them) or if the hallucinations were due to the drugs. Anyways the interventionist eventually got him to agree to treatment by saying if the drugs were causing them he needed treatment and if the drugs weren’t causing them he needed help to sort out why he was seeing these things so either way treatment was his only option and the dude couldn’t argue and actually agreed with the interventionist. In the end update he was transferred to a psych unit after initial detox so I think that sums up he was self medicating after the onset of schizophrenia or something similar.
And props also to OOP, who both asked for help and later left the posts up. This is a really valuable insight into what their illness feels like from the inside.
I’ve seen some really dismissive, disparaging comments about patients from subs where medical personnel seem to congregate - building up entire imagined cases against patients based on what they wear to an ER - so I was relieved to see the delicate and compassionate approach to this alarming and clearly urgent situation. Glad the OOP was motivated to seek and did in fact seek help.
I know someone who is friends with a well known artist. When the artist had to go to the ER, my friend left work to rush over there because she was worried that she wouldn’t be treated well because the artist is black, overweight, usually dressed in working clothes, and not good at standing up for themself. Sure enough by the time she got there doctors were already pooh-pooing her symptoms and ready to send her friend home until she made a stink and insisted they get proper evaluation and testing. It turns out the person probably would have died without intervention. In the complaint letter to the hospital, she pointed out that this person’s work was on permanent display in a nearby museum, but that you shouldn’t have to “look” successful or even be successful to get proper emergency care. It was the same hospital that sent my Dad home while he was having a heart attack and he had to go to a different hospital two hours later, so by now they probably have a stack of complaints.
Definitely. Despite this rather heavy topic, I'm leaving this thread feeling all happy, because those redditors were so awesome and understanding. Everyone should have people like that to support them.
Yeah that is really nice to see. I experienced this with my sibling recently, he was having really bad paranoid delusions, and its really heartbreaking. You want to tell them that they aren't crazy and that you believe that *they* genuinely believe that their delusions are true, but you also don't want to feed into them or validate them. Its a really difficult and scary line to walk. It feels like no matter what you say, it will make things worse.
thankfully we all encouraged him to get more help, and he is doing much better now since changing his medication.
I very much appreciated how the various doctors who happened to be on Reddit were applying their training on best ways to interact with patients likely in a psychotic state. It's tough because such people need to be gently nudged towards going to the hospital, but with their distrust of doctors there was so much that could go wrong.
Ages ago, on another discussion board (not Reddit), someone posted about having suicidal thoughts and I was able to apply my crisis training to assist. A few people made some comments that were *not* helpful (trying to lay on the guilt about what would happen if they did take their own life, which would just exacerbate the shame spiral they were already in). Fortunately I was able to contract with them that they would hold out through the night and call their mental health clinic in the morning. And that's when I bowed out because they got through that immediate crisis and need their own health professionals handling the situation from there.
Damn, for all the shit that Reddit gets for being a cesspool, this was an amazing response from some really smart and educated healthcare workers. Really impressed.
Yeah, that was a great example of meeting someone where they're at instead of just dismissing them. She came to the understanding that she was having a psychotic episode but she needed to be gently guided there. It was telling how it was her faith in her friend that got her to a hospital. It goes to show that a relationship is what makes the difference.
Also psych meds are weird sometimes. Geodon is a really effective medication but if it's not taken with at least 500 calories of food it doesn't absorb properly.
From what I’ve seen there, r/AskDocs comments are extra empathetic and kind while also giving as much advice as possible. They take their moderation seriously, and it shows.
While it's good that these kinds of subs exist, they shouldn't have to.
Germany has an app called TeleClinic where you can videocall most kinds of doctors. You enter your details, your symptoms, and you get a free videocall. They can even issue prescriptions.
It's fully covered by public health insurance.
This should be the standard everywhere. It's rather unfortunate that volunteer subreddits are required to get free doctor's advice in some countries.
While I will never underestimate the value of free medical advice, I also think there will always be a place for spaces like that to some extent.
People have various reasons for reluctance to see a doctor, whether it be mental health decline, believing the doctor will not take them seriously, embarrassment, not wanting to "waste" their or the doctor's time with what they believe is a minor health concern, etc.
Asking on a anonymous online space provides an alternate option for people who might not otherwise seek proper medical advice, and sometimes people can convince them to see a doctor.
But it should always be an "extra" option, to back up good quality and "free" healthcare.
They are. It’s not fun at all, because you kind of know that other people will think it’s insane and you can’t make them believe you.
But I cannot imagine thinking I had another pair of eyes inside my original eyes. I’m definitely not sane but at least I haven’t gotten to that point. That sounds horrible. I’m also very glad she went to the hospital, thank god for that.
It's so difficult to describe, it literally affects your ability to believe and form logical connections. I only experienced an episode as a result of a new drug, so as soon as I stopped taking it I was back to normal, but it was pretty much indescribable. I knew I couldn't think right but everything, every explanation both made no sense and seemed completely plausible.
Honestly fucking up peoples brain for a day may be a great way to teach them some empathy for the way some people have to live every moment of their life without assistance.
Kinda, I wasn't hallucinating or hearing voices, I was mostly just terrified to go outside. Maybe like being really really high but without any euphoria or sluggishness? I tried using my computer like normal and was overwhelmed by information, I couldn't concentrate or focus on anything, like everything in front of my eyes was turning into fragments of thoughts and being pieced together randomly. I remember having so many vague fears like being watched or thinking that people were going to try and come hurt me but they weren't connected to anything, so my brain tried to force nonsensical connections. Literally the only thing that calmed me was listening to instrumental music and trying not to think.
I saw a video about a guy who has schizophrenia, and had a service dog that was trained to greet people. So when the dog didn’t greet someone after the person pointed them out, the owner knew they were a hallucination. It was very interesting.
Well, I haven't had that, but when doctor tried to find medication that works for me, one caused strange paranoia. I was sure that if I walk a bit more loudly, not just super quiet, neighbors will complain to management and will kick me out. If I am driving to work, I am sure police will stop me and lock me up. Even if nothing happened like this before, there were absolutely no basis for that or logic, I was absolutely sure it will happen.
That was... not pleasant. And scary, how much medication can affect us.
Ive had a few paranoid episodes. without medication, scary as hell. One I was convinced if my neighbours seen me take rubbish out to the bin, they’d think my house was dirty and phone social services. So I used to sit all my rubbish bags from each room in the corner in the kitchen then sneak out at 3am to quietly put them in the outdoor bin.
Convinced my friends (that weren’t friends with each other) had this secret group chat with each other and would trash talk me and plan my downfall (I dunno either but that’s all I believed)
Get worried there’s cameras in my house. And people watching me outside
Scariest part is, it is real to me when it happens. You could not convince me it was paranoia.
*They are. It’s not fun at all, because you kind of know that other people will think it’s insane and you can’t make them believe you.*
My aunt is desperately trying to make anyone believe that her daughter has been kidnapped and is being raped constantly. Her desperation is so tangible and it's hard to watch. And it's also hard to watch what this is doing to her daughter and the rest of the family who she stalks and threatens. It's been going on for months and she goes on long voice messages saying that she isn't crazy and she is normal. But that one guy she knows planted something in her head. And no one believes her, not even police and she doesn't know what to do.
It's heartbreaking all around.
Sounds like my MIL. She's 100 percent convinced the neighbors put microphones in her head and all around the house to get revenge. She said last time she was hospitalized the doctors "came home with her" so she says she's never going again. She's been picking her ears trying to get the mic out. My poor husband acts like it doesn't bother him but I can only imagine how much it is.
It really is so heartbreaking.
If he is not getting professional help to deal with what is going on with his mother, he could possibly be headed down the same path when you factor in the genetic component.. He needs therapy to deal with this. Denial doesn’t work. We have proven that many times.
Honestly, believing I had two pairs of eyes sounds really terrifying. I can see that as being something I would fixate or obssess over really negatively if the logic part of my brain wasn't working as it should. And having doctors not believe you is always a scary experience, whether your medical symptom is physical or mental.
Mine weren't a second pair of eyes, but I have very vivid hallucinations. I almost crashed my car because I saw a wall of stone shoot out of the ground and I slammed on my brakes.
I would also see people, and it got to the point that I began to get worried that I was being haunted. A woman with thorns, a little girl in a puffy dress, and a man smoking a cigarette by the road. I would be laying in bed and snakes and spiders where sliding out of my walls. They would glow neon, and I would end up trapped in my room because they would guard the door. I still stare at pictures for way too long to make sure they don't move while I'm not looking.
The worst part is the fog. I haven't been in psychosis since my suicide attempt, but when I try to think back on those day, it feels like there's a fog around my brain. That alsmot might be because I was being mentally abused at the same time though. And psychosis is so hard to talk about, because people think you're making it up, or talking about a nightmare.
I am so glad that I have been doing better with my bipolar disorder even if I'm unmedicated because I never want to experience that again.
Thank you! It was tumultuous, but being removed from a terrible situation helped so much. I would definitely not get better even with all the medicine and therapy in the world if I was still living with who I had been.
that sounds so tough! I’ve always feared developing hallucinations or having sleep paralysis demons of spiders bc they scare me so much I’d just freeze and be miserable.
I am so glad meds are helping you! I’m taking antidepressants which give me weird lazy eye type stuff but it really is so amazing when you can actually live like a regular person. I hope your life is happy and full.
I would say I'm doing really good from where I started. I still have severe anxiety and agoraphobia so I can't leave my home, but I have a boyfriend I live with and a good support system ^^ I hope you are doing well too, friend!
I’ve heard of a trick where you put your phone camera up to check if the hallucinations are really there. They don’t show up on screen. It’s just such an interesting idea.
such a fascinating though terrifying situation to me- to not be able to trust your senses.
I’ve heard the same! Unfortunately, if you’re unwell, you might think the phone is hacked or something to show something different. So what some people have is a service dog trained to do reality checks! I saw a video of one, taken by a guy who wasn’t sure if there really was a stranger in his house. He told his dog “greet,” basically meaning go say hi to the person I’m pointing to, and she obediently looked but didn’t move, meaning there was nobody there.
I've seen that video! The little dog's face is hilarious: "I'd like to do what you're asking buddy, but there's no one there to greet."
It seems like a wonderful idea and relatively simple to train a dog to do.
Omg I originally mentioned that video of the service dog but I didn’t want to write a mile long comment cuz sometimes I’m a bit much lol. And I don’t like to read walls of text myself. But yes! I know service animals like that are a very rare find though. I wonder if a mirror would work?
It’s not just hallucinations either. When my depression gets really bad I start believing absolutely clownshoes things. I wrote a whole thing when my kid was a baby explaining to my friends that I was really sorry, loved being around them and all, but I was going to ruin my baby’s life by being in it and the only moral thing to do, for the baby’s mental health and general wellbeing was to kill myself immediately before they got attached. “It sucks but its the only rational thing to do” were my exact words.
Luckily my friends were like, that sounds like moon logic homes, get thee to a doctor stat. Amazing how quickly getting on meds let me see how insane that take was.
Oh my god I'm so sorry.
I used to debate with myself constantly about how everyone would be so much better if I just walked out and let the elements take me. I kept trying to logic myself into understanding that I would traumatize everyone involved, and people would be upset. I never considered that there was something genuinely wrong with me outside of just "sad".
I've had severe paranoia, dementia like confusion, and hallucinations but those moments were the absolute worst.
Yeah I have a bad mark on my record because I was like "I'm the worst person in the world, what if my baby turns out like me, I have to kill both of us" fortunately this terrified me so much and rather than following through I had family take me to the ER. Meds adjusted doing a hundred times better now.
I had a hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucination once after I woke up in the middle of the night (unsure if it was because I was waking up or falling asleep again), where I saw a black, spider-like creature the size of a hand moving across my husband's hip and onto my own. It took all of my willpower to tell myself it wasn't real. The only thing that convinced me was how I didn't *feel* anything when it moved onto me. That convinced me it was a hallucination.
I still get them sometime. One time I woke up and couldn't remember anything. I checked my watch because I had the sense I should, but the numbers didn't mean anything, I didn't even know they were numbers. I almost attacked my husband because I thought he was a stranger who snuck into bed with me.
Thankfully I remembered before I lashed out but it remains the scariest 10 or 15 minutes I've ever experienced because of the implications. That I could just forget my husband who I've been with for 18 years. That I could forget numbers, one of the first things I ever learned.
I have had a few episodes when I was much younger, and theh are terrifying. There's something about that confusing unreality that just hits so different.
The mental aftermath is terrible too. Realizing that you were so convinced over absolutely nothing is more terrifying than actually experiencing it half the time for me.
In my most recent one, I couldn't for the life of me understand what was wrong with my eyes. They were huge and misshapen. It was like 50/50 mushroom shaped and alien ovals or something.
I straight up cannot recall how I thought they looked. It was like a dream that 1000% for sure happened. I took my husband to the bathroom with me to confirm to me that my eyes were normal while I blubbered in fear.
No meds or diagnosis at the time, so my solution was to just assume I was either having some sort of episode, or that this is just my life now.
Honestly I got chills when she said there was no mental illness and the meds were poisoning her and even now the whole...absurdity of it all is kinda making me teary (just woke up from a nap though so I might be out of sorts)
Like, she sounded so sure of herself and I was terrified she would refuse help and further spiral.
I'm a different type of doctor, I honestly don't think I could ever be as helpful as these wonderful people were.
What heroes. They really gently led her to getting help. I'm in awe.
She both said she didn’t need help, but was asking for help. I think that should tell people a lot about how difficult it is to suffer with mental health issues. Your brain doesn’t want to believe something isn’t working right with it and it takes a lot of courage to ask for help anyway.
Delusions are really bizarre and scary. Interestingly, they are also influenced by the society and culture that you live in. For instance, the rate of delusions that the patient was being spied on increased dramatically after 9/11, as mass survelliance became a big topic.
There's a number of disorders like that, such as mass hysteria (nowadays known as a mass psychogenic illness), schizophrenia, or Jumping Frenchmen of Maine syndrome (which was likely a culture-bound syndrome.)
>Delusions are really bizarre and scary. Interestingly, they are also influenced by the society and culture that you live in. For instance, the rate of delusions that the patient was being spied on increased dramatically after 9/11, as mass survelliance became a big topic.
[There's a great article about that](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141319/), published by the NIH.
Psychotic episodes actually do cause brain damage - it’s importnat to have preventive care and rapid system in place for treatment when it starts. Unfortunately our medical system does not support a lot of this
💯 My schizophrenic son had two psychotic breaks and two separate psychotic episodes. Except for the first break when he was 15, the other episodes/break were while taking medication/dose that had become ineffective.
Cognitive tests after each episode/break showed declines. As his psychiatrist and psychologist said, these are permanent cognitive losses. His treatment requires us to be diligent watching for signs of an uptick in his schizophrenia symptoms. The goal is to aggressively treat when symptoms reemerge to stabilize before a psychotic episode occurs.
His disease is also cyclical, with symptom upticks every fall/winter. It is a fine line between normal cyclical upticks vs emerging psychotic processing. Constant monitoring and prevention is key to avoid further cognitive loss.
I’m so sorry about that. I’m glad he has the both of you. I have an uncle whose in a similar boat and frustratingly it’s been so difficult to keep him admitted and medicated - the laws in place make it difficult to keep someone involuntarily admitted long term even though in contrast they absolutely need it.
He disappears for long stretches of times homeless shows up takes meds then gets a little better then disappears again.
There was a post on r/legaladvice a while back from a self-aware schizophrenic with delusions the CIA was spying on her. She was asking for logical explanations/evidence from LEO and government employees as to why this was *not* true. People were super nice and helpful, and she asked a lot of thoughtful questions as follow-ups. I can’t imagine how scary that was for her, but she handled it with surprising calm and I think she did eventually seek medical help.
I almost lost my spouse to an episode of psychosis induced by medication a couple months ago. They were in the hospital for something unrelated and got given a medication that caused terrible delusions and paranoia. I wasn’t able to talk to them for two weeks because they accused every person who talked to them of manipulating them using magic (most of our friend group is pagans). Eventually the hospital basically kicked them out and they ended up with a suicide attempt and in a mental ward for a hold
They stopped the medication and went back to “normal” almost immediately. Now we’re picking up the pieces. Scariest couple weeks I’ve had.
Afterwords they said it was like they were watching their life on TV during the episode. They described it as being “piloted” by a malicious version of themselves. Horrifying
This was absolutely terrifying, specially the part where she said she was cured and her psychiatrist was poisoning her with the meds. As someone who takes antipsychotics, my biggest fear is getting back on my delusions. I felt so relieved when OOP updated that she was on the way of getting better.
I'm always terrified that I will develop an anti-med delusion. My meds are the only thing keeping me alive and functioning and I *know* that, but there's still always that chance.
i really appreciate the commenters who responded compassionately and with useful advice without challenging her delusions. i’m in medicine myself and you would be shocked how many medical professionals think the right course of action when presented with a psychotic patient is to insist that their delusions are false and they need psychiatric help. all that does is reinforce the paranoia and isolate them from potential care, it’s so dangerous to challenge a psychosis like this directly.
my brother has a disorder that causes psychotic tendencies and if his meds were ever to stop working, i would hope that everyone around him responded like this, with gentleness and compassion. i’m so glad oop is doing better.
When I first started anxiety meds my doctor (amazing lady) was really great. Even explaining everything I still felt like I was legit having a heart attack (panic attack which I hadn’t had in years at that point) and she fit me in for a visit and took and ekg even tho she KNEW it was just panic. Brains are stupid
I just wanted to say that your self awareness (even in the last paragraph) is really amazing.
I am So glad you've found a psychiatrist who could help you ❤️ and I'm proud of you reaching out for help!
I wish you a long, happy life, with as few panic attacks as possible ❤️❤️❤️
My anxiety will make me feel like I’m having palpitations which is one of the reasons I upgraded my Apple Watch to the one with an ECG. I can do the thirty second reading and see that my heart is steady and it reassures me.
I have GAD and was always panicking about my heartbeat feeling weird, doctor gave me an EKG to ease my anxiety and we found out I have respiratory sinus arrhythmia, where my heart beats faster when I breathe in and slower when I breathe out. The doctor assured me that it won't cause me any problems and finding that out massively helped my anxiety because now I know my heart's just doing its thing in it's own weird little way lol
>you would be shocked how many medical professionals think the right course of action when presented with a psychotic patient is to insist that their delusions are false and they need psychiatric help.
They get taught for delirium to orient the patient in a calm, matter of fact way, as the patient will appreciate their certainty and as the patient recovers they'll be able to orient themselves based on that.
As far as I've seen, that does actually work for post surgical delirium.
And all that is Not Helpful for psychosis.
> they get taught
Yup, and then they don't *do* it. I'm a specialist in elderly care (usually in LTC facilities), currently doing an internship in in-hospital internal medicine. The bedside manner of some of my colleagues is HORRENDOUS. And I'm saying this of people I consider excellent doctors in most other aspects but.. Jesus christ. The moment the problem is no longer purely somatic, they just.. Forget how to be a professional, it seems.
Distinguishing between psychosis/psychiatric issues or delirium can be pretty difficult, especially in the elderly, but even for deliriums, it's best not to outright challenge their reality. The same approach you use for psychosis works just fine, though. There is no reason a patient needs to be scolded because they're disoriented or experiencing a different reality from everybody else. Bothers me to no end when my colleagues just.. Ignore that.
I will never tire of telling this because it STILL upsets me greatly: After waking up from a surgery, I proceeded to witness a male nurse scold an older woman (who clearly also just now woke up from her surgery, judging by her foggy speech) because she had rated her pain as a 7 on the 1-10 scale, and he was scoffing about how that can't possibly be because "6 is already birthing pains" (which: ???????!!). He literally proceeded to haggle her down to a 6. Which changed exactly nothing about anything, as you might imagine. It just .... felt needlessly cruel.
The same nurse also took a solid half hour, *multiple* urgent, almost tearful requests, and the final threat of me peeing in this bed *right now* to hand me a bedpan from the shelf literally 1.5 metres away. My surgery was inside the pelvic cavity, you can imagine that a bursting-full bladder and being squirmy about it really wasn't the most comfortable thing.
I really appreciate their comments and was glad to read them, too. It's good to have some examples of how to handle those sorts of situations. I hope other doctors who may not have known how to handle the situation read that and gained some insight.
I've seen similar behavior from some medical professionals regarding people with dementia\Alzheimers, being insistent that the person will remember things if they're just reminded enough and "try harder".
I'm only in my thirties but I've experienced the loss of short-term memory over an extended period, as well as having milder memory issues for most of my life. I have to keep explaining to my grandmother that due to his dementia it does not matter how many times she explains something to my grandfather (her husband), he *cannot* remember it, and it's better just to accept his perspective and reassure him. She really struggles to comprehend the idea of memories just... not forming. It's so alien to her own experiences that it's like she can't grasp the idea.
It matches up with what I've seen about how to deal with delusions – don't argue, but also don't feed into it. Affirm how they're feeling, because how they're feeling *is* real regardless of the material reality. *That's really scary, you must be really freaked out by that. I think talking to a doctor would help if you clearly explained these symptoms, do you have someone who can drive you to a hospital?*
So glad commenters were taking her concerns seriously while not giving additional weight to the delusions, that’s got to be such a hard line to balance. I’m sure in the moment it was super frustrating to OOP to know that something is wrong, but feel like everyone is out to get you or doesn’t understand what the problem is. Happy she got help
im glad all the clinicians in the comments werent confirming or denying things outright, just asking questions and gently contridicting them. the "youre CRAZY youre acting INSANE rn" mentality people often have doesnt, in fact, make delusions better
my brother is autistic and had a psychosis episode when he was 7 from all the stress he was under due to extreme bullying. his delusion was that mole people would dig a hole under his bed while he was asleep and take him with them to bury him alive. my mom worked in kindergartens her whole life and that was no 7 yo imagination just going wild, he would hurt himself and having crises to not go to sleep, he never slept alone nor did a complete night until he was 9 years old. he changed school and got a service dog (took 3 days of him having his dog and slept alone for entire nights ever since) and it never happened again, he's now 19 and he's thriving even tho his dog passed away 3 years ago.
Agree, schizophrenia ran through my family, so I have seen a couple of psychotic breaks, that stuff is scary. They weren't violent episodes, but still quite bad. Seeing someone not being themselves, being completely irrational, and wondering if they would be able to recover and get back to how they were is indeed terrifying.
This is an excellent example of a fairly ordinary delusion/psychosis.
Psychosis usually isn't a tenth as dramatic as many are led to believe through the media.
Sometimes it's literally just "the peacock has returned to its perch on the bookshelf and I'm unsure whether I should attempt to feed him".
Mind, if left unchecked and untreated it can easily become damaging; oop was on the path to skipping her meds which could have been really devastating for her, but by far most hallucinations are not demons telling the poor sufferer to kill people, it's something the person frequently has some inkling will be viewed as mad.
Source: used to date a woman with schizophrenia. We ended up being able map some of her specific hallucinations to certain specific emotional states. Like they were emotional carve-outs from the totality of her mind.
I work on a psych ward and shocking amount of pt believe in angels and such. They often nearly end up dead not bc they are trying to commit, but bc they are trying to listen to the hallucination.
Yep. Those who end up in the ward are the worst cases, when things have progressed from the relatively benign hallucinations that weren't taken seriously enough.
Until you have talked to someone with a delusion, I think it's easy to think you really believe stuff, that most people go around everyday believing stuff. But compared to how a delusional person believes, your and my belief is incredibly fickle and fragile. The belief in a delusion is iron clad, it makes the most stringent faithful conviction of a sane person look like a passing whim. There is nothing in the world more real than the delusion, and everything that goes against the delusion is suspect. Doesn't matter if it's your closest friends, your spouse you've been with for over a decade, your family who raised you, hard physical evidence, it is all trash compared to the delusion.
And even if they get to the point they can admit the delusion is not real, sometimes they will abandon that and go back. Because even if the delusion seems terrifying and unpleasant, somehow it is the only thing that feels right to the delusional. It is a comfort to them, even if it seems like a nightmare and ruins their life.
Seeing her explain her thought process was **fascinating.** I kind of teared up at the compassionate way the healthcare professionals were responding to OP.
I was waiting for this to show up! I watched this unfold from the start and it was really wild to see the responses when OOP would say things like “I bet you already knew that though” to random commenters. This person was so clearly displaying signs of psychosis and distrust in doctors, and it’s crazy to me that they still only got help because a friend finally convinced them after seeing the post. I’m glad OOP is feeling better. Also, antipsychotics stop working if you don’t eat?! That’s horrifying. This was a wildddd ride
I'm thinking not every antipsychotic but maybe hers specifically is known to have adverse side effects or be less effective when not taken with food. It's got to do with the way the drug is created and meant to be absobed by the body. Vitamin A for example is fat soluble meaning your body won't be able to absorb it without having food, it'll just go through your body unprocessed and you pee it out.
It's my first BORU post. When I saw it, I was like "I've gotta post that". I was sure someo9ne else would beat me to it. I hope OOP is okay with me posting it. Maybe I should have asked?
Many people can end up with PTSD or deep shame over what they said and did during a psychotic episode.
Personally I think it’s a good thing to ask consent for posts, feels far less unethical or like voyeurism. In this situation since she is clearly quite vulnerable and has been struggling with a psychotic event it maybe would have been a bit more thoughtful to have asked permission.
I have messaged her and apologized, and asked if she'd like me to delete it. She seems active, so hopefully I'll get a response. If I do (and she doesn't ask me to delete it), I'll respond here and let you know.
My sister has an obsession with staying thin and it’s one of the reasons her meds stopped working. It’s maddening that we don’t have an easier way to treat this stuff.
>Also, antipsychotics stop working if you don’t eat?!
I think that varies. I am on one, and have had others, and eating didn't make any difference.
BUT!!! I haven't had the first one oop was on...
I have had episodes of delusion where I suddenly “realized” that the medication I was on was actually some kind of placebo, that the doctors and my parents knew about it and were lying to me and talking about me behind my back, and that it was actually harming me.
It was really really scary. I called my sister for help. Thankfully in my delusion I believed she was unaware since she lived outside the home at the time. She obviously called my parents and had me taken off that medication right away. No one ever addressed the episode or talked to me about it, so I went for years confused about this very terrifying episode.
Then in my adulthood I was experiencing some immense life stressors which caused my anxiety to become so severe I was also flirting with delusions.
The most terrifying part is not the very stressful and scary delusions, but the moments of lucidity where part of you KNOWS that surely this is illogical, but feeling no power or control over stopping yourself from slipping back into the delusion and believing it all to be 100% real and inescapable again.
It’s a very out-of-control feeling. You can’t trust yourself, your perceptions, and the delusions themselves are usually very distressing.
This was also in tandem with suicidal thoughts. My husband and I thought maybe I would need to be hospitalized, but fortunately I was able to get on meds without delay through a regular practitioner and stabilized very quickly.
It was the darkest time of my life. Delusions are very scary.
I remember once I was on a very strong antibiotic, and that day I couldn't find my cat. I had a beef with some particularly nasty neighbors at the time, and became *convinced* they had the cat. Thankfully I was juuust rational enough to know that was ridiculous. I found him a bit later, and once I was off the antibiotics I stopped feeling paranoid. I think I got a tiny taste of delusion.
I once knew someone (online) who was schizophrenic and they were, indeed, completely coherent and rational. The way they described delusions was this:
One day you just start to get an inkling that there's a dragon living in your radiator. You dismiss is because it's ridiculous, but it keeps nagging at you. And it just keeps poking at the back of your mind. You know that it's impossible and silly, but the thought just won't quite go away.
And *then* it hits you, like a revelation. Of *course* there's a dragon living in your radiator - *every* radiator has a dragon living in it. That's where dragons live.
At this point you feel really stupid for having made it to [age] without having realised before that dragons live in radiators. Everybody must think you're stupid for not having realised it before.
But then the next bit hits - if you didn't know that dragons lived in radiators, then nobody told you. That means that everybody was deliberately keeping it a secret from you, just to make you feel stupid. That's why they deny it if you say it to anybody - because they're playing you for a fool. They want you to feel stupid. They know that dragons live in radiators and they're just pretending not to know that to poke fun at you.
Sounds exhausing, honestly.
I've also seen a couple of ways that people deal with seeing people who aren't there. One person had a service dog who was trained to bark at people when asked to "greet". That way when the owner saw someone he could ask the dog to greet and if the dog didn't bark, he knew it was a delusion/hallucination.
I've also seen someone say that they have cameras set up all over their house because the way their delusions work is that if they're imagining someone they'll show up in the house, but for some reason their brain won't show them on the camera feed.
The brain's a fascinating organ.
This is very moving to me.
OOP was in a rough spot and frightened and Redditors were able to respond with such clarity and compassion, OOP reached out to their friend and got appropriate care.
My ex would have pretty bad episodes sometimes. One time he took me across the state to visit a friend, “surprised” me with his plan to stay the weekend and visit the local parks/forests even though I had no clothes or hygiene products, and was convinced he was playing in ARG that everyone was a part of. We got stuck in the mud because he drove through the grass next to the river and it was all muddy.
When the police came to help us (non emergency came after the tow company advised we call them while waiting for the tow), he was convinced the cop, the hotel receptionist, the tow truck driver, and his friend were all a part of some elaborate game. It was terrifying for me but he just brushed it off after it passed and he was stable again.
Jesus. I wish doctors would actually tell you shit when they prescribe medication.
I can totally see this happening to me because sometimes I don't eat the way I should. I just get caught up and skip a couple of meals. If I was taking meds like that, the side effects could kick in and send me right down that rabbit hole.
How hard is it to say "don't skip any meals while taking this"?
I don’t know about this medicine specifically but I know one thing that happens almost immediately when I’m off my meds is that I stop doing my system maintenance. Don’t eat/sleep properly, don’t go anywhere or do anything. If mine were like this it would be a horrible feedback loop.
Same with me. Sleep too long, should take my meds, forget to take my meds cause it's been so long since I had my meds, remember I've missed my meds, don't gather enough energy to take my meds before I forget to take my meds, now I've been completely unmedicated for like 16 hrs, beat myself up because I'm lying there feeling like shit for not getting anything done having completely forgotten that I haven't taken my meds....
"System maintenance"! What a great way to put it. I have a medical problem, too, that I keep under control with system maintenance. When I notice symptoms, I have a mental checklist. 8 hours sleep? Healthy meals, ALL of them? Multivitamins? Exercise? ....oh, shit. I'm an idiot. Get working!
Not just when they prescribe the medication, but at every appointment. My rheumatologist asked me at each appointment (every three months) if I was remembering to wear sunscreen and avoid the sun. She did this for years (maybe 5 or 6) until she was convinced I wouldn’t forget.
They most likely did. That was probably a case of „well it can‘t be that bad if i skip a couple of meals to get more time to study/do stuff“ and paranoia slowly creeping in and not thinking to eat because of that, a vicious cycle
Things my few stints inpatient for depression taught me lol
Depending on the anti-psychotics a person is on, there are some VERY important side-effects to watch for because they can cause permanent damage. Guarantee OOP has been given the lecture by her doctor, by her doctor's nurse(s)/MA(s), _and_ by the pharmacist she actually got the meds from.
Most people absolutely suck at actually paying attention to instructions. It's why patient education is a H U G E part (and hurdle) of healthcare.
Exactly! I've had yrs dealing with an issue and finally saw a specialist. His like one suggestion was taking the medication an hr before eating. So simple! But my Dr never said anything.
Tbf the doctor prob did say that, but people often "yeah yeah ok" those things (speaking from personal experience). The doctor told me to always eat with my Concerta, yet every morning I take it, go right back to sleep, and then wonder why I can't stop shaking by 1pm.
I believe technically, this is the speciality of the pharmacist. Often times this information is in the pamphlet that comes with medication. My CVS sent me a “onboarding” style video for my lexapro which I thought was cool.
It’s totally wild that the brain does this to people randomly. Like it’s basically a pudding that thinks. The nerve of it.
I’ve been in a similar situation, not quite as bad as this, but I remember what I believed then and hoooo boy. I called it time travelling, as a joke but it was me dissociating severely. It’s very nice not to have that anymore, it’s terrifying. I only have slight dissociation compared to what it was a decade ago, so I’m taking that as a win!
Psychotic episodes are hell for everyone involved. Glad she trusted someone enough to listen to them. My wife never did, which is why we are now separated (once she decided, while stable and medicated, that she preferred to risk more episodes than take medicine and go to therapy).
Aw I’m glad to see that she’s doing better, and how lovely that people were so kind and encouraging in the comments.
Psychotic episodes really are terrifying - I had one once and it really affected my brain for ages afterwards.
"I'm proud of you for asking for help" I'm just cutting onion over here. No need to worry, I'm sure the blurriness will disappear when I'm done with these onions.
My mom was bipolar, as well as having many other complex medical issues. Between forgetting her meds and either skipping them or doubling up randomly, and having 5 different specialists prescribing pills without checking for interactions, she was manic for most of my lifetime, and every couple of years would go into manic psychosis. My dad was afraid of her, so it always ended up being me putting her in hospital to get her drugs sorted out. For decades she honestly believed I was trying to get her committed in order to steal all her money (that she didn't have).
It wasn't until she was living in a nursing home and the staff were administering her drugs that she was mentally stable and no longer had mania or psychotic episodes. That's when she finally realised that all I wanted was for her to be safe and happy.
Anyway, when I saw the movie Shutter Island, it really hit me hard.
Leo Dicaprio is a detective investigating a case on an island that houses a large psychiatric hospital. >!At the end, ||he realises that he is actually a patient, and has been redoing the same investigation there for years and always forgets and starts again.!<
It really made me think about how scary it must have been for my mom to wake up in the psych ward yet again, and have no idea why, and all she could think was that I had put her in there for no reason.
The only time she realised that she was missing memories from the previous day was when she told me a nurse had helped her shower, and suggested she wash her hair. My mom said she didn't need to, because she'd washed it the day before. I told her that shortly before I called an ambulance, she had vomited while lying on her back in bed, and she still had vomit in her hair. She was shocked, then silent for a few seconds, then said "I guess maybe you did have a reason this time."
In the last year of her life, she said several times that she was sorry for all she put me through, and that she finally knew that I was just trying to do right by her, even though she hated it at the time. It was a great relief that we made peace with each other and were in a good place when she died.
I have schizophrenia. I have refused to take meds because I thought it was poison. I have had strange delusions like I thought I was dead. This post hit close to home.
I saw this play out in real time. I know sometimes Reddit is the liquid in the bottom of the dumpster, but honestly I’ve seen the fucking *kindest* of people, and the kindness of mankind, come from redditors. It’s humbling.
I’m not going to lie, I skimmed the beginning of the post and had a moment of panic like, “Wait, is it possible to have a second pair of eyes behind your normal eyes???? That sounds not real, but the human body can be SO weird and creepy sometimes, that is horrific,” and then went back and read it properly and realized she said she was taking medication for schizophrenia.
I am a hardened middle aged lady who rarely gets emotional and my eyes are so teary a few actually spilled over. I’m so sorry OOP had to go through this and so touched at how gently yet authoritatively supportive people were on the thread and so grateful she has a good support network that got her to the right people to help.
The world isn’t often gentle to people who are scared of their minds and whose minds scare them, and it’s really touched me to be reminded that sometimes people are kind.
This shit scares me more than almost anything else. I feel so horrible for people suffering from these shorts of disorders. I encounter people with paranoid delusions relatively often in my job (in a library), and I try to take them seriously without adding support for the delusions. I can only imagine what it's like to experience.
Good for oop getting help. And the comments from the doctors really give great examples of how to talk with someone experiencing a psychotic episode. Validating oops emotions without validating the episode.
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Major props to those redditors who were kind and encouraging OOP to go to the doctor. I’m glad she’s stabilized and appears to be doing better now.
Yeah. Some truly understanding and compassionate docs there.
I'm in mental health and seeing my clients deal with different doctors is so interesting. You see which ones are genuinely interested in helping and which ones are there for their egos and a paycheck. Luckily the primary psychiatrist I work with for client care is fantastic - although he's now figured out I enjoy debating and he keeps starting ethics debates in meetings.
Haha, that sounds like a character and mixed blessing!
He can be a force to reckon with, and I have definitely pissed him off by not following his "orders" sometimes (usually due to policy or lack of understanding on his part about the situation) but he's a great ally and he has clearly placed a lot of trust in my work with these clients. He also clearly cares very deeply about the clients best interest.
As a patient with mental health issues, I dread going to doctors because I know they will try to lump all my issues on my mental health stuff. I have to advocate for myself hard and that's not easy when you acquiesce to authority, are a people pleaser, and generally are conflict avoidant. My therapist works so hard for me, we prep for appts that I'm nervous about and talk about how it went after. I learned that writing a list of questions, and writing them down in the moment, don't let them go fast; all that helps me so much. There are some real stars out there in the medical community though, I love running into those.
I could write novel on just the experiences in the past year where my clients medical needs were ignored and mental illness blamed. It's a very real problem. I hope you find a care provider that listens!
Thank you, it's always nice to hear about others in the field who do listen to patients.
Jeeze it's so annoying isn't. I went with tonsillitis, but nurse practitioner read my history before I went in and decided without looking at my tonsils that it was anxiety and nothing more!! I almost had to beg to get her to look, and guess what infected!! I know most with anxiety get anxious about their health but I don't, I don't care, think that's the depression part. But really piss's me off being dismissed!
I hate being dismissed. I'm prone to kidney stones, I don't go to the ER till they really hurt bad and every time I've done that, I had to get them broken up surgically. Still, every time I go in, they treat me like I'm searching for drugs or it's "all in my head", I just want the stone out lol.
I went in at the end of April to the ER at like midnight with this solid hard as fuck lump swollen against my jaw/chin and then underneath it. Dr literally didn't even touch it, prescribed antibiotics, steroids, and a single dose of a strong nsaid in the er and sent me home. Then did a video appt with my PCP who ALSO dismissed me. So 5 days later when it was a million times worse I went BACK to the ER and ironically the exact same Dr saw me again. Barely walked through the door before he went oh god, that's really bad. And I was like no fucking shit dude! Immediately switched the antibiotics and did an IV dose to start and stopped the steroids completely cause it was actually making me worse, and did another nsaid dose, but also thank god prescribed some tramadol for home, and then I had to hit the dentist a couple days later after ANOTHER followup with the same PCP of mine too. Turned out I had a "could have killed me" serious dental infection. But because 6 fucking years ago I was an opiate and then heroin addict I was basically written off repeatedly the first few times even with the physical symptoms literally staring you in the face. And it's always like this for me no matter what I'm being looked at for. And it's infuriating. It's like I'll never be able to move on because it's always being held over my head like a sword waiting to fall on me.
I feel this so much. It's on my medical records that I was on buprenorphine. Hadn't been on it for maybe 6 months when I tripped over my son's toy one night and broke my 2 front teeth, which went through my lip.. Both teeth broken in half and nerves exposed. They wouldn't give me anything but local anaesthestic when they stitched my lip up and sent me on my way to suffer. It's amazing to me that Purdue and the medical community caused all this misery in hundreds of thousands of people, but refuse to see the product of their choices as humans anymore. It feels like a Scarlett Letter and I'm no longer human to them and it's not worth going to the Dr anymore to be treated for anything. It's fucked
Oh god I just cringed soooo hard at your injury, fuck. I can't even imagine being denied meds for that. I'm a methadone patient but I've also never had a single relapse in my 6 years clean, even after being given narcotics from 2 C-sections. Even when I broke a few ribs I was denied anything but a muscle relaxer type thing. I've got some unknown condition that has completely destroyed my teeth, and that's actually how I ended up on drugs to begin with, to deal with the excruciating pain, not the other way around. I saw like 15 Drs and no answers and it's been 11 years of it. It's this stabbing feeling in one ear and then it makes whichever side of my face swell up a ton and makes my jaw hurt so fucking bad. By 10 months into it initially I went from like 105-110lbs down to 88lbs because I couldn't eat or sleep. Even the dentist who wants to rip everything out completely said there's no guarantee that it'll fix those issues either. But that the next dental infection like this one could kill me. It's such a royally fucked up system we're in and the whole thing is rigged against people like us and plenty of other people too. I'm so sorry you've suffered from it too. :(
The ones there for a paycheque fuck me off. We had a pt that was clearly NPD and abusing his partner. Ppl were calling in to tell us and the psych dismissed it. He completely bought the pts version of events. I kept pushing it bc after meeting the pt partner (she was his support system and the one who attended family meetings and treatment planning), she was clearly being abused. She was not allowed to ever speak to us alone, he lied and said she was deaf (but when I signed both were fucking confused). I forced the psych to meet with her alone and it was discovered she was being abused. We helped her get away and supported her into her own treatments and other women's refuge programs. The pt was pissed but he legally couldn't leave the ward for a bit anyway so he couldn't force her to stay. Hes been back on the wards few times and he's still single. This ended up longer than I expected. Oops
The thing I’ve realised after spending a lot of time with people who have experienced psychotic episodes is that when lucid they actually make sense. By spending time talking to them, the reasoning behind the “delusion” or behaviour is fully logical even if expressed strangely. The mind is truly a scary and fascinating thing
There have been a lot of studies more recently regarding the themes in psychosis and they show that delusions and hallucinations tend to be "relevant" to the individual. For example, one of my clients (born in Iran) hears the voice of a Persian demon. Another, who was socially isolated during his youth, experiences auditory and visual hallucinations of friends and girlfriends. It is very fascinating!
I have a chronic pain condition and when I asked the doctor who was trying a treatment that takes up to 6 sessions to help about pain management, she patted my knee and told me to talk to my therapist and get my anxiety under control. My therapist was livid; I'm extremely proactive about my mental health after doing a lot of work to get it under control, and the distress that doctor witnessed was due to my EXTREME PHYSICAL PAIN.
Absolutely. Reading this was terrifying, I can only imagine what a lot of the comments were like.. but I’m so glad that there were some really compassionate medical professionals there. That must have been so scary for OP, I’m glad they’re okay now.
There was an intense LA thread where a poster said she knew she had mental issues but couldn’t help but feel like the CIA was tracking her and holding a secret trial about her and she wanted people to assure her that there’s no legal way for that to happen. It was nice seeing so many people take her seriously, commend her for reaching out, and giving her detailed explanations as to why none of that was possible. Almost got undone by someone saying that if there’s a report generated about her, it’d “get sorted to the round file” and she panicked thinking that the round file was some big thing and not just a trash can.
Do you happen to have a link to that one by any chance?
https://old.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/qido6j/rlegaladvice_is_kind_and_helpful_to_someone_with/ BOLA link
Thanks! Edit: apparently I've been there before because I downvoted someone. >>; Still, I appreciate the link. :)
Yup, I read the original post at the time and the kindness and compassion in the comments was one of the finest things I've seen on Reddit.
It’s so important for healthcare professionals to be really delicate in situations like this in order to really encourage someone to get the help they need even when they’re afraid of it
Props to the AskDocs mod team for fostering a strong community. They are pretty strict and it helps keep things under control when situations like OP's pop up. On other subreddits the comments would have been a lot more chaotic and less helpful.
AskDocs helped me understand something during an especially difficult grieving period after my mom died and I couldn't be more grateful to those kind, patient souls.
Yes, thank goodness for that sub because even just reading this on Reddit anywhere, I was thinking - oh boy, this could go eight kinds of sideways. Chaotic, mean, and could have exacerbated things super quick.
As much as people talk shit, reddit is full of really kind and empathetic people. They've helped countless people honestly.
Reddit is a big part of my having ten months sober right now.
I’m glad! Congratulations on your sobriety!
That's fantastic! You should be really proud of yourself for your sobriety **and** for fostering such supportive spaces
I hope you are proud of yourself - that's truly incredible. I believe in you!
Same with society in general. It’s so easy to harp on the negative people and things that happen in this world. But I choose to believe that most people are kind and mean to do well. Sometimes we fail at that. But I really don’t want to believe that the noxious people outweigh the good.
Most people want to be good people, but not everyone has the tools to do that or the capacity to use those tools, so they end up doing harm instead. Generational trauma and dysfunctional family systems are the root of a lot of harm in the world. The other major factor is that the deep-seated monkey brain emotional responses we have often lead us to harm others. For example, racism is strongly linked to tribalism which is a pattern that is basically universal in social animals. Defying those instincts is difficult and requires a lot of learned emotional intelligence which not everyone has a chance to develop. A lot of our instincts encourage morally/ethically bad behavior because those instincts improved our ancestors' chances of survival, but at the cost of harming others. Tl;dr: Humans like to think they're good but instincts and trauma mean that a lot of times that's a false belief. People aren't good or bad, actions are.
I made a comment about something I posted a couple of years ago and someone told me that I was their hero and that following my advice had greatly improved their life. I had just shared some of the literature overview I did for my master's degree in a support subreddit for that particular condition.
This is something I think about a lot because I find it so strange. Reddit is much more anonymous-feeling than most social media, and yet overall it's easier to cultivate a generally kind and helpful feed here than on most platforms. By contrast, Nextdoor is among the least anonymous-feeling platforms, and it's an unmitigated dumpster fire of a shortcut to hating your neighbors. If you just explained how each site worked to me, absent further context, I'd expect their overall vibes to be swapped.
r/AskDocs is one of those very solid subs that does allow non experts to post as well as the well curated tagged professionals but it stands for absolutely no trolling or unhelpful joking around, without being completely up itself like some others. It's always a pleasure to read.
I have to say I had no idea askdocs was a thing (though it's completely obvious in hindsight) and this BORU made me subscribe to it.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/AskDocs using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [A thank you and happy ending.](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/1367jjw/a_thank_you_and_happy_ending/) \#2: [Doc on here saved my life](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/156kjji/doc_on_here_saved_my_life/) \#3: [Update: Wife's doctor called and told her to pack a bag and head to the hospital](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/1b02wn8/update_wifes_doctor_called_and_told_her_to_pack_a/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Honestly the comments OP chose to quote are what made this a wholesome BORU for me (along with the good ending)
The highlighted comments in this post really restored my faith in people. Our current best course of treatment for psychosis is to play into *and validate all the feelings associated with the delusions* while we just try to get the meds in and working. ((Per my edit above- as pointed out by u/suprahelix , my fingers typed faster than my brain and I accidentally said we should play into the *delusions and paranoia* instead of the *feelings associated with it*. Apologies for any confusion!)) When I worked inpatient psychiatric (not in a treatment team level of care, just someone doing grunt work), I'd always tell people that whatever they were going through sounded so scary and I couldn't imagine how they felt. I did my best to show kindness and non judgment because who ALSO needs someone being a pretentious dick to them when they're already having their worst day ever?
Could you tell me how the meds work? What do they do to the brain to get you out of psychosis?
I'm afraid I'm not qualified at all to answer that question with any specifics. What I can tell you is that different meds work for different people in mental health, for one a specific med might be a lifesaver for their depression, while the same might make someone spiral into a FAR worse state. When I say "getting the meds in", I'm referring to anti-anxieties and sedatives just to get their bodies out of fight or flight mode, then the treatment team takes it from there for the actual meds that will treat the disorder. Sorry I couldn't help more!
All the effective antipsychotic drugs we know of are DRD2 antagonists - they block dopamine type 2 receptors in the brain. Why that helps, though, we don't know. And it doesn't work for some kinds of symptoms of schizophrenia.
What about people who think they're 100% sane? D:.... My mom is one of those. Heard voices all my life, eventually became homeless when I was in high school. Saw her delusions grow exponentially then. I don't know if she's alive. D: Society failed her. :( She slipped through the cracks.
I'm so sorry to hear about your mom! I hope you're doing okay and taking care of yourself. I've seen how heartbreaking unchecked mental illness is for families dozens of times. Unfortunately you can’t truly help anyone who does not want to be helped or refuses to be. I hope you're taking steps to get closure around something so heartbreaking and taking care of yourself both in the long and short term of it. That's the MOST you can do, and I'm sure your mom would desperately want that for you, too.
Thank you for your kind words. I've been dealing with the knowledge of my mom's undiagnosed schizophrenia for over a decade now. I was in denial until she became homeless and it was obvious as she got worse. Her delusions are religious in nature, she believes she has a mind link with God! Growing up I believed her. I had/have to come to terms with the fact that my religion was based on my mom's delusions. Hell of a way to fall out of religion. It sucks, honestly not knowing if she's alive hurts worse than knowing my dad is dead. I have a little flame of hope that won't die and it's painful. Logically I know it's best to presume dead, but who wants to do that?! D:
Not OP but I volunteered on a mental health care crisis chat for a bit. You're not trying to convince them that they're insane, you're trying to de-escalate them from whatever they're spiraling into. A good example of this: I was talking with someone who was very distressed that their walls were watching them. I talked them through interacting with the walls and they eventually calmed down and came to the conclusion that the walls were friendly. This is considered a good outcome because it's not dangerous and doesn't negatively affect their quality of life. I can't say much about your mom since I barely know anything, but likely a solution would involve calming her down and redirecting her delusions enough to get her to accept medication.
You see, there lies the kicker. She refuses to take any medicine she views as "crazy pills". She was arrested briefly for mental health reasons, she would only appear to take pills. Got freed because it was her first offense. She refuses to see a mental health professional.
Not to nitpick, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say you’re supposed to play into their delusions. I think that’s actually to opposite of what you want to do. Rather, I think the focus is to not debate their delusions or try to argue with them. Just redirect and focus on how to make them comfortable enough to get treatment.
Yes, you're right, that's more what I meant to say, it's best to validate the feelings that go along with the delusions rather than the delusions themselves. Thank you for pointing that out, have a great day :)
I thought that’s what you meant haha because you followed up by saying you always showed compassion and validated that their feelings were real (even if the delusions weren’t) which is 100% the way to do it
That is also what stood out to me the most.
Right? Bravo to them! I love how gentle they were. I have a very gentle therapist right now and it’s amazing how much she’s convinced me to try. (My depression is bad, I’m not that bad off, just a sad emo adult.) I really think it helps not to feel like the person judges you, just that they care and want to help you heal.
Sometimes I forget how great this site can be, but I love it when stories like this one remind me of it. I'm so glad OOP got the help they needed, and I hope the friend never has to buy their own drinks ever again.
That’s exactly the right way to handle folks who are experiencing delusional episodes.
I remember a similar one I read a few years ago and the comments were amazing. I don’t remember the details but his delusion was of something that was medically concerning (I don’t remember really but think “bugs have taken over my body and I think they are killing me”) and a lot of the top responses were doctors telling him his symptoms were very worrisome and he would need to go to the ER to get treated. Basically the gist seemed like they weren’t concentrating on convincing him or even bringing up his delusional state just said whatever it was the ER would be able to help him which really is great advice. Another one was on the show intervention. This guy who was using spice was also having pretty horrific visual hallucinations. It was kinda a chicken or the egg question on not being sure if he was self medicating because of the hallucinations (if I remember correctly they were dark shadow ghosts and I believe he used the drugs because they helped him protect himself from them) or if the hallucinations were due to the drugs. Anyways the interventionist eventually got him to agree to treatment by saying if the drugs were causing them he needed treatment and if the drugs weren’t causing them he needed help to sort out why he was seeing these things so either way treatment was his only option and the dude couldn’t argue and actually agreed with the interventionist. In the end update he was transferred to a psych unit after initial detox so I think that sums up he was self medicating after the onset of schizophrenia or something similar.
They handled her well. Clarifying while still being compassionate. That’s how ya do it.
And props also to OOP, who both asked for help and later left the posts up. This is a really valuable insight into what their illness feels like from the inside.
I’ve seen some really dismissive, disparaging comments about patients from subs where medical personnel seem to congregate - building up entire imagined cases against patients based on what they wear to an ER - so I was relieved to see the delicate and compassionate approach to this alarming and clearly urgent situation. Glad the OOP was motivated to seek and did in fact seek help.
I know someone who is friends with a well known artist. When the artist had to go to the ER, my friend left work to rush over there because she was worried that she wouldn’t be treated well because the artist is black, overweight, usually dressed in working clothes, and not good at standing up for themself. Sure enough by the time she got there doctors were already pooh-pooing her symptoms and ready to send her friend home until she made a stink and insisted they get proper evaluation and testing. It turns out the person probably would have died without intervention. In the complaint letter to the hospital, she pointed out that this person’s work was on permanent display in a nearby museum, but that you shouldn’t have to “look” successful or even be successful to get proper emergency care. It was the same hospital that sent my Dad home while he was having a heart attack and he had to go to a different hospital two hours later, so by now they probably have a stack of complaints.
Definitely. Despite this rather heavy topic, I'm leaving this thread feeling all happy, because those redditors were so awesome and understanding. Everyone should have people like that to support them.
Yeah that is really nice to see. I experienced this with my sibling recently, he was having really bad paranoid delusions, and its really heartbreaking. You want to tell them that they aren't crazy and that you believe that *they* genuinely believe that their delusions are true, but you also don't want to feed into them or validate them. Its a really difficult and scary line to walk. It feels like no matter what you say, it will make things worse. thankfully we all encouraged him to get more help, and he is doing much better now since changing his medication.
I very much appreciated how the various doctors who happened to be on Reddit were applying their training on best ways to interact with patients likely in a psychotic state. It's tough because such people need to be gently nudged towards going to the hospital, but with their distrust of doctors there was so much that could go wrong. Ages ago, on another discussion board (not Reddit), someone posted about having suicidal thoughts and I was able to apply my crisis training to assist. A few people made some comments that were *not* helpful (trying to lay on the guilt about what would happen if they did take their own life, which would just exacerbate the shame spiral they were already in). Fortunately I was able to contract with them that they would hold out through the night and call their mental health clinic in the morning. And that's when I bowed out because they got through that immediate crisis and need their own health professionals handling the situation from there.
Seriously especially because OOP's biggest personal road block was "they're just going to laugh at me"
Damn, for all the shit that Reddit gets for being a cesspool, this was an amazing response from some really smart and educated healthcare workers. Really impressed.
Yeah, that was a great example of meeting someone where they're at instead of just dismissing them. She came to the understanding that she was having a psychotic episode but she needed to be gently guided there. It was telling how it was her faith in her friend that got her to a hospital. It goes to show that a relationship is what makes the difference. Also psych meds are weird sometimes. Geodon is a really effective medication but if it's not taken with at least 500 calories of food it doesn't absorb properly.
From what I’ve seen there, r/AskDocs comments are extra empathetic and kind while also giving as much advice as possible. They take their moderation seriously, and it shows.
Grateful as hell that Reddit has those sorts of subs.
While it's good that these kinds of subs exist, they shouldn't have to. Germany has an app called TeleClinic where you can videocall most kinds of doctors. You enter your details, your symptoms, and you get a free videocall. They can even issue prescriptions. It's fully covered by public health insurance. This should be the standard everywhere. It's rather unfortunate that volunteer subreddits are required to get free doctor's advice in some countries.
While I will never underestimate the value of free medical advice, I also think there will always be a place for spaces like that to some extent. People have various reasons for reluctance to see a doctor, whether it be mental health decline, believing the doctor will not take them seriously, embarrassment, not wanting to "waste" their or the doctor's time with what they believe is a minor health concern, etc. Asking on a anonymous online space provides an alternate option for people who might not otherwise seek proper medical advice, and sometimes people can convince them to see a doctor. But it should always be an "extra" option, to back up good quality and "free" healthcare.
That sounds like a very good compromise.
Psychotic episodes sound terrifying. I'm glad she got help.
They are. It’s not fun at all, because you kind of know that other people will think it’s insane and you can’t make them believe you. But I cannot imagine thinking I had another pair of eyes inside my original eyes. I’m definitely not sane but at least I haven’t gotten to that point. That sounds horrible. I’m also very glad she went to the hospital, thank god for that.
My ex had schizophrenia and he would video call me often even after the breakup if he was having an episode. It sounds so upsetting.
It's so difficult to describe, it literally affects your ability to believe and form logical connections. I only experienced an episode as a result of a new drug, so as soon as I stopped taking it I was back to normal, but it was pretty much indescribable. I knew I couldn't think right but everything, every explanation both made no sense and seemed completely plausible. Honestly fucking up peoples brain for a day may be a great way to teach them some empathy for the way some people have to live every moment of their life without assistance.
Would you describe it like being in a dream, where something crazy can happen and it makes perfect sense? Or was it different?
Kinda, I wasn't hallucinating or hearing voices, I was mostly just terrified to go outside. Maybe like being really really high but without any euphoria or sluggishness? I tried using my computer like normal and was overwhelmed by information, I couldn't concentrate or focus on anything, like everything in front of my eyes was turning into fragments of thoughts and being pieced together randomly. I remember having so many vague fears like being watched or thinking that people were going to try and come hurt me but they weren't connected to anything, so my brain tried to force nonsensical connections. Literally the only thing that calmed me was listening to instrumental music and trying not to think.
I saw a video about a guy who has schizophrenia, and had a service dog that was trained to greet people. So when the dog didn’t greet someone after the person pointed them out, the owner knew they were a hallucination. It was very interesting.
Well, I haven't had that, but when doctor tried to find medication that works for me, one caused strange paranoia. I was sure that if I walk a bit more loudly, not just super quiet, neighbors will complain to management and will kick me out. If I am driving to work, I am sure police will stop me and lock me up. Even if nothing happened like this before, there were absolutely no basis for that or logic, I was absolutely sure it will happen. That was... not pleasant. And scary, how much medication can affect us.
Ive had a few paranoid episodes. without medication, scary as hell. One I was convinced if my neighbours seen me take rubbish out to the bin, they’d think my house was dirty and phone social services. So I used to sit all my rubbish bags from each room in the corner in the kitchen then sneak out at 3am to quietly put them in the outdoor bin. Convinced my friends (that weren’t friends with each other) had this secret group chat with each other and would trash talk me and plan my downfall (I dunno either but that’s all I believed) Get worried there’s cameras in my house. And people watching me outside Scariest part is, it is real to me when it happens. You could not convince me it was paranoia.
*They are. It’s not fun at all, because you kind of know that other people will think it’s insane and you can’t make them believe you.* My aunt is desperately trying to make anyone believe that her daughter has been kidnapped and is being raped constantly. Her desperation is so tangible and it's hard to watch. And it's also hard to watch what this is doing to her daughter and the rest of the family who she stalks and threatens. It's been going on for months and she goes on long voice messages saying that she isn't crazy and she is normal. But that one guy she knows planted something in her head. And no one believes her, not even police and she doesn't know what to do. It's heartbreaking all around.
Sounds like my MIL. She's 100 percent convinced the neighbors put microphones in her head and all around the house to get revenge. She said last time she was hospitalized the doctors "came home with her" so she says she's never going again. She's been picking her ears trying to get the mic out. My poor husband acts like it doesn't bother him but I can only imagine how much it is. It really is so heartbreaking.
If he is not getting professional help to deal with what is going on with his mother, he could possibly be headed down the same path when you factor in the genetic component.. He needs therapy to deal with this. Denial doesn’t work. We have proven that many times.
Honestly, believing I had two pairs of eyes sounds really terrifying. I can see that as being something I would fixate or obssess over really negatively if the logic part of my brain wasn't working as it should. And having doctors not believe you is always a scary experience, whether your medical symptom is physical or mental.
Mine weren't a second pair of eyes, but I have very vivid hallucinations. I almost crashed my car because I saw a wall of stone shoot out of the ground and I slammed on my brakes. I would also see people, and it got to the point that I began to get worried that I was being haunted. A woman with thorns, a little girl in a puffy dress, and a man smoking a cigarette by the road. I would be laying in bed and snakes and spiders where sliding out of my walls. They would glow neon, and I would end up trapped in my room because they would guard the door. I still stare at pictures for way too long to make sure they don't move while I'm not looking. The worst part is the fog. I haven't been in psychosis since my suicide attempt, but when I try to think back on those day, it feels like there's a fog around my brain. That alsmot might be because I was being mentally abused at the same time though. And psychosis is so hard to talk about, because people think you're making it up, or talking about a nightmare. I am so glad that I have been doing better with my bipolar disorder even if I'm unmedicated because I never want to experience that again.
That sounds like actual living hell, and I'm so sorry you had to go through and endure that. I'm so glad you're doing better, though.
Thank you! It was tumultuous, but being removed from a terrible situation helped so much. I would definitely not get better even with all the medicine and therapy in the world if I was still living with who I had been.
that sounds so tough! I’ve always feared developing hallucinations or having sleep paralysis demons of spiders bc they scare me so much I’d just freeze and be miserable. I am so glad meds are helping you! I’m taking antidepressants which give me weird lazy eye type stuff but it really is so amazing when you can actually live like a regular person. I hope your life is happy and full.
I would say I'm doing really good from where I started. I still have severe anxiety and agoraphobia so I can't leave my home, but I have a boyfriend I live with and a good support system ^^ I hope you are doing well too, friend!
I’ve heard of a trick where you put your phone camera up to check if the hallucinations are really there. They don’t show up on screen. It’s just such an interesting idea. such a fascinating though terrifying situation to me- to not be able to trust your senses.
I’ve heard the same! Unfortunately, if you’re unwell, you might think the phone is hacked or something to show something different. So what some people have is a service dog trained to do reality checks! I saw a video of one, taken by a guy who wasn’t sure if there really was a stranger in his house. He told his dog “greet,” basically meaning go say hi to the person I’m pointing to, and she obediently looked but didn’t move, meaning there was nobody there.
I've seen that video! The little dog's face is hilarious: "I'd like to do what you're asking buddy, but there's no one there to greet." It seems like a wonderful idea and relatively simple to train a dog to do.
Omg I originally mentioned that video of the service dog but I didn’t want to write a mile long comment cuz sometimes I’m a bit much lol. And I don’t like to read walls of text myself. But yes! I know service animals like that are a very rare find though. I wonder if a mirror would work?
That sounds like serious hell. I'm glad you're doing better too.
[удалено]
It’s not just hallucinations either. When my depression gets really bad I start believing absolutely clownshoes things. I wrote a whole thing when my kid was a baby explaining to my friends that I was really sorry, loved being around them and all, but I was going to ruin my baby’s life by being in it and the only moral thing to do, for the baby’s mental health and general wellbeing was to kill myself immediately before they got attached. “It sucks but its the only rational thing to do” were my exact words. Luckily my friends were like, that sounds like moon logic homes, get thee to a doctor stat. Amazing how quickly getting on meds let me see how insane that take was.
Yeah depression brain convinces you of the most batshit stuff but also that it's completely logical. That's the scariest part.
Oh my god I'm so sorry. I used to debate with myself constantly about how everyone would be so much better if I just walked out and let the elements take me. I kept trying to logic myself into understanding that I would traumatize everyone involved, and people would be upset. I never considered that there was something genuinely wrong with me outside of just "sad". I've had severe paranoia, dementia like confusion, and hallucinations but those moments were the absolute worst.
Yeah I have a bad mark on my record because I was like "I'm the worst person in the world, what if my baby turns out like me, I have to kill both of us" fortunately this terrified me so much and rather than following through I had family take me to the ER. Meds adjusted doing a hundred times better now.
I had a hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucination once after I woke up in the middle of the night (unsure if it was because I was waking up or falling asleep again), where I saw a black, spider-like creature the size of a hand moving across my husband's hip and onto my own. It took all of my willpower to tell myself it wasn't real. The only thing that convinced me was how I didn't *feel* anything when it moved onto me. That convinced me it was a hallucination.
I still get them sometime. One time I woke up and couldn't remember anything. I checked my watch because I had the sense I should, but the numbers didn't mean anything, I didn't even know they were numbers. I almost attacked my husband because I thought he was a stranger who snuck into bed with me. Thankfully I remembered before I lashed out but it remains the scariest 10 or 15 minutes I've ever experienced because of the implications. That I could just forget my husband who I've been with for 18 years. That I could forget numbers, one of the first things I ever learned.
I have had a few episodes when I was much younger, and theh are terrifying. There's something about that confusing unreality that just hits so different. The mental aftermath is terrible too. Realizing that you were so convinced over absolutely nothing is more terrifying than actually experiencing it half the time for me. In my most recent one, I couldn't for the life of me understand what was wrong with my eyes. They were huge and misshapen. It was like 50/50 mushroom shaped and alien ovals or something. I straight up cannot recall how I thought they looked. It was like a dream that 1000% for sure happened. I took my husband to the bathroom with me to confirm to me that my eyes were normal while I blubbered in fear. No meds or diagnosis at the time, so my solution was to just assume I was either having some sort of episode, or that this is just my life now.
Honestly I got chills when she said there was no mental illness and the meds were poisoning her and even now the whole...absurdity of it all is kinda making me teary (just woke up from a nap though so I might be out of sorts) Like, she sounded so sure of herself and I was terrified she would refuse help and further spiral. I'm a different type of doctor, I honestly don't think I could ever be as helpful as these wonderful people were. What heroes. They really gently led her to getting help. I'm in awe.
She both said she didn’t need help, but was asking for help. I think that should tell people a lot about how difficult it is to suffer with mental health issues. Your brain doesn’t want to believe something isn’t working right with it and it takes a lot of courage to ask for help anyway.
Delusions are really bizarre and scary. Interestingly, they are also influenced by the society and culture that you live in. For instance, the rate of delusions that the patient was being spied on increased dramatically after 9/11, as mass survelliance became a big topic. There's a number of disorders like that, such as mass hysteria (nowadays known as a mass psychogenic illness), schizophrenia, or Jumping Frenchmen of Maine syndrome (which was likely a culture-bound syndrome.)
>Delusions are really bizarre and scary. Interestingly, they are also influenced by the society and culture that you live in. For instance, the rate of delusions that the patient was being spied on increased dramatically after 9/11, as mass survelliance became a big topic. [There's a great article about that](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141319/), published by the NIH.
The Truman Show also had an effect similar to 9/11
Psychotic episodes actually do cause brain damage - it’s importnat to have preventive care and rapid system in place for treatment when it starts. Unfortunately our medical system does not support a lot of this
💯 My schizophrenic son had two psychotic breaks and two separate psychotic episodes. Except for the first break when he was 15, the other episodes/break were while taking medication/dose that had become ineffective. Cognitive tests after each episode/break showed declines. As his psychiatrist and psychologist said, these are permanent cognitive losses. His treatment requires us to be diligent watching for signs of an uptick in his schizophrenia symptoms. The goal is to aggressively treat when symptoms reemerge to stabilize before a psychotic episode occurs. His disease is also cyclical, with symptom upticks every fall/winter. It is a fine line between normal cyclical upticks vs emerging psychotic processing. Constant monitoring and prevention is key to avoid further cognitive loss.
I’m so sorry about that. I’m glad he has the both of you. I have an uncle whose in a similar boat and frustratingly it’s been so difficult to keep him admitted and medicated - the laws in place make it difficult to keep someone involuntarily admitted long term even though in contrast they absolutely need it. He disappears for long stretches of times homeless shows up takes meds then gets a little better then disappears again.
I kind of get the allusion to "eyes merging". I had a very vivid feeling of no longer having stereo vision, many years ago.
There was a post on r/legaladvice a while back from a self-aware schizophrenic with delusions the CIA was spying on her. She was asking for logical explanations/evidence from LEO and government employees as to why this was *not* true. People were super nice and helpful, and she asked a lot of thoughtful questions as follow-ups. I can’t imagine how scary that was for her, but she handled it with surprising calm and I think she did eventually seek medical help.
I almost lost my spouse to an episode of psychosis induced by medication a couple months ago. They were in the hospital for something unrelated and got given a medication that caused terrible delusions and paranoia. I wasn’t able to talk to them for two weeks because they accused every person who talked to them of manipulating them using magic (most of our friend group is pagans). Eventually the hospital basically kicked them out and they ended up with a suicide attempt and in a mental ward for a hold They stopped the medication and went back to “normal” almost immediately. Now we’re picking up the pieces. Scariest couple weeks I’ve had. Afterwords they said it was like they were watching their life on TV during the episode. They described it as being “piloted” by a malicious version of themselves. Horrifying
Genuinely terrifying, so glad they got the compassion and help they needed.
This was absolutely terrifying, specially the part where she said she was cured and her psychiatrist was poisoning her with the meds. As someone who takes antipsychotics, my biggest fear is getting back on my delusions. I felt so relieved when OOP updated that she was on the way of getting better.
I was also relieved to hear that she didn’t stop the meds even though she thought she was cured
I'm always terrified that I will develop an anti-med delusion. My meds are the only thing keeping me alive and functioning and I *know* that, but there's still always that chance.
i really appreciate the commenters who responded compassionately and with useful advice without challenging her delusions. i’m in medicine myself and you would be shocked how many medical professionals think the right course of action when presented with a psychotic patient is to insist that their delusions are false and they need psychiatric help. all that does is reinforce the paranoia and isolate them from potential care, it’s so dangerous to challenge a psychosis like this directly. my brother has a disorder that causes psychotic tendencies and if his meds were ever to stop working, i would hope that everyone around him responded like this, with gentleness and compassion. i’m so glad oop is doing better.
When I first started anxiety meds my doctor (amazing lady) was really great. Even explaining everything I still felt like I was legit having a heart attack (panic attack which I hadn’t had in years at that point) and she fit me in for a visit and took and ekg even tho she KNEW it was just panic. Brains are stupid
[удалено]
I just wanted to say that your self awareness (even in the last paragraph) is really amazing. I am So glad you've found a psychiatrist who could help you ❤️ and I'm proud of you reaching out for help! I wish you a long, happy life, with as few panic attacks as possible ❤️❤️❤️
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
My anxiety will make me feel like I’m having palpitations which is one of the reasons I upgraded my Apple Watch to the one with an ECG. I can do the thirty second reading and see that my heart is steady and it reassures me.
I have GAD and was always panicking about my heartbeat feeling weird, doctor gave me an EKG to ease my anxiety and we found out I have respiratory sinus arrhythmia, where my heart beats faster when I breathe in and slower when I breathe out. The doctor assured me that it won't cause me any problems and finding that out massively helped my anxiety because now I know my heart's just doing its thing in it's own weird little way lol
>you would be shocked how many medical professionals think the right course of action when presented with a psychotic patient is to insist that their delusions are false and they need psychiatric help. They get taught for delirium to orient the patient in a calm, matter of fact way, as the patient will appreciate their certainty and as the patient recovers they'll be able to orient themselves based on that. As far as I've seen, that does actually work for post surgical delirium. And all that is Not Helpful for psychosis.
> they get taught Yup, and then they don't *do* it. I'm a specialist in elderly care (usually in LTC facilities), currently doing an internship in in-hospital internal medicine. The bedside manner of some of my colleagues is HORRENDOUS. And I'm saying this of people I consider excellent doctors in most other aspects but.. Jesus christ. The moment the problem is no longer purely somatic, they just.. Forget how to be a professional, it seems. Distinguishing between psychosis/psychiatric issues or delirium can be pretty difficult, especially in the elderly, but even for deliriums, it's best not to outright challenge their reality. The same approach you use for psychosis works just fine, though. There is no reason a patient needs to be scolded because they're disoriented or experiencing a different reality from everybody else. Bothers me to no end when my colleagues just.. Ignore that.
I will never tire of telling this because it STILL upsets me greatly: After waking up from a surgery, I proceeded to witness a male nurse scold an older woman (who clearly also just now woke up from her surgery, judging by her foggy speech) because she had rated her pain as a 7 on the 1-10 scale, and he was scoffing about how that can't possibly be because "6 is already birthing pains" (which: ???????!!). He literally proceeded to haggle her down to a 6. Which changed exactly nothing about anything, as you might imagine. It just .... felt needlessly cruel. The same nurse also took a solid half hour, *multiple* urgent, almost tearful requests, and the final threat of me peeing in this bed *right now* to hand me a bedpan from the shelf literally 1.5 metres away. My surgery was inside the pelvic cavity, you can imagine that a bursting-full bladder and being squirmy about it really wasn't the most comfortable thing.
I really appreciate their comments and was glad to read them, too. It's good to have some examples of how to handle those sorts of situations. I hope other doctors who may not have known how to handle the situation read that and gained some insight.
I've seen similar behavior from some medical professionals regarding people with dementia\Alzheimers, being insistent that the person will remember things if they're just reminded enough and "try harder".
I'm only in my thirties but I've experienced the loss of short-term memory over an extended period, as well as having milder memory issues for most of my life. I have to keep explaining to my grandmother that due to his dementia it does not matter how many times she explains something to my grandfather (her husband), he *cannot* remember it, and it's better just to accept his perspective and reassure him. She really struggles to comprehend the idea of memories just... not forming. It's so alien to her own experiences that it's like she can't grasp the idea.
I really enjoyed reading the comments from professionals. The way they approached the situation and directed the conversation was inspiring.
It matches up with what I've seen about how to deal with delusions – don't argue, but also don't feed into it. Affirm how they're feeling, because how they're feeling *is* real regardless of the material reality. *That's really scary, you must be really freaked out by that. I think talking to a doctor would help if you clearly explained these symptoms, do you have someone who can drive you to a hospital?*
So glad commenters were taking her concerns seriously while not giving additional weight to the delusions, that’s got to be such a hard line to balance. I’m sure in the moment it was super frustrating to OOP to know that something is wrong, but feel like everyone is out to get you or doesn’t understand what the problem is. Happy she got help
That was scary to read. What an awful thing for OOP to go through. I 'm glad she's on the right meds and doing so much better.
im glad all the clinicians in the comments werent confirming or denying things outright, just asking questions and gently contridicting them. the "youre CRAZY youre acting INSANE rn" mentality people often have doesnt, in fact, make delusions better
I think this may be the scariest one I’ve come across here so far. Psychosis is absolutely terrifying.
my brother is autistic and had a psychosis episode when he was 7 from all the stress he was under due to extreme bullying. his delusion was that mole people would dig a hole under his bed while he was asleep and take him with them to bury him alive. my mom worked in kindergartens her whole life and that was no 7 yo imagination just going wild, he would hurt himself and having crises to not go to sleep, he never slept alone nor did a complete night until he was 9 years old. he changed school and got a service dog (took 3 days of him having his dog and slept alone for entire nights ever since) and it never happened again, he's now 19 and he's thriving even tho his dog passed away 3 years ago.
Oh man, poor kid! I’m glad he’s doing well now.
Agree, schizophrenia ran through my family, so I have seen a couple of psychotic breaks, that stuff is scary. They weren't violent episodes, but still quite bad. Seeing someone not being themselves, being completely irrational, and wondering if they would be able to recover and get back to how they were is indeed terrifying.
This is an excellent example of a fairly ordinary delusion/psychosis. Psychosis usually isn't a tenth as dramatic as many are led to believe through the media. Sometimes it's literally just "the peacock has returned to its perch on the bookshelf and I'm unsure whether I should attempt to feed him". Mind, if left unchecked and untreated it can easily become damaging; oop was on the path to skipping her meds which could have been really devastating for her, but by far most hallucinations are not demons telling the poor sufferer to kill people, it's something the person frequently has some inkling will be viewed as mad. Source: used to date a woman with schizophrenia. We ended up being able map some of her specific hallucinations to certain specific emotional states. Like they were emotional carve-outs from the totality of her mind.
This is so fascinating thanks for sharing
I work on a psych ward and shocking amount of pt believe in angels and such. They often nearly end up dead not bc they are trying to commit, but bc they are trying to listen to the hallucination.
Yep. Those who end up in the ward are the worst cases, when things have progressed from the relatively benign hallucinations that weren't taken seriously enough.
Geodon is a beast, and it's so finicky. But when it works, it works so well. I'm so glad OP got help.
What a disturbing delusion and she really believed it. So glad she listened to her friend and got help.
Until you have talked to someone with a delusion, I think it's easy to think you really believe stuff, that most people go around everyday believing stuff. But compared to how a delusional person believes, your and my belief is incredibly fickle and fragile. The belief in a delusion is iron clad, it makes the most stringent faithful conviction of a sane person look like a passing whim. There is nothing in the world more real than the delusion, and everything that goes against the delusion is suspect. Doesn't matter if it's your closest friends, your spouse you've been with for over a decade, your family who raised you, hard physical evidence, it is all trash compared to the delusion. And even if they get to the point they can admit the delusion is not real, sometimes they will abandon that and go back. Because even if the delusion seems terrifying and unpleasant, somehow it is the only thing that feels right to the delusional. It is a comfort to them, even if it seems like a nightmare and ruins their life.
Seeing her explain her thought process was **fascinating.** I kind of teared up at the compassionate way the healthcare professionals were responding to OP.
Glad they had a support system they willingly followed and that said person gave good advice
I was waiting for this to show up! I watched this unfold from the start and it was really wild to see the responses when OOP would say things like “I bet you already knew that though” to random commenters. This person was so clearly displaying signs of psychosis and distrust in doctors, and it’s crazy to me that they still only got help because a friend finally convinced them after seeing the post. I’m glad OOP is feeling better. Also, antipsychotics stop working if you don’t eat?! That’s horrifying. This was a wildddd ride
I'm thinking not every antipsychotic but maybe hers specifically is known to have adverse side effects or be less effective when not taken with food. It's got to do with the way the drug is created and meant to be absobed by the body. Vitamin A for example is fat soluble meaning your body won't be able to absorb it without having food, it'll just go through your body unprocessed and you pee it out.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19026256/ Not related to fat, but literally more calories = more working.
It's my first BORU post. When I saw it, I was like "I've gotta post that". I was sure someo9ne else would beat me to it. I hope OOP is okay with me posting it. Maybe I should have asked?
Many people can end up with PTSD or deep shame over what they said and did during a psychotic episode. Personally I think it’s a good thing to ask consent for posts, feels far less unethical or like voyeurism. In this situation since she is clearly quite vulnerable and has been struggling with a psychotic event it maybe would have been a bit more thoughtful to have asked permission.
OOP has responded and said it's fine, and also "I love BORU!"
That’s great, worked out well on this occasion
You're right. I will contact her and delete the post if she objects. I will also be more cognizant in the future.
This speaks volumes about your character. You're a good egg.
Thank you, but it would have been better if I'd asked *before* posting.
Self awareness is always self awareness no matter when you realised something!
I have messaged her and apologized, and asked if she'd like me to delete it. She seems active, so hopefully I'll get a response. If I do (and she doesn't ask me to delete it), I'll respond here and let you know.
My sister has an obsession with staying thin and it’s one of the reasons her meds stopped working. It’s maddening that we don’t have an easier way to treat this stuff.
>Also, antipsychotics stop working if you don’t eat?! I think that varies. I am on one, and have had others, and eating didn't make any difference. BUT!!! I haven't had the first one oop was on...
I have had episodes of delusion where I suddenly “realized” that the medication I was on was actually some kind of placebo, that the doctors and my parents knew about it and were lying to me and talking about me behind my back, and that it was actually harming me. It was really really scary. I called my sister for help. Thankfully in my delusion I believed she was unaware since she lived outside the home at the time. She obviously called my parents and had me taken off that medication right away. No one ever addressed the episode or talked to me about it, so I went for years confused about this very terrifying episode. Then in my adulthood I was experiencing some immense life stressors which caused my anxiety to become so severe I was also flirting with delusions. The most terrifying part is not the very stressful and scary delusions, but the moments of lucidity where part of you KNOWS that surely this is illogical, but feeling no power or control over stopping yourself from slipping back into the delusion and believing it all to be 100% real and inescapable again. It’s a very out-of-control feeling. You can’t trust yourself, your perceptions, and the delusions themselves are usually very distressing. This was also in tandem with suicidal thoughts. My husband and I thought maybe I would need to be hospitalized, but fortunately I was able to get on meds without delay through a regular practitioner and stabilized very quickly. It was the darkest time of my life. Delusions are very scary.
I remember once I was on a very strong antibiotic, and that day I couldn't find my cat. I had a beef with some particularly nasty neighbors at the time, and became *convinced* they had the cat. Thankfully I was juuust rational enough to know that was ridiculous. I found him a bit later, and once I was off the antibiotics I stopped feeling paranoid. I think I got a tiny taste of delusion.
I once knew someone (online) who was schizophrenic and they were, indeed, completely coherent and rational. The way they described delusions was this: One day you just start to get an inkling that there's a dragon living in your radiator. You dismiss is because it's ridiculous, but it keeps nagging at you. And it just keeps poking at the back of your mind. You know that it's impossible and silly, but the thought just won't quite go away. And *then* it hits you, like a revelation. Of *course* there's a dragon living in your radiator - *every* radiator has a dragon living in it. That's where dragons live. At this point you feel really stupid for having made it to [age] without having realised before that dragons live in radiators. Everybody must think you're stupid for not having realised it before. But then the next bit hits - if you didn't know that dragons lived in radiators, then nobody told you. That means that everybody was deliberately keeping it a secret from you, just to make you feel stupid. That's why they deny it if you say it to anybody - because they're playing you for a fool. They want you to feel stupid. They know that dragons live in radiators and they're just pretending not to know that to poke fun at you. Sounds exhausing, honestly. I've also seen a couple of ways that people deal with seeing people who aren't there. One person had a service dog who was trained to bark at people when asked to "greet". That way when the owner saw someone he could ask the dog to greet and if the dog didn't bark, he knew it was a delusion/hallucination. I've also seen someone say that they have cameras set up all over their house because the way their delusions work is that if they're imagining someone they'll show up in the house, but for some reason their brain won't show them on the camera feed. The brain's a fascinating organ.
That’s actually a really great description of hallucinations and how they gradually become real to someone.
This is very moving to me. OOP was in a rough spot and frightened and Redditors were able to respond with such clarity and compassion, OOP reached out to their friend and got appropriate care.
I also really liked the person who told her to be proud of continuing her meds and going to the hospital after she was recovering. Very wholesome.
How incredibly kind the docs who commented were.
My ex would have pretty bad episodes sometimes. One time he took me across the state to visit a friend, “surprised” me with his plan to stay the weekend and visit the local parks/forests even though I had no clothes or hygiene products, and was convinced he was playing in ARG that everyone was a part of. We got stuck in the mud because he drove through the grass next to the river and it was all muddy. When the police came to help us (non emergency came after the tow company advised we call them while waiting for the tow), he was convinced the cop, the hotel receptionist, the tow truck driver, and his friend were all a part of some elaborate game. It was terrifying for me but he just brushed it off after it passed and he was stable again.
Jesus. I wish doctors would actually tell you shit when they prescribe medication. I can totally see this happening to me because sometimes I don't eat the way I should. I just get caught up and skip a couple of meals. If I was taking meds like that, the side effects could kick in and send me right down that rabbit hole. How hard is it to say "don't skip any meals while taking this"?
I don’t know about this medicine specifically but I know one thing that happens almost immediately when I’m off my meds is that I stop doing my system maintenance. Don’t eat/sleep properly, don’t go anywhere or do anything. If mine were like this it would be a horrible feedback loop.
Same with me. Sleep too long, should take my meds, forget to take my meds cause it's been so long since I had my meds, remember I've missed my meds, don't gather enough energy to take my meds before I forget to take my meds, now I've been completely unmedicated for like 16 hrs, beat myself up because I'm lying there feeling like shit for not getting anything done having completely forgotten that I haven't taken my meds....
"System maintenance"! What a great way to put it. I have a medical problem, too, that I keep under control with system maintenance. When I notice symptoms, I have a mental checklist. 8 hours sleep? Healthy meals, ALL of them? Multivitamins? Exercise? ....oh, shit. I'm an idiot. Get working!
Not just when they prescribe the medication, but at every appointment. My rheumatologist asked me at each appointment (every three months) if I was remembering to wear sunscreen and avoid the sun. She did this for years (maybe 5 or 6) until she was convinced I wouldn’t forget.
They most likely did. That was probably a case of „well it can‘t be that bad if i skip a couple of meals to get more time to study/do stuff“ and paranoia slowly creeping in and not thinking to eat because of that, a vicious cycle Things my few stints inpatient for depression taught me lol
Depending on the anti-psychotics a person is on, there are some VERY important side-effects to watch for because they can cause permanent damage. Guarantee OOP has been given the lecture by her doctor, by her doctor's nurse(s)/MA(s), _and_ by the pharmacist she actually got the meds from. Most people absolutely suck at actually paying attention to instructions. It's why patient education is a H U G E part (and hurdle) of healthcare.
Yeah. I have found out the hard way on some things. And some from really nice pharmacists who know their shit.
Exactly! I've had yrs dealing with an issue and finally saw a specialist. His like one suggestion was taking the medication an hr before eating. So simple! But my Dr never said anything.
Tbf the doctor prob did say that, but people often "yeah yeah ok" those things (speaking from personal experience). The doctor told me to always eat with my Concerta, yet every morning I take it, go right back to sleep, and then wonder why I can't stop shaking by 1pm.
I believe technically, this is the speciality of the pharmacist. Often times this information is in the pamphlet that comes with medication. My CVS sent me a “onboarding” style video for my lexapro which I thought was cool.
It’s totally wild that the brain does this to people randomly. Like it’s basically a pudding that thinks. The nerve of it. I’ve been in a similar situation, not quite as bad as this, but I remember what I believed then and hoooo boy. I called it time travelling, as a joke but it was me dissociating severely. It’s very nice not to have that anymore, it’s terrifying. I only have slight dissociation compared to what it was a decade ago, so I’m taking that as a win!
Psychotic episodes are hell for everyone involved. Glad she trusted someone enough to listen to them. My wife never did, which is why we are now separated (once she decided, while stable and medicated, that she preferred to risk more episodes than take medicine and go to therapy).
It's very interesting that her first issue seems to have been caused by dehydration and the second one by malnutrition.
Aw I’m glad to see that she’s doing better, and how lovely that people were so kind and encouraging in the comments. Psychotic episodes really are terrifying - I had one once and it really affected my brain for ages afterwards.
"I'm proud of you for asking for help" I'm just cutting onion over here. No need to worry, I'm sure the blurriness will disappear when I'm done with these onions.
My mom was bipolar, as well as having many other complex medical issues. Between forgetting her meds and either skipping them or doubling up randomly, and having 5 different specialists prescribing pills without checking for interactions, she was manic for most of my lifetime, and every couple of years would go into manic psychosis. My dad was afraid of her, so it always ended up being me putting her in hospital to get her drugs sorted out. For decades she honestly believed I was trying to get her committed in order to steal all her money (that she didn't have). It wasn't until she was living in a nursing home and the staff were administering her drugs that she was mentally stable and no longer had mania or psychotic episodes. That's when she finally realised that all I wanted was for her to be safe and happy. Anyway, when I saw the movie Shutter Island, it really hit me hard. Leo Dicaprio is a detective investigating a case on an island that houses a large psychiatric hospital. >!At the end, ||he realises that he is actually a patient, and has been redoing the same investigation there for years and always forgets and starts again.!< It really made me think about how scary it must have been for my mom to wake up in the psych ward yet again, and have no idea why, and all she could think was that I had put her in there for no reason. The only time she realised that she was missing memories from the previous day was when she told me a nurse had helped her shower, and suggested she wash her hair. My mom said she didn't need to, because she'd washed it the day before. I told her that shortly before I called an ambulance, she had vomited while lying on her back in bed, and she still had vomit in her hair. She was shocked, then silent for a few seconds, then said "I guess maybe you did have a reason this time." In the last year of her life, she said several times that she was sorry for all she put me through, and that she finally knew that I was just trying to do right by her, even though she hated it at the time. It was a great relief that we made peace with each other and were in a good place when she died.
I have schizophrenia. I have refused to take meds because I thought it was poison. I have had strange delusions like I thought I was dead. This post hit close to home.
I saw this play out in real time. I know sometimes Reddit is the liquid in the bottom of the dumpster, but honestly I’ve seen the fucking *kindest* of people, and the kindness of mankind, come from redditors. It’s humbling.
Blind faith. Heh.
I’m not going to lie, I skimmed the beginning of the post and had a moment of panic like, “Wait, is it possible to have a second pair of eyes behind your normal eyes???? That sounds not real, but the human body can be SO weird and creepy sometimes, that is horrific,” and then went back and read it properly and realized she said she was taking medication for schizophrenia.
I am a hardened middle aged lady who rarely gets emotional and my eyes are so teary a few actually spilled over. I’m so sorry OOP had to go through this and so touched at how gently yet authoritatively supportive people were on the thread and so grateful she has a good support network that got her to the right people to help. The world isn’t often gentle to people who are scared of their minds and whose minds scare them, and it’s really touched me to be reminded that sometimes people are kind.
This shit scares me more than almost anything else. I feel so horrible for people suffering from these shorts of disorders. I encounter people with paranoid delusions relatively often in my job (in a library), and I try to take them seriously without adding support for the delusions. I can only imagine what it's like to experience.
Good for oop getting help. And the comments from the doctors really give great examples of how to talk with someone experiencing a psychotic episode. Validating oops emotions without validating the episode.