Psychosis, commonly referred to as a loss of reality. And doctors around the world can’t decide what qualifies you for having it. Do we refer to the DSM-5 or the ICD 11? Does borderline psychosis count? What about schizotypal? Is it derived from a personality disorder, or can it be standalone? Why are people so scared of this psychosis? So many questions go thoughts through my head, is that normal? Am I normal?
Psychosis affects 6% of the population. Some people that have it may never know that they have had it, and some will be moved into other care.
My diagnosis is schizophrenia, I was first diagnosed at 19. It was all strange to me; I knew of schizophrenia, I just didn’t believe I had it. I wasn’t like the other I insisted. My friends were all terrified for me, and they too didn’t know what was happening. A lot of them now have left my life, mainly because they did not understand what I was going through. I wouldn’t talk, I’d just sit there. Staring at nothing, all the time in my head. My head was going through everything, collecting all this information and putting it together… I was working it all out! I was going insane.
Psychiatrist (doctors who treat the mentally ill) keep a lot of what you experience during psychosis a secret. I will not break this in this post and won’t in any other. I’ve met too many people who have lied about having psychosis.
The thing is with psychosis, you won’t just get it once. A full recovery from schizophrenia when I was 19, and I’ll get it again when I reach my 40s. That goes for most, not all the people.
I think what made me write this post is that 6% is so many people. Consider this, 8.136 million live in London. 6% of Londoners that will be psychotic in their lives is 488,160, and that’s in London alone. All these 488,160 will experience something that brings them together but in such different ways. Not one of those 488,160 people will have the same delusions, see the same thing or hear the same voice. Like all human’s what we take in and experience makes us an individual and psychosis is individual.
If you want help, and you live in the UK Samaritans number is 116 123
