#{psychosis}

[church-of-echoes]

Being psychotic and nonhuman does not make you any less valid.

You are so loved.

I have Bipolar I with Psychotic features. I experience psychosis alongside being nonhuman. And sometimes my thought patterns are irrational, the way I act can be strange.

BUT. That does not mean that I am any less nonhuman because I deal with a condition I cannot control necessarily. My brain processes things differently than other people.

I know I am not human. I never will be. My mental illness does not stop me from being nonhuman.

Those with psychotic features, psychosis or are clinically insane who are nonhuman. Those with Bipolar disorder of any kind, including cyclothymia who are nonhuman. Those who experience a different reality. Those who deal with delusions or hallucinations who are nonhuman.

I see you. I feel you.

You are just as therian, just as otherkin or just as nonhuman as the rest of the community. Your identity is valid.

[schizospec-culture-is]

schizospec culture is avolition avolition avolition avolition self wanted go pow-wow today also go temple today but avolition hard makes hard get up get food is irritate self that avolition, self keep forgetting word, now self remember avolition word keep repeating it is avolition avolition avolition words good glad have words. schizospec culture is

-

[cookiethebirdthing]

"There should be more."

More what? When I can see clearly again. When the haze is gone and the maze of reality is far more navigable than usual.

Why is that? Why, when the thoughts quiet down, does the world get so empty? So cold? So lifeless?

Is this the reality that others see? How tragic a fate that is. Sterile thoughts and colorless desires weave through this new world. They pound in my ears. Still, compared to the cacophony I am used to, this is nothing. It is a noise devoid of sound.

"What?" Oh, I responded to someone. Who is that? They feel safe.

"More what?" they repeat.

I tilt my head. What had I said? "Um. It's — there's not enough?" I continued hastily at their blank stare, "Too quiet! Where is... all of it?"

It's not like it's something I particularly enjoy. I can't remember. It is surely tortuous. Sleeping with the door locked and the lights on. I can't be touched. Covering the mirrors at all costs. I can't be seen. The knife in my hands shaking as my knuckles whiten. I can't be hurt. That voice in my head showing me what would happen if my beloved found me like that.

"I don't understand..." Is that who I'm speaking to? "What's missing?" she asked.

"I don't know." I feel my eyes water as I fiddle with the hem of my shirt. Why am I crying? Do I want to be worse? Do I want to be the cause of all that hurt? What is wrong with me?

She holds me tightly. I can barely feel it. Tears stream down my face. I can't understand how this can be something to strive for. I never will

So, that is why I allow myself to fade away. She is saying something. I respond in kind. I'm happy for both of them.

[genderqueerdykes]

do u have any advice for navigating being trans w/ psychosis and being close to people that act like that invalidates the transness?

i would say try to remind yourself when and where possible that being psychotic does not make you an unreliable narrator. even if you struggle with psychosis, even if you deal with delusions, it doesn't mean that you're incapable of understanding and expressing your personality, your gender, or anything else about yourself. even if you have delusional episodes where you're convinced you're not trans, it doesn't mean you're not.

i've dealt with a lot of people who treat me like an unreliable narrator because i'm schizophrenic, but i'm more than capable of being able to relay my experience and how i identify. my psychosis doesn't impact my gender at all, personally. some people's might, but it's not a guarantee, and most psychotic people tend to have delusions about things more extreme or elaborate than their gender. not saying it's not possible, but usually delusions are more fear based than they are about insecurities, if that makes sense

whether or not you're in a psychotic episode, you are still the arbiter of your lived experience. when someone is having a psychotic episode, it is real to them. it does NOT matter if it's a psychotic episode- it is really happening to that person, in that moment, in that time. that IS their reality. and it's not right to try to challenge someone while that is the reality they're experiencing. the psychotic person does not control what their episodes are about or when and where they have them. you're not ever asking to have these episodes. they're not your fault and they say nothing about who you are as a person

i wish you the best of luck. it may be good to try to join some online communities for psychotic people and talk to people who understand the experience. it may help you feel more validated and grounded. i know that's not always the easiest thing, but it may help. i hope things go as well as they can for you, please feel free to stop by again any time. i'm always here for other psychotic people, trans or not

[madpunks]

we are so ableist about memory. people with good memory take for granted the fact that they can recall as much as they can, and use that to taunt, guilt and threaten people with memory issues. many neurotypes and mental illnesses cause memory lapses. traumatic brain injuries can cause memory lapses. brain cancer can cause memory lapses.

even if your memory is good, it's not right to guilt someone because they can't remember something. trust me, people with memory problems are desperately trying to remember: it's just that we literally can't. it is a very literal "i can't remember".

[schizopositivity]

Things I'd love for the Internet to leave in 2023:

• misusing the word "delusional" or saying "delulu"

• public freakout videos that are just someone displaying psychotic symptoms

• "I'm in your walls" and other paranoia triggering "jokes"

• schizoposting

• misusing the word "psychotic"

• baiting and triggering people online who are openly psychotic or displaying psychotic symptoms

• excluding schizo-spec and psychotic people from any neurodiversity/mental illness awareness

Let's just all try to be better to schizo-spec and psychotic people. And hold others accountable as well.

[thecouncilofidiots]

@cytochrome-sea

Admittedly, we're not much of a cook

Alesc, Baz, and I (Ace) can cook decently enough to keep us alive, but Sin, Jasper, Domino, ect aren't allowed in the kitchen unsupervised

However, watching this was... strangely soothing? Reassuring? Idk, just good-positive emotions

peace and love on Earth..

[johnlennonirl]

Here I am, posting something similar like the fibro post... this one goes out to my psychotic folks🫶

[lesbxdyke]

I would like to again big up libraries as safe spaces for people of all types!

I had a psychotic episode in my local library while I was in there working and had convinced myself that I was in a bubble dimension and if I left the library I would die, and that being what had happened to the librarian because I hadn't seen them in an hour (it's a small, local library. You can see the librarians desk from where I sit to work)

Now obviously they weren't dead, they were just in the little office that I couldn't see into.

I'm also lucky enough to be a very self aware psychotic, so I reached out to my support network to make sure I got home safely. But none of them could actually get me OUT of the library and I was still absolutely certain that if I stepped off the carpet and onto the tile, I would die.

So I got up, I made my way to the desk, I found the librarian and I said "I need your help. I'm having a psychotic episode and this is what I currently believe. Could you please come out from behind your desk and stand on the tiles so I can see it won't kill me?"

And they did. They didn't shame me, or laugh, or tell me it wasn't real. They said "Yeah, that must be scary." And thanked me when I admitted I'd thought them dead and been really upset about that because I liked them.

And then stood there on the tile, while I stood on the carpet, for ten minutes while I chatted shit and tried to build up my courage to step on the tile, just in case. Including telling me that if this happened again and I needed to call someone, to disregard the usual 'don't call people in the library' rule and just do so after I promised I was going to be calling my husband the second I was on the tile so he could safely walk me home.

(& so no one worries: my husband got me home safe, and a friend came to check on me a little while later and brought me food and I'm fully Cognizant and out of it now)

I cannot imagine another place where I could approach someone and say that and not get the police or an ambulance called on me. Neither of which I needed or would have been helpful.

I cannot imagine another place where a member of staff would stand somewhere for ten minutes to make sure I felt safe enough leaving.

I cannot imagine another place where I would not only be explicitly welcomed back, but be told "If this happens again here, disregard our normal rules to take care of yourself."

I cannot imagine another place on this earth that I would feel safe enough returning to, 3 days later, after an episode like that.

Libraries are a fucking Godssend and should be protected at all costs!

[schizoetic]

Being permanently mentally ill doesn't mean you'll be permanently unhappy

[thevixenwitch]

“The veil isn’t supposed to be so thin that you can vividly remember your prior lifetimes. We come into this life not remembering other lives for good reason.”

This point in particular really stood out to me as someone that’s battled delusion and obsession as an incarnate for years now because it made me remember an extremely specific instance where I had become obsessed with learning more about a specific past life. I kept diving deeper, pushing my cards and other methods I had at the moment to tell me more and more about this information that honestly?? I just shouldn’t know.

And at a certain point, my cards just refused to tell me anything else. It was a wake up call. They kept insisting that I shouldn’t go any farther, that there was nothing worth knowing beyond a certain point. For a long time, I held that knowledge as some limit of human consciousness, but this section I quoted above gave me a whole new perspective that it was some force, whether the gods or myself, protecting me from slipping past that point of no return, where the obsession would have taken over my life for who knows how long. I had a similar takeaway at the time, that we are human now at this time to be able to live as a human now at this time, and there’s not really anything more than that which is actually relevant, or at the very least helpful.

Spiritual psychosis is real and damaging, and that’s coming from me who is a witch, a pagan, an incarnate fae, married to an incarnate demon. You can still be all those things, and maintain healthy boundaries, even with yourself!

No matter what kind of spirituality or faith you practice, you should be educated on spiritual psychosis and how to recognize its signs. The more awareness we spread about this, the less harm over time to religious communities across the globe. Learning about spiritual psychosis saves lives.

[schizononagesimus]

also hey can we talk about violent psychosis for a sec. cause i really appreciate all the talk surrounding psychosis positivity and stuff but a lot of it is "we're not all violent! sometimes hallucinations can be positive!" like sorry mine are not. im scary psychotic.

im "cant have anything that even remotely could be used as a weapon in the house" psychotic. im "if i miss my meds one day i have to go to the hospital for homicidal and suicidal thoughts that literally aren't my own thoughts but theyre controlling my actions" psychotic. im "im seeing horrors you cant even imagine to the point where i dont exist in the same world as you anymore" psychotic.

im not going to hurt you, i just need help. when im rocking in the corner talking to myself at 3am, remember that i am in a state of terror. im afraid for my life. i either genuinely believe everything is trying to kill me, and i only know one way to deal with it; or something is telling me to be violent or else it will kill me; or i have dissociated so hard that i autopilot myself to violence to try and wake myself up.

some of us are violent, and that's okay, because it has to be, because it's the truth. just get us help.

[thecorvidforest]

boy it would be nice to be able to google something related to personality disorders, psychosis, intellectual disabilities, autism, DID/OSDD, etcetera without finding majority articles that are like “how to deal with a person with X” “how to cope with your child with X” “how to spot someone faking X” “can people with X be cured?”

[terror-punk]

Be Openly Scary

Society is scared of a lot of things it shouldn't be. A lot of those things can't be helped, a lot of those things don't hurt anyone, and a lot of those things are not what people even think they truly are.

So you know what?

Talk about your hallucinations, your delusions, your psychotic symptoms. Share things about your gender identity whether it be nonconforming, trans, xenogender or anything else. Scream about your nonhumanity and animal urges. Be open and unwavering about your systems existence, presenting as more-than-one wherever you want. Use and introduce your pronouns, even if people find them weird or offputting. Rock back and forth, pace, twitch and stim in any way you please. Wear things that reflect your identity in public. Get tattoos and body mods to your heart's content. Tell people about your personality disorders.

Don't make yourself small because others can't handle you. Be open where safe. Be you. Be scary.

[endogenesis-evangelion]

YMMV on this (could definitely be harmful if it's not the right technique for you), but I get a lot of mileage out of the power of positive delusion.

This is basically that post that was going around a while back that was like, "when I'm scared that a horror movie monster might attack me, I play Disney music, because a monster would never be attacking while this copyrighted music from a highly litigious company plays". Something that's not necessarily any more logical than the delusion, but appeases the brain's pattern-matching apparatus.

We have a strong glasses prescription, and taking our glasses off can help, because the hallucinations will still be clear! I've also heard of people taking pictures of visual hallucinations with a phone camera to prove they're not real, but that only works if you don't hallucinate them into the photo as well.

My shit is comorbid with autism, and I've found what can also help is just changing the stimulus I'm getting. A lot of the time, if I'm having a really bad episode it's not random: something either in my environment or in my thoughts is nagging at me and overstimulating me and I wasn't aware of it until it got Bad. Exert your right to walk away from a situation if it's too much, and redirect yourself to a stimulus that's comforting and familiar - handheld game, fidget toy, wrap yourself in a blanket, whatever.

Be careful with white noise: my brain definitely kicks into pattern-matching mode with it and starts hearing voices in the noise. Thankfully this doesn't actually bother me so I sleep to it anyway (I'd rather have the Muffled Radio Playing From Another Room than the more sudden and startling noises it masks), but if you tend to have frightening or aggressive aural hallucinations, that one might not be for you.

What are some things other psychotics do to differentiate between hallucination and reality? And what are ways some of you hold off symptoms? Looking to get a nice thread for people to help each other going here, this stuff isn't posted about enough.

Ways we prevent symptoms/stop them from progressing:

Make background noise to prevent auditory hallucinations. Most of ours start by hearing something that we can't identify the cause of in the background, and our brain starts the spiral from there. So we listen to music all the time and sleep with a fan on every single night, even in the winter. We just point it away from us if we don't want it making us cold.

Blame the cat (or other pets). Any weird movement, scratching, crunching or thumping? That's just Jerry, don't worry about it. He's a silly cat that does cat things even while we're sleeping. Any noise can be blamed on pets or the wind, which stops the paranoia from setting in and making everything bad.

We also tell ourselves that if there was an actual issue like an intruder or monster, the cat would hiss or scream, and the dog would be barking or making noise. This can be applied to many pets.

Stay busy. Focus on something--art, video games, tv shows and films, craft, gardening, anything that keeps you thinking. Don't let the anxiety get to you, just stay focused on your regular life.

Laugh at it. You're hallucinating a monster in your peripheral vision? Name it Fred and tell him to pay rent. You hear weird noises? Tell them to come back with a warrant. For us, treating symptoms like they're jokes or not serious makes us less anxious and therefore makes it easier to get back to a point where we're okay.

Having a friend or a pet near you can help. We feel safer and less alone when we see another living thing near us that's safe. We don't feel as much like we're trapped in another dimension that way.

How we differentiate between reality and unreality:

Touch it. This one only works for things you're not scared of, and if you don't have tactile hallucinations. It's not foolproof! But when we're seeing things like bugs and stuff, reaching out to touch them causes them to fade away so we know they're fake.

Ask friends and other trusted people if they "heard that" or "saw anything". If they're psychosis friendly, feel free to explain and be specific. If not, be vague and keep it to simple things like "hey did you hear anything? I couldn't tell what it was", if that will be safe enough. Having people to ground you can be great.

Look at how others around you are acting. Are they running or interacting with the thing in question in any way? Do they seem to look at it or no? If no one is noticing, it's less likely to be real.

These won't work for everyone and some of these might be harmful to others, but they're helpful to us. You know best what will help you!

Please feel free to add your own! We need more discussion around psychosis that isn't "scary evil person disorder and how to deal with people who have it".