Being someone with psychosis, it can be difficult to tell others who I’m friends with/know that I actually, really am schizo-spec or experience symptoms.

For some reason when I tell people I experience or have experienced psychosis and that’s a part of my diagnosis, people assume I’m just being “dramatic” with my words or just saying it in the moment. Like, no.. I actually have a mental health condition, I’m not using delusional as an expression of speech, or saying I’ve experienced episodes before as some random thing to just say. When I say it I’m just telling the truth and being serious.

If you have speech issues due to brain fog or psychosis or schizophrenia spectrum or intellectual disability or aphasia or whatever reason love you forever. We are not stupid, we are not freaks, we are disabled (if you identify that way) and deserve to be normalized. Speak "strange" forever

-schizophrenic with somewhat constant disorganized speech and writing

i love you schizophrenics. i love you schizoaffectives. i love you schizotypals. i love you everyone on the schizophrenia spectrum. i love you psychosis experiencers, i love you addicts, i love you sleep paralysis experiencers, i love you anyone whos had a bad trip, i love you current and past users of medications with hallucinatory side effects, i love you people with depression and/or anxiety with psychotic features, i love you experiencers of hypnagogic and/or hypnopompic hallucinations, i love you spoonies who have hallucinated from medical procedures/drugs administered during medical procedures, i love you sleep deprived students under too much stress, i love you people with a history of trauma, i love you anyone whos hallucinated while sick from high fevers and/or too much cough medicine, i love you people who hear things that aren't there, people who see things that aren't there, people who smell things that aren't there, people who taste things that aren't there, people who feel things that aren't there both inside their body and out, i love you people who experience one type of hallucination, i love you people who experience multiple types of hallucination, i love you people who used to hallucinate but don't anymore, i love you people who currently experience hallucinations, i love you people on medications for their hallucinations i love you people who aren't, i love you everyone and anyone who has ever hallucinated for any reason. thank you so much for your existence on this beautiful earth with me.

Shoutout to those who have had to go through things no one should as kids/adolescents due to their mental illness(es).

BUT ALSO:

Shoutout to those who developed their mental illness(es) after their tween/teen years and had to learn to adjust to life with mental illness.

ADDITIONALLY:

Lots of love to all with mental illness who had to adjust without much or any support from others/those you love(d).

END NOTE:

Mental illness is hard enough on its own, but these conditions can make it so much more difficult.

You’re worthy and deserving of love, support, and respect even if you haven’t been receiving it.

life stressors are a huge contributing factor in psychotic and or symptom breaks in general. life stressors include

death of a family member or close loved one

moving into a new home

sickness illness injury

divorce

incarceration

leaving or being fired/laid off from a job

unemployment

abuse and or DV

money deficiency

those are just some of the examples that life can throw at you causing immense stress and triggering psychotic symptoms and even mood disturbances as well. it’s very important to know your triggers so once and or if the psychosis comes back there’s a safety plan in place for you and or a loved one.

it’s believed that 70% of those with sz spectrum disorders are likely to have a second psychotic disorder relapse within 5-7 years.

so in a sense it is imperative those who happen to have or suspect to have sz or related disorders have a safety plan with triggers stated and warning signs of when and how and why a psychotic episode could occur.

Psychosis and schizo spec experiences are messy, and complicated, and often don't fit the societal narratives.

Many psychotic people have experiences that look like symtoms of other disorders, and strict categorization and separation between symptoms and disorders often don't take schizospec and psychotic people's experiences into account.

Schizophrenia, as an example, is commonly classified as a neurodevelopmental illness, and comes with a range of experiences of neurodivergency that do not neatly fit into any one box/neurotype, yet can be both very disabling and very profound. Similarly, most schizospec people are prone to dissociation, and there's an overlap between plural people and psychotic communities.

For this reason and others, I'm not a fan of separatism in the neurodivergent community, which too often targets psychotics, by focusing on proving that this or that group is not "crazy" like "those people".

Occasionally this takes on some insidious forms within the different communities, where "deviant experiences" of odd symtoms that don't align neatly with the narrative of the associated disorder, are dismissed as fake, problematic, harmful - occasionally as ableist in and of themselves. This narrative is actively harmful to psychotic people.

I'm not a fan of arguments that hinge on the notion that large numbers of people are lying or mistaken about their lived experience, and sincerely, as someone who has read an unreasonable amount of research throughout my studies, psychological science is interesting, and useful, but it is never exact, and it is full of biases, blind spots and bullshit science hidden behind statistics and overreaching conclusions. Pointing out bad research is not "anti science", it is in fact pro science. I am a scientist.

I consciously reject the notion that the diagnostic manuals are anything more than a semi competent attempt at making a comprehensive classification of symptoms. This doesn't mean that these constructs aren't hugely influential, or that they don't describe real symtoms, but it is important for Mad and Neurodivergent activism to move beyond this reductive understanding of mental diversity.

So while I'm happy to provide info on the definitions of various disorders etc, because it has real world applications, I am more interested in what we all have in common, and in finding solidarity across diagnostic borders.

In the end, my solidarity is with the weird kids. The quiet ones, the fucked up ones, the ones who don't feel like they belong or fit anywhere. With symtoms and experiences and diagnoses like an ill-fitting set of clothes.

I want to fight the stigma, but I don't want to fight it by assimilation. It is not our job to be "normal" or "easy to understand and categorize".

I want radical inclusiveness, and I want it now. I want the judgement of harmless odd behaviours to stop, I want the mental health communities to stop fighting each other and throwing each other under the bus in the name of being palatable.

We don't have to be palatable to be worthy. We don't have to fit into a neat little box to be taken seriously. We are all deserving of non-judgemental love and support.

Our goal should not be to be neurotypical, it should be to live happy and fulfilling lives within the circumstances we were dealt.

Us psychotic weirdos need better options than to be monsters, or to be invisible.

being psychotic means either you’re an evil malicious psychopath who wants to eat babies and abuse innocent people or you’re a poor little baby who can’t be trusted and is too crazy to exist as a person and no matter which one you’re the butt of a joke and exist to be mocked

CRISIS

does anyone else get like. violently angry bursts of pure hatred towards your friends/family at seemingly incongruous moments?? like they can last anywhere from a few seconds to like ten minutes but it happens when like. ur mum is chopping onions and its slightly annoying and all of a sudden you want her to drop dead or is this just me

!!! Psychotic does NOT mean violent and it's super fucced up that this term has become a buzzword for violent things or just things people don't like !!!

When a person is having a psychotic episode, it means they're in an emotional crisis so far outside the threshold of what they can endure.

A person in psychosis is almost always harmless to others.

They will shut down, be unresponsive, be crying hysterically, having anger fits, desperately reaching out for someone to talk to, saying things that don't make sense, seeming unusually upset by random things, pacing, muttering thoughts out loud, and being unable to access or effectively use coping skills.

A person having a psychotic episode NEEDS YOUR HELP. You most likely will not be able to effectively communicate with them about what they need (though maybe offer a paper and pencil or mobile phone if it helps for them to write it out).

Try playing their favorite music, just sitting with them and not prying, making them a comforting drink or their favorite food, helping them get to a quiet place, giving them a blanket or a fan, putting on their favorite movie, giving them a fidget toy, etc.

And always remember, everyone is different and has different things that help them. Some may not want help and just want to be left alone until the episode passes but you can still try to un-invasively check in on them while still giving them space.

The degree to which people say bad politics are caused by mental health issues is exhausting. People saying shit like "this person needs to be committed" is so angering. As a psychotic person who experiences delusions hearing people use those words as ad hominem attacks make me feel alienated and gross.

Just STOP, please, mentally ill people, including psychotic people, do not inherently have dangerous politics. We are not the ones doing mass violence, of course, some of us do, but the vast majority of people doing mass violence are not psychotic.

Mentally ill people can be dangerous, have shit politics, and be assholes. But so can people without any severe mental health issues.

Do not throw around the idea of institutionalized people, especially by force, if you don't get the problems mental health hospitals/units have. Do people not seem to understand the dark histories psychiatric facilities had, Not to mention the astonishing degree of violations, ableism, and violence people deemed "crazy" go through in psychiatric hospitals. Yes, we need facilities to give people higher levels of care. But being held against your will is traumatic. Being in underfunded/understaffed/under-regulated facilities is traumatic AF.

People who hear voices, people with dissociative disorders, delusional people, people with compulsions and all others considered crazy are not the real problem.

Saw someone who followed me simping so hard for antipsychotic medication that they went as far as to say that questioning or doubting whether you want to be on them counts as a delusion, and so I blocked them lol

We support non-medicated schizophrenics here, Sir

Everybody gets to choose their own paths of treatment and recovery, just bc you have a psychotic disorder instead of depression or anxiety doesn't mean you have less autonomy or choice in how you want to manage your symptoms. We can make our own medical decisions, idc if everyone in the world has been preprogrammed to think a schizophrenic person off their meds is the worst thing in the world and they must not be thinking reasonably - we are capable of making our own medical decisions and yes we do have rational concerns and valid justifications.

I think psycho creatures have different modes and types.

fellow psychotic people, do you tend to assume other people have the same disordered/magical thinking or delusions as you? for example i tend to assume everyone is terrified that They will kill them if they lie, so obv no one ever lies to me, which leads to me being very easy to manipulate.

basically, do any of yall view your disordered thought process as the default for brains and that it's weird that others don't think like that?

Psychosis is scary shit to deal with, and tonight I hope all people who experience or have experienced psychosis will get a little treat. Be it a cookie, some good news, a kiss on the forehead or finding a long-lost bag of chips in the back of your pantry when you thought you were all out of food. And if nothing so physical will transpire, I at least wish y'all to know I'm thinking of you, and that I think you're all very cool.