Psychosis Recovery Continued

This post is for people recovering from a drug induced (steroid/prednisone) psychosis. 

So, it's been 7 years on since I had my major psychotic episode. And after it happened, as I have blogged, I had no real idea about what had happened. It was a real mystery. I won't go through the details again. 

In any event, internet posts back then were really my only access to any account of what psychosis was. Sometime after the psychosis happened, yes, I had talked to medical professionals, but survivors who had posted information about psychosis to the internet gave me a lot of hope. It wasn't medical advice really, just experience. 

And I can say, when you are recovering from psychosis, there is no easy path ahead. Actually, for about a year post psychosis, I sort of still was deranged. I acted in very odd ways, came up with very odd solutions to problems, and really could not be fully reasoned with. And I really didn't fully realize this until years later. 

But okay, for the people out there reading this while in this state of confusion, it can and likely will get better, but there is a huge issue... you need to position yourself into an environment that is as stress-free as possible. I know that might be very difficult. At first, it was for me. The second part, I feel, is that you must begin to work towards as sustainable life, and that can also be very difficult.  

In a brief rundown of the last seven years... perhaps it can help to guide you. 

Years 1. I was basically a mess. I spent my days basically in bed, trying to stay calm, but also took very long walks. Years 2-4 was a period where I was able to enter a social world again, but the anxiety levels were very high. During this time, I did take medication to help calm me down, and it helped to sort of break the "doom loop". Years 5-6 were years where I pushed myself to become fully functional again. I worked, but that was about it. Off time was spent trying to focus on anti-anxiety states of mind. 

But year seven. Well, you can read about this, but as the brain is where psychosis resides, it's a brain injury. But also, it is part of the wider nervous system. So once the psychosis resolves, remember that the nervous system might still be reeling from the experience. 

I have read that the amygdala controls the "flight-fight" system. Now, it controls cortisol and such... in years 1-2, when I would sleep, the ironic thing was I would feel worse for having done so. I would wake-up with a massive feeling of dread. Over the years, the dread morphed into anxiety, and I thought it would never go away. 

However, maybe the brain does have an ability to heal, and if you can put yourself into a stress-free situation, it will heal. In year 7 here, there has been a period of a deep need for sleep, but healthier sleep, and the anxiety has actually been ebbing away as the amygdala alarm seems to have been finally turned off. 

It took seven years. And even now, I want to be careful about saying this. And also say, I was on too high a level of Androgel (which started this mess) 14 years ago. Time in equals, time out. I don't know. I don't know the situation of anyone reading this either, so please, only take may account as something perhaps helpful, or hopeful. 

Writing this blog over the past few years has been very helpful. Why that is... well, there are a few reasons. When I was at my worst points, I truly felt telling people about recovery could be useful as it was to me. I hope this is still true.

Also, during my time on Androgel, I had changed as a person. Not is a good way either, and I ended friendship as this change in my personality sort of concluded I should. I regret all of these rather rash and, looking back, strange decisions. These days, having come back to my original person, it's difficult to reflect on it. Then, during the legal issues psychosis created, I also knew people really didn't know what happened. There was a hope I could explain, but that for the most part, it was false hope. It's just part of perhaps the reality of the situation. 

Yet, hope is a strong motivator. If I had given up, the regrets would have only compounded into a life perhaps not worth living. It's hard to say one way or the other, but if I had given up... it's something I know would have drawn me into a very sad and desperate life. 

In the years ahead... one never knows what can happen if you remain positive. Chances are, you're going to better off than not. 

Meme Coins

I don't have too much to say about this. But it's been a while since I had thought about anything to do with it all. And so, I used some AI to learn what this coin was about, and what happened. 

So, it was some "rug pull".

But a lot came up as AI dumped information about this $laptop Meme coin. 

I didn't know all that had become public, but maybe for people I talked to at the start of this, it basically... finally... explains it? 

Maybe people I talked to about all this in October of 2019, might... believe me now?

  

Then and now.

One thing that sits in my thoughts, likely forever... is the change that occurred in my mind while leading into psychosis, and within it. 

I have thought about this a lot. Not in a worrisome way, but in a manner that just is so odd. Before the false diagnosis for the need for Androgel (and the rather high levels prescribed), I was truly a different person mentally. 

To reflect... before the Androgel, there was a person who was rather calm, even perhaps too calm. Too chilled out. But at the same time, I was a bit of a scatterbrain. I was always interested in myths, history, topics dealing with alchemy of the 1500's, and had read a bit on mystery stories of say, The Eleusinian, the Oracle of Delphi, Greek myths, ancient Egypt... but you know, as a passing interest.

I liked the ideas of say a Terence McKenna, Allan Watts, or Eastern traditions of spiritual ideas like Shito. Maybe you could call it New Age, but it wasn't really that. I remember really enjoying the book, Secret Teachings of All Ages, by Manly P. Hall. So, it's not unfair to say I had an interest in the fantastical. I sort of identified with it within some small niche of my personality. People who knew me at this time know this well. 

And so, what happened? Well, at first while on Androgel, all that thinking and personality left me rather quick. But in a way, it only seemed to morph. The ideas become subjugated by ego. And I became someone else.  

As it occurred, I clearly remember thinking so. It was a weirdly conscious/unconscious decision of sorts. But I guess my brain chemistry changed. That's all it was. And yet, after some time, once the delights of the Androgel had worn away, a truly dark person took hold. In reality, at the end it could be said I was literally dying; polycythemia due to the Androgel took hold, but the medical deception regarding that remained until the bitter end. Proven? Yes. 

And so, what was I thinking at that time? Well, that's just it. Since I have come back to my original self, I can no longer connect to that person I had become. I have memories, but the thoughts don't make sense. The older interests in the New Age stuff never left, but it had become very dark... and more importantly, it became real to me. 

On prednisone, it had all become reality. I think my slant towards the fantastical had then metastasized into the final diagnosis of schizotypal; but I am rather clear now, and that has faded away to nothing. It was the influence on my mind of the hormones I can only think.  

Yet... I remember reading Giordano Bruno, and Nietzsche when I was near psychotic and within the psychosis. It all that made this eerie sense to me. Nietzsche for instance, the Will to Power and Master-Slave Morality... I took in some manner to explain my own self. Bruno, well, his writings had me thinking the heavens were alive and sending messages. But it is the remembrance of these past thoughts; they were so captivating. 

As it was, feelings of compulsion. That's the best way to describe it. To feel alive as I was dying - is what I today feel is what I was actually after. A feeling to buy a motorcycle in the February winter of Canada and ride it; without lessons, a license, or anything. It was insane, but it was me, as that was what I was like. And there are other examples ranging from fishing to buying books, and of course, Pizzagate. It all seemed so real, and I was determined. To figure it out. What exactly? I didn't know. For years after, I didn't know. To figure-out past sexual abuse, yes... in part... 

But now, as I reflect, it makes even more sense. I was literally dying. I was desperate. And there was this energy of the Androgel that kept it going. Then the prednisone super-charged it all, and I spiraled into topics that basically ended my life as I knew it. I can say, I didn't even think twice about these mental rabbit holes and wild theories that were catapulting me along during that period. 

And now, what has happened? Well, I returned to the person I was before all of this. But the experience... I can sit and look into my mind via contemplation about those wild ideas, but I cannot connect to them in a way that feels it was real. It wasn't. It was psychosis. 

Absurdism

So, when I started this blog, people often told me that what I was writing came across as "very strange". 

Well yes. In fact, the original blog is gone. For a time, I had paused everything, and then when my mind had come back to me post-psychosis... I resumed this blog and tried to better explain. It was easier as well, as many of the medical and legal battles/mysteries had been resolved.

I really do know the original blog came across and frantic and disorganized. Highly speculative and yes, strange. But such was my mind at the time. I had come to understand what happened, but was so isolated and up against a massive incoming disaster... I just had to hold on to the truths of what I knew and hoped it would all be believed. In the end, it was; medical mismanagement, psychosis, laptops that didn't officially exist, and more.

It was such an odd journey. I can remember, say, telling people all about the misdoings of Prince Andrew for instance. I would tell people this was part of what I was on about in my psychotic lead investigations... and of course, no one believed me. Then, years later the news would disclose information, and I would receive simple emails from the same people saying, "I heard about Prince Andrew in the news." Nothing more than that. Just an acknowledgement.

This gets me to absurdism. At some point, maybe about 2021, I came across the ideas of Albert Camus. It's the idea that the world is in a sense irrational and meaningless. And being in an existential crisis myself (to put it mildly), I was interested. And so, these ideas can be explained as Sisyphus endlessly pushing the rock up the hill. And for me, it seemed all the work I was doing was getting me nowhere. I know many feel after all of this, I must in some way be guilty of something; but that's irrelevant, yet of course it has in the past played heavily on me... but what can be done about rectifying this by me has been done. I am done pushing that particular boulder up the hill.    

Even after each stage had shown what had happened, I often felt I was getting nowhere. Yes, I had been cleared, but once your life is leveled, the idea of going anywhere just seemed pointless. But in the ideas of the absurd, I have come to realize that there is no longer a goal. Before all of this, there were preset goals in my life, that kept the dream alive. Afterwards, I realized the goals of my life had been removed, and they weren't coming back. My life was in a way rendered meaningless. 

But not to despair, or fall into pity, or decide to do nothing. Camus wrote, "Thus existence is absurd because contingency finds no external justification." So, before all this, yes, I had an idea in myself that the world (and my life) needed clarity, order and purpose. Afterwards, all of this was gone, and I came to accept this; that perhaps I could create my own meaning, live a sort of life as worthwhile despite the meaningless of what it had become, and, to defy what the likely outcomes would be.

So far so good, haha. I laugh at the thought of it, as that is rather the point.

Often it is very difficult to cast my mind into the future and see nothing. Worse, to see all that is gone and not coming back. Along the way, to deal with this, my mind invented various goal posts I was to transcend to. Camus said that to avoid a vision of total nihilism, lost people will cope by mentally inventing these fantasies. But to truly cope, I came to understand that it's best to deal in probabilities rather than possibilities. Sure, anything is possible, but it's dangerous to think this way when you have been rubbed into the ground. 

Instead, I took the approach of what might be probable. And in this, Camus' ideas of living a life rather without the end goals and living in the enjoyment of each day took over my mind. Yes, I still have goals for the future, but they are vague, perhaps unknown, yet accepted as fantasy.

And so, I just keep it up... keep the ball rolling. 

False Narratives

So, at this point, I think enough has passed to sort of explain more of the psychosis without seeming as if I never recovered, and also, further explain why what happened, without sounding deluded. 

I will try to explain this, it's sort of important to what happened, and for a few years now have wanted to. 

So here we go... 

Now, in all of this I have come to understand, there is a paradigm of thinking. This is just the idea there is a "set of ideas". But these ideas sort of define people's beliefs, but in a subconscious manner, or nearly so. These ideas in a sense, and I really believe this now, run the operating system culture runs off. 

I don't even really want to even use examples of what this might mean. Could be the ideas behind what it is to be, I don't know, a certain religion, or something as simple as what is means to be on a sports team and following the "culture of the team,"

So, from this paradigm, comes the narratives that tell the stories, and then the mantras people tell themselves as they carry on with their day. It's not really complicated. 

But with me. Over time while on the high levels of Androgel, the paradigm of myself changed. Truly speaking, the way of I thought of myself radically changed. It's very odd. And then while on prednisone for a year, and at 50 mg at the end... the paradigm fell apart. That's what psychosis is in a way I suppose. 

And this was also a psychological existential threat for me. Myself versus myself. Something like that. 

Even today, and this is odd, I very much remember what I was thinking while psychotic, and also, the memories of believing in what I was thinking. It's weird to have memories that are in effect false. Regardless, the narrative that came to envelope my mind was very odd.

It is as if things flipped upside down in my mind. Black became white. The sun became the moon. It was all symbolic and metaphorical, and that is why I have come to think of the idea of a paradigm. It is like the rules of my mind changed somehow. It might sound ridiculous, but all I mean here is that the most bizarre ideas, had become the most sensible. 

Small ideas, like speed bumps on the roadways near where I lived. At the time I came to think they were an imposition to the degree I would speed up and drive over them. Sure, the underside of my car was ruined, but that didn't matter. Buying motorcycle, never having rode one, then without a license in mid-winter, riding in on the highways... without a helmet! Obviously completely insane, but at the time, it seemed what was needed. I still remember literally being frozen riding the bike while it was -10 degrees! I also remember the cold making me feel very much "alive". These are the types of false memories I am referring to. 

What got me into a world of trouble was this. I think I can explain it now in context. When I was a kid, I was sexually abused, and without the details, I came to think the abuser lived in a Catholic seminary. To be clear, this was false, he did not. But as a kid, I had seen him walk through the grounds of the seminary; while psychotic 40 years later, it became clear to me he lived there. 

Stories of Pizzagate became more than real. Ideas of abductions sort of became of interest. These stories concluded that world leaders were involved. Yes, deluded, but there were elements of reality to them. I will explain one of them in detail, this being the biggest reason I began my psychotic investigations online.

I used to visit Mexico on occasion. Now people can figure this out further if they wish, but in fact there was a cult leader who was arrested in the city I travelled to. This happened in 2018 and really got me thinking if the Pizzagate ideas. The key element in my delusions was a false connection made from one of the leaders of this cult Clare Bronfman - Wikipedia and her family, to the election of Justin Trudeau. Paradise Papers: Tax revelations hit Canada PM Justin Trudeau's fundraiser

This is just the machinations of politics, in getting Justin Trudeau elected that is, but at the time of psychosis and delusion, I made the insane "leap of thought", coming to believe the cult had Justin Trudeau elected. 

From there, it became obvious to me that Biden, Trump, the Royals in England were all part of it. What makes it bizarre to me now is the Epstein connections; I had told many people in the town where I lived at the time of him, and some sort of connection to Prince Andrew, and it turns out I was correct. Some of my delusions were in fact correct? As of the date of this post, even the police are wondering. New Andrew Bombshell, Investigations Into Sexual Misconduct And Corruption Allegations | 10 News

Why is this important? Simply because to explain what happened, why I even began to investigate abductions etc., it's key to realize that my deluded thinking came from somewhere in reality. Wild extrapolations on reality to be sure. From a seminary 40 years ago, to a cult member arrested in Mexico, the elections of Trudeau and Trump... and eventually to some sort of murky discovery of a Hunter Biden laptop. Today, I am not even sure if that final discovery was nothing more than a smear campaign, yet, there was an actual laptop with some rather weird stuff on it. Who knows. 

As I said, I have the memories of fully believing in fictions. Seems today, truth is indeed stranger. 

Thinking back on psychosis

So, this blog had two basic reasons when I started it. One was to explain what actually happened, as it turned out to be... many of the posts happened in real time. And the other, to talk about psychosis, for people who have been through it, or just trying to escape it. So, when I was... I found it very helpful to read about other people's experience with it. Mainly the drug induced form as that's what mine was. Steroids in particular. Prednisone at 50mg a day. 

When I think back to it, maybe as it ended in a very traumatic manner, it really does seem like it all happened just a short time ago, not seven years. Yet, the years that have passed also have let me consider it more clearly. 

If you are going through a recovery stage, one thing I have pinned down about psychosis is that it narrows your focus to the point that total fixation occurs. To explain, when I was at the peak of psychosis, I remember a few clear examples of this. One was this bizarre idea that the government was about to remove all Marshall McLuhan books from circulation. So, in a very narrow state of mind, I went to all the used bookstores in Toronto to buy as many as I could. Yet none were found that day, which convinced me further. Yet, you can buy them on Amazon, and always could. It was that narrow focus, and the filtering out of reality that I look back as an understanding of what psychosis manifests as. 

And this narrow focus, even more dangerously, can be informed by this idea that your own thoughts are more real than actual reality. You might have a thought that you can do something, which is objectively impossible, but that doesn't matter. I had the thought for a week or so, that I would become a motorcycle dealer out of my garage. I tried to order $60K of small 49cc bikes from China over the internet. It was the most ridiculous idea, as for one, I didn't have that amount of money, but it just didn't seem important at the time. 

And then these fixations turned to the Pizzagate idea. This is a weird one. Years earlier I had become aware of what Pizzagate was basically about. Yet I found it hard to believe. But in 2019, while on Prednisone, I once more became fixated on it, and was determined to prove to people I knew that it was real. In the end, nothing "Pizzagate" was found but information on Hunter Biden was. And that was it. I told everyone I could about that too... but was dismissed. 

So, psychosis. No wonder many people find themselves in trouble while in its midst. The mind just is so ultra-focused on bizarre ideas, there is no stopping them. 

And yes, what does this have to say to anyone trying to recover now? Basically, if you are reading this and having issues... you must decide that if people are openly questioning you about your thoughts, they are correct to do so. Listen to them. 

People who are sane, do not... and I repeat, they do not have others questioning their thoughts. If you find yourself in this position, even in post-psychosis recovery, you have to listen to medical professionals. 

In my case, post-psychosis, I was basically lost in my mind for about a year. It wasn't until I visited an endocrinologist about a report she had written about there being no need for the testosterone one doctor kept insisting I needed. She referred me to a mental health professional as I suppose it was obvious I was a total mental mess. And in working with that professional, I was able to receive the proper medication to calm my mind, work through things in dealing with so many of the false ideas floating around. That was very hard, as since your thoughts in psychosis seem real, once out of psychosis, it's not easy to decern what is what. 

It's like my memories within psychosis had also focused on the pure moment. Thinking with any hindsight or foresight had left me. It was as if past memories were forgotten. I know that seems weird, but I had an experience of being so present in the moment of myself (in a rather grande way), ideas of a "past me" in my mind seemed weak and irrelevant. And there was no sense of the future either. What needed to be done, needed to be done now. Impulsive and irrational.

These days, I have basically returned to normal. Thank God, and I wish anyone reading this the best. Steroid psychosis isn't permanent; it's just the time needed for the endocrine and related neurological balance to fall back into place. Anxiety seemed for me to be the last puzzle piece to place, but that is getting better too. You might not ever be the same after the experience, but it's just about the worst mental thing people go through. Peak insanity. Thinking back to what happened scares the hell out of me even today... but that's okay. It was what it was. 

    

It will all come out... or most of it... who knows.

So, as I watch the news... yes, more of what I had been on about years ago, it is coming forward now. I suspected it would.

At the time, in 2015 or so... there were sort of data-dumps about all of this on 4Chan. I think it was on that site. It was very weird stuff... not believable really. Here is the update:

https://youtu.be/jkSaR3fGWXw

But later in 2019, there was more... from G-TV. 

Beyond just trying to explain what happened. As it is, some have emailed me about this; and just don't seem to understand it, likely because it is so unbelievable. That is totally fine, and I understand. 

Steve Bannon Ally Guo Wengui Is Pushing Hunter Biden Conspiracies

But it did all happen. And at the time, I TOLD EVERYONE! This basically explains it.

https://youtu.be/OMctgKj3z64?t=2388

So, yes, some information is coming out... but many things that did surface, are just never going to be seen again I would guess. In 2019, over 4Chan and G-TV... some very full-blown "what is this!?" stuff was released. 

In any event, whatever was real, whatever was falsely represented... it got me into a huge amount of trouble... while psychotic on prednisone... it all seemed real to me. 

And this is my issue from the start. As soon as the media grabbed hold of my story, none of this was explained. When I told everyone what I was doing, they thought I was lying. 

Imagine telling the authorities that you discovered that the elites of this world, were involved in the worst crimes imaginable... that you had discovered this while at work, using a work computer at 6 am on a Monday. Now imagine telling them this in a state of psychosis. 

Imagine then, coming down from the mania, and falling into the depression... sort of regaining a sense of reality... and realizing what about what had just happened? I had no clue.

That was my defense, but it was the truth. The forensic analysis basically said about the same but added that I should investigate medical malpractice. Which I did... and proved. 

Even now, it is all so frustrating all this happened. For me yes, but to all those close to me at the time. It should have never occurred. I should have never been subjected to a medically induced psychosis. 

But at the end of the day... maybe in 5 more years... even more will be known about the bizarre nature of what I thought I discovered that day in October of 2019.