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 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 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.
