My Psychosis Story
There’s a reason I’ve been offline for 7 weeks, eating nettles for breakfast, and ordering inflatable pink flamingos.
Before I dive in, a trigger warning: This post covers health emergencies, and mental health crises. If that sounds like too much for you to read today, it’s A-OK with me to give it a miss.
I also want to make it clear that I’m not a mental health professional sharing advice, nor am I looking for ant solutions or advice. I’m purely sharing my experience, in the hope it helps someone else feel less alone if they are struggling with their mental health - just like Anna Considine’s story did for me.
If you’ve been hanging out here for a while you’ll know I’ve had my ups and downs with my mental health.
This most recent mental health relapse has been like no other. It was all triggered by my husband, Michael having a seizure.
A few weeks ago I heard Michael shout out. I ran down stairs to find him shaking violently on the living room floor, unresponsive.
I immediately dialled 999, and the woman who took the call talked me through what to do.
A few minutes into the call, Michael’s face went totally grey, his eyes closed and he went completely still. In all honesty, I thought he was dying.
That’s the moment that remains etched on my brain. And the moment I was told my 999 call had been escalated to highest priority.
It scared me, A LOT.
A few minutes later he became responsive again, and 5 paramedics appeared in our living room doing all sorts of tests on Michael. He was clearly confused. His eyes looked wild and scared. He was put in an ambulance and taken to hospital.
24 hours later they discharged him from hospital, telling us Michael had had a seizure and now had a 6-month driving ban (to avoid the risk of a seizure while driving).
The next morning I woke up at 4am to the sound of a cuckoo - it made me cry. The dawn of a new day, we were both alive and well (ish). It gave me a renewed gratitude for life and health.
Little did I know that the first of a few more life-curveballs to come.
The next day Michael received the news that the company he was due to start working for (he's an engineer) was retracting their offer of employment due to him no longer having a driving licence. The job he was leaving also said they couldn't keep him on for the same reason.
All in the space for 48 hours it was on me, and my business to bring home the bacon - all on my own (Or at least, that’s how it felt).
I doubled down on all my healthy habits. I got up and exercised, I meditated, journaled, listed my gratitudes, got my steps in and I worked. ✍️🧘♀️🥦
I discussed with Michael the possibility of him working in my business with me, on the Facebook ads management side. He started to read up on it and we got excited about it.
We had a plan! Things were in motion!
What’s the saying? When you make plans, the universe laughs. Well yeah…
Then... I had a psychotic episode.
Before I get into this, let me share this explanation of what psychosis is, because it’s not knife-wielding nutcases the media would have you believe.
Psychosis (or a 'psychotic episode') is when you lose touch with reality. The most common types of psychotic experiences are paranoid thoughts, hallucinations, delusions and disorganised thinking and speech. More on the Mind website here.
About a week after Michael's seizure, I felt my body filling with anger. My blood would boil at the smallest of tiny things. I felt so much frustration and pure rage.
I’d shout and scream at the nearest person to me (sorry Michael). And at my peak of anger I threw a full plate of curry at the wall. 🫣
Then, I had this overwhelming, primal urge to RUN. I ran and sat in a field to hide.
Michael eventually found me and tried talking to me, but all I could do was cry and say “I can’t do it, I just can’t do it” “It’s just too hard” “I just feel so angry and sad”.
I ran back indoors and went to bed. Michael left me to sleep while he cleaned up the wall-curry incident. 😬
As I heard him cleaning up I saw it as my opportunity to sneak out the front door and run.
I still had a visceral, primal pull to RUN to somewhere ‘safe’. Somewhere in nature where no one could find me.
In my mind I thought I was being monitored and chased. I had thoughts that people wanted to trap me and control me.
I 100% felt and believed that I was being used as a human experiment. I felt so strongly that I needed to find a safe space.
I felt like a fly on the wall in my own life.
I was watching myself doing out-of-character things with no control over my body or mind.
I was terrified.
There was a part of me that knew something really wasn’t right. So I called Samaritans, twice, but neither of my calls were answered.
That’s when the psychosis really kicked up a gear.
I thought - “Of course they didn't answer the phone, they don't want me to get help. This is all in their plan”.
I turned off my phone, so I couldn’t be tracked by ‘the people’ and stayed put at the end of a field where I could see if people were coming for me. 📱📡
(To be clear, I don’t know who ‘they’ or ‘the people’ are but my psychotic thoughts made me 100% believe I was being controlled, followed, monitored and used as a human experiment).
I felt like I was Jim Carrey in the Truman show.
Eventually Michael found me, sat on the edge of a field. He had clearly been terrified that I’d hurt myself. Slowly, both crying, we made it back home.
I sat on the sofa in our living room and I explained I was worried about being watched and chased. I told him I was worried our food was being contaminated and people were controlling me.
Looking around the room I felt like I was in a film set, all set up to make me feel like I was living a normal life, but I was being watched, controlled, and monitored - as a human experiment.
We called my brother, who is always a good person to talk to in any kind of health crisis. He calmly talked to me, and told me this feeling would pass.
He asked me if I wanted him to come over to which I said no because I didn’t 100% trust him not to try and control me or take me away. I sat with Michael, on the phone to my brother for a long time, explaining that nothing felt real.
Whenever my brother or Michael disagreed with my paranoid thoughts about being controlled and monitored it made me suspicious of them, and asked if they were “in on it too”.
It made me feel like they were gaslighting me - because these thoughts were so real in my mind.
After a while a sense of normality started to come back and I was left feeling totally exhausted. I went to bed and slept straight through for 12 hours.
The next morning I woke up feeling ravenous. I hadn't eaten since lunchtime the day before. But I was still worried my food was being contaminated.
So I decided I’d eat fried nettles, picked from the field behind our house.
That day I only ate nettles and flatbreads, I made from yoghurt and flour.
Over the following days I would go through waves of feeling ‘normal’, only for something minor to stress me out and result in a psychotic breakdown.
🧠 One day, Michael had to go out with a friend to return his driving licence. While he was out I became worried ‘they’ had arranged this, so there was no one home to protect me when ‘they’ came to take me away.
🧠 The next day I was worried about taking Michael to the hospital for one of his appointments, worrying it was a ruse to lure me to the hospital so ‘they’ could trap me in there as a human experiment.
🧠 Another time I was worried about Michael going in to hospital for a CT scan so ‘they’ could ‘scrape’ his brain for data, like a computer, so they could get information on me.
🧠 When I tried to listen to podcasts or go on social media, it felt sinister. Like everything was brainwashing me with subliminal controlling messages.
Each peak of psychosis would wind up with me feeling exhausted, sleeping for a few hours and then waking up feeling spacey.
At night I had crazy visions of strange erratic images in my mind, including Michael having his seizure.
I was too scared to go to the bathroom on my own at night, and when I did I thought I saw someone in the bath.
I kept thinking I was seeing people in the house or garden, that weren’t really there. It was terrifying.
After a few days I knew I needed help. I was terrified of my own mind and I felt totally out of control of my own brain and body.
My brother came over and we called a family friend who is a retired Psychiatrist.
I felt safe talking to him, knowing he couldn't trigger the action to ‘take me away’ because he was no longer working for the NHS.
He put me at ease and made me feel like what I was going through was totally normal for the trauma I’d experienced with Michael’s seizure.
His advice was to go to the doctors the next day for a referral to the local mental health crisis team.
Going to the doctors was the hardest part of this whole episode.
First it took me ages to get into the car. Despite Michael and my brother coming with me, I was fighting the urge to run so hard.
Eventually I got in the car and said to my brother - “Don’t lock me in. I’m trusting you NOT to take me away”. 😨
When we got to the doctors my brother went in to say I was here and that it might be best if I could go in through the back door rather than through the waiting room.
The doctor came out of the back door to say she was ready for us. But when I went to open my car door I found it was locked.
I lost it. I screamed “I told you, they’re locking me in”, “they’re taking me away” “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
My brother let me out of the car - it was just the child lock, but I was shaken before I even stepped into the doctor’s. My whole body was shaking and I couldn’t stop wringing my hands.
At every doorway into the surgery I was hesitant, telling people not to lock me in.
In the doctor's room I wouldn't let her close the door, and I put my foot between the door and the door frame to make sure no one could close it.
As I was talking to the doctor to explain how I was feeling, my brother and Michael both there to support me, I turned around to see someone looking through the door right at me.
Like a horse bolting, I ran without even thinking about it. Screaming “LET ME OUT” “I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN” “GET ME OUT OF HERE”
Michael found me crying in a ball in the car park, while my brother arranged with the dr to have me referred to the local mental health crisis team at the highest priority level.
My local mental health crisis team are angels.
The local mental health team contacted me a few hours later, empathetically took my details and arranged a nurse to visit me the following day.
The nurse arrived and asked me lots of questions about what was going on and some of my mental health history.
I was massively anxious and kept my distance from the nurse ‘just in case’ she would lunge at me and try to ‘take me away’ or ‘sedate me’.
I sat nervously on the edge of my seat, wringing my hands.
She asked me about my ‘paranoid thoughts’, but I objected to my thoughts being labelled as ‘paranoid’ because to me they were 100% real. I feared that anyone calling them ‘paranoid’ was trying to gaslight me and lead me into a trap.
After explaining what had happened she prescribed me with an antipsychotic drug and another set of meds to help take the anxiety away so I could sleep.
I felt relieved. Finally I had found some help. I believed a few days of these pills would ‘nip this whole thing in the bud’.
That day I wrote in my journal: “I feel so proud of myself for reaching out and being persistent with asking for help even though it's been really hard. Why is it so hard to get help when you are at your most vulnerable?”
Each day after that I had a daily visit from a nurse to monitor how I was getting on, and how I was reacting to the medication.
The antipsychotic medication they gave me worked quickly to take away the paranoia and hallucinations.
Every day I was getting better and better, until one day I woke up and felt the best I’ve EVER felt.
I felt invincible, on top of the world. Like a happy drunk high on my own brain supply. 😍
This was a new feeling for me, but I didn’t hate it. I felt invincible, confident, strong. And there was no insecurity, self-doubt or overthinking. I felt GREAT!
I thought I was all fixed, healed, out of the woods. Spoiler: I wasn’t.
I became hyperactive:
🤯 Making endless plans with people
🤯 Reaching out to people I hadn’t spoken to in years
🤯 Having tons of ideas for everything and everyone
🤯 Pitching lots of joint-business ideas to people
🤯 Going on online shopping sprees
🤯 Sending endless, manic messages to people
🤯 Making plans for my business
🤯 Starting a rebrand on my business
🤯 Booking workshops and holidays
My entire body was shaking, my heart was racing.
My dopamine-overloaded brain was writing cheques my body couldn't cash.
In a way it felt fun and exciting, but also weird and scary.
One day when Michael had to go out, my brother and sister in law came over to hang out with me. By the time they’d got to my house, left to my own devices for an hour I had already:
😬 Fallen off a (small) ladder with a sharp pair of loppers in my hand (I was trying to prune our tree).
🍳 Boiled 9 eggs (WHY?).
🧽 Washed all of my makeup brushes and was “drying them out on the lawn" - obviously.
💡 Pitched business collaborations with about 3 separate friends.
They found me sat in the middle of our lawn surrounded by the detritus of my half finished projects.
When the nurse came that day and “have you been buying lots of things and being impulsive with money?”
“YES!” I said.
Alongside my half finished projects I’d gone on a spending spree buying all sorts of things I don’t need. (Side note: The parcels are still arriving). 🤦♀️
“This sounds like Hypomania” she said.
Hypomania are periods of overactive and high energy behaviour that can have a significant impact on your day-to-day life. This usually lasts a few days, although the length of time can vary. There's more on the Mind website.
The nurse explained that a surge of dopamine was rushing around my brain, and so things like shopping, making plans, ideas and projects all felt really exciting and fun.
This wasn't a totally new feeling for me. I had had similar episodes like this in the past, just not to this level.
This conversation with the nurse joined a lot of dots for me. Because while the Hypomania felt fun and exciting, I still felt like a fly on the wall in my own life, totally out of control of my own mind of body.
As an introvert I could see that the hypomanic activity was so unlike me.
I'm usually an introvert who hates making plans, and loves to keep my diary free.
I'm usually very planned out, whereas I was going with the flow and following every distraction and whim.
I’m not a big shopper. Usually I feel so incredibly guilty for being consumeristic or using the Earth's resources in ways that were ‘unnecessary’.
The hypomania stuck with me for quite a few days. Again it came in waves.
1️⃣ First my heart would race, I’d feel excited about ideas, plans, things to buy.
2️⃣ I’d do the things, send the texts, place the online orders.
3️⃣ Then I’d have a moment of ‘sobering up’ and I’d feel guilty and ashamed of my hyperactive behaviour.
And then the loop would start again. ♻️
I told the nurse on a subsequent visit that I wish I could bottle this feeling and deploy it when needed. “Lots of people say that” she said, which made me feel a little more normal.
The hypomania stuck around for a couple of weeks. During that time, time flew by so quickly. I was missing meals and struggling to stop impulsive shopping.
Day to day habits (eating, brushing my teeth, starting my day) became a regimented discipline.
The nurse suggested I set alarms on my phone for meal times and remove my card details from all of the online shopping sites and my apple wallet.
The next morning, I woke up to a notification… “Your inflatable pink flamingo is on it’s way…” WHAT!? 🦩
I had no recollection of ordering an inflatable Pink Flamingo pool float. 🤷
When the nurse came that day she doubled my prescription of the antipsychotic medication to try to curb some of the hypomania I was struggling with.
On the day I was meant to be seeing Taylor Swift, I was in bed doped up on some very lovely sleep-inducing drugs. 💊
After the medication was increased I started feeling better very quickly. I was no longer having such hypomanic or psychotic episodes. I was functioning fairly well day by day at home.
Thinking I was all fixed and healed (L.O.L. again - when will I learn), I booked a haircut in the centre of Winchester for later that week.
Feeling bored of being stuck in the house, I set off for my haircut, excited to re-introduce myself to the world after 5-weeks of either being in my home or in a hospital.
As I got closer to town I started feeling strange.
And as I turned into the one-way system I had a thought - ‘these houses aren’t real, these people are actors. I was terrified I was detaching from reality again’.
I calmly and slowly drove into the other lane and drove away from town explaining to Michael that I just couldn’t do it. It was all too much for my brain, the people, the buildings, the cars.
This was a real reality check because until this point I was finding the humour in my situation. Particularly the hypomania.
But this failed attempt to drive into town was a stark kick up the butt that I needed to take this mental health relapse seriously and accept a summer of cancelled plans and slow living in its truest form.
Early intervention Psychosis
A nurse from the Mental Health Crisis team came the next day and said they had referred me to the Early Intervention Psychosis team:
Multi-disciplinary teams set up to seek, identify and reduce treatment delays at the onset of psychosis and promote recovery by reducing the probability of relapse following a first episode of psychosis. - NHS
The next day I had a 2 hour chat with the Early Intervention doctor to run through everything that had happened, and my mental health history.
They called me a couple of days later to tell me they were offering me their full package of support for 3 years.
3-years of dedicated support! I was relieved.
Having a history with mental health struggles, it feels good to have access to help as and when I need it.
I have now been handed over from the Mental Health Crisis team, to the Early Intervention Psychosis team who are managing my care for the next 3 years.
I’ve already had a physical health check from the team and I have weekly visits from my allocated mental health specialist, who is so lovely, empathetic and a great listener.
I also now have a psychiatrist who has given me an early diagnosis of Bipolar 2.
I’ve often wondered if I am Bipolar, so this wasn’t a shock at all, but somehow putting a label on things has helped me accept that my mental health needs to be even more of a priority in my work and lifestyle.
Cue some small shifts coming in my business to support my mental health even more.
Each day I take a baby step towards recovery.
🚶♀️ A long walk
🛍 A trip to the country store to pick up dog food
☕️ A trip to a local cafe for breakfast
🐶 A short solo walk with the dogs
🥖 Doing a small food shop
All of these things feel like a big achievement at the moment.
During this time, alongside his own recovery Michael has been learning the ropes in my business. He’s been picking up facebook ads management skills (annoyingly) quickly and easily 🤣 (when it took me so long to learn).
He’s been setting up and monitoring my ad campaigns, with a lot more attention to detail that my dyslexic brain can manage. 🧠
I’m hugely grateful to my business right now because I had the flexibility to look after my husband after his seizure, and later, to rest during my mental health relapse. ❤️🩹
I’m also SO grateful to Michael for supporting me through my mental health relapse with kindness and empathy - while he has also been recovering from his seizure.
My husband and I are now working together in my business which is fun, challenging, weird and kinda scary. 😱
With this in mind I’ve been making some shifts in my lifestyle and business.
I worked through my own Reflect, Review, Refocus process (you can grab it here.
The big takeaway here is a cheesy one. 🧀 Cheesy but true.
Don’t take life as it is for granted. Don’t put off doing the things you dream of until ‘the right time’. Life is precious.
