Seeing is Not Always Believing: Overcoming My Psychosis.

Everyone knows the expression: seeing is believing, right? “I’ll only believe it when I see it with my own eyes!” Let me tell you that that is most certainly not the case when someone is going through psychosis. My whole world was torn apart when I lost my mother. A part of me got lost, and life didn’t make sense anymore. And losing a loved one, or witnessing someone’s death, is traumatizing, to say the least. It is seeing death up close, and maybe a part of yourself dies as well. Therefore, my whole being shattered.

Life didn’t make sense anymore, and neither did I.

My psychosis started a few months after my mother passed away. And it kept getting worse over time. It was almost impossible for me to separate reality from those psychotic sightings. Slowly but surely, I was losing myself and my sanity. However, my husband didn’t let me. He indeed was my light in the darkness, my hero who saved my sanity, if not my life. His loyalty and faith in me are what helped me not to lose myself permanently. He didn’t try to convince me that what I was seeing wasn't real. He used to ask me what it was that I saw and talked me through it to overcome my fear. He believed in me, which gave me the chance to believe in myself again. Without any guidance from anyone or researching the internet, he went with his gut feelings to help me. Our relationship wasn’t any different by making me feel insecure or that there was something to fix per se. We just took it day by day, baby steps, and with no specific expectations or requirements. My husband even went so far as to talk to my psychotic imaginations, scolding them and demanding them to leave me alone. Which helped me to trust myself again and to realize that I wasn’t going “crazy".

In the beginning, I went through it on my own, and I didn't tell my husband because I didn't trust that what I saw was real. Therefore, I didn't trust myself anymore. And once I lost that trust, I couldn't control what happened to me and how I reacted anymore. At first, I was able to keep it in my head, and my husband wasn't able to notice significant or disturbing differences in my behavior, at least not alarming ones. After I didn't believe myself and knew that I couldn't rely on myself, that's when my situation got worse, and my husband intervened with love and understanding.

I truly feel that his approach is what saved me from going insane or losing myself completely. I could trust myself again, believe in myself again because he did. I didn’t question myself anymore, not all the time, at least. And he convinced me that I was stronger than whoever or whatever my sightings were. So in my case, I first became convinced that what I saw was real and that I was stronger than any of it. And once I gained that confidence again, I started realizing that it wasn’t real. And when I did, that was a breakthrough for me. It was far from over but realizing that it was my imagination was what set me free. This realization was different from when I lost faith because then I couldn't separate reality from unreality. I couldn't rely on myself anymore, but all I needed was guidance and support to realize my capabilities.

Eventually, the key in my case was to realize it on my own and not because someone else told me or tried to convince me. You must understand that it was an absolute reality for me, especially when I went deep into that state. And if anyone would tell me that it wasn’t real, I would have felt that they were lying or telling me that I was crazy. I wouldn’t trust my husband anymore if he did that. When I look back, I know that it would have broken me if he did. In my case, this was the best approach.

The process of realization and gaining my confidence back didn’t happen overnight. It took months, almost a few years. And the strange thing was that I would snap in and out of it. So, it could be that one moment I would believe that all of it was real and the other moment I didn’t. And when I didn’t, I could talk about it and explain it to others. Almost as if I was telling someone about a movie or a dream. I was myself again, and people could have never known what I was going through. But when I did believe it, I was a total wreck. I lost all confidence, all strength. As if I went back in time to when I didn’t realize it. It was as if I had two sides, two personas. Maybe it was also a bit of schizophrenia, and we didn’t know.

Going back to when I was in the right state of mind, I started surfing the internet to find out what was happening to me. Eventually, I came across an institution that helped people with different mental issues and traumas. After one conversation, they told me that I was most likely suffering from psychosis. And that institution recommended me to another institution that handles these situations and facilitates people with the government's help. And that is how I met my psychologist in January 2015.

There were many ups and downs during my sessions. For specific periods I wasn’t able to talk to anyone other than my husband and psychologist. My psychologist recommended I see the in-house psychiatrist for medication to help me with my panic attacks and heavy psychotic episodes. But I couldn’t speak to the psychiatrist because I was too afraid of other people. Luckily my husband was with me the first time because I couldn’t move when we met her. My husband gave me his pinky finger and guided me to the psychiatrist’s office. Once she asked me to tell her what I was suffering from, I almost lost the ability to speak and started stuttering, but no whole words came out. And then I burst into tears, almost like a little child, and I became very clingy to my husband. She apologized and continued the conversation with my husband, and that put me more at ease.

Together with my husband and psychologist, I started a journey of recovery. My psychologist explained that it was my brain that went into survival mode after I lost my mother. Therefore, my brain couldn't comprehend the loss and created a coping mechanism after being traumatized by my mother's death. The trauma and stress I went through, dealing with my loss and trying to mourn, was so severe that I got depression with psychotic features. One of the main aspects of the relationship I had with my mother was to protect her. When I lost her and witnessed her demise, I couldn't accept and deal with it. It was as if my brain had a short circuit and didn't know how to fix it. At first, I dealt with it by not dealing with it. You see, in the beginning, I went back to protecting her, doing what I knew doing best. In this case, it was protecting her image and her memory. It was my responsibility to keep her alive and to show people that my mother had brought up a strong, responsible, independent woman. You can read about it in my first blog posts, "Mourning" and "Two Sides of A Coin". Instead of actually dealing with it, mourning without any reservations, I didn't. And that is why my condition got worse to such a state that my brain couldn't handle it anymore, and I got psychotic symptoms. We only realized this somewhere in 2020, over six years after losing my mother, when I admitted to protecting her image rather than dealing with my loss. Before, I would have never realized this behavior and mindset because I dealt with loyalty issues and had a symbiotic relationship with my mother. I will dedicate a blog post that focuses entirely on these concepts.

The conversations with my psychologist have given me a lot of understanding of myself and my past. We have had quite a few breakthroughs together over the years. I was able to thoroughly explain to her what I was going through. What I saw, but more importantly, what I felt. Because even though I saw things, imagining things, it was all about how it made me feel. The psychotic episodes became less to the point where I haven't had any somewhere after 2017, but my symptoms degraded to dissociation. I didn't have any hallucinations or delusions, but I could zone out for a certain period. It was as if I had left the building, but the front door was left open. I was there, but I wasn't because people would talk to me without me reacting. And being in a state like that could go on for a few hours, but usually, after a long nap or night of sleep, I would be present again. Many times I still wasn't all back to being myself because it was as if I was a child again and needed a parent. Even my voice would change to that of a child and my vocabulary as well.

The last intense dissociation episode I had was in the late summer of 2019. Perhaps I have dissociated after that, but I didn't notice it, nor did my husband. Sometimes I can still go into a deep state of thinking, totally zoning out for a moment or two, but the moment someone talks to me, I am right back. Unfortunately, I don't know if I will never have any intense dissociation episodes or psychotic symptoms because it could happen again after a (severe) trauma, but it is not necessary. After all that we have been through, my husband and I know a lot about my mental health, coping capabilities, and our relationship. I am different, and I have evolved as an individual because I have learned a lot about myself, which will never stop. And I will be eternally grateful for my psychologist, with whom I have had the pleasure to receive guidance between 2015 and 2021. She has helped me realize how strong and capable I am of taking care of myself. My psychologist told me that my curiosity to dig deeper and improve myself is why I can keep going in life. The understanding and support of my husband undeniably helped and should never be taken for granted. Still, I should never underestimate my own strength because I could have had all the help in the world, but if I didn't want to or didn't try to, then I would have never been able to recover.

I fell, I got hurt, I lost a lot. I got up, fought, recovered, and gained a lot. And I will do it all over again if I have to in life. I overcame, and I shall always overcome when I believe in myself.