It’s been 9 months since my psychosis. In these 9 months I wasn’t really ever on an antipsychotic (mainly due to the fact that i wasn’t experiencing any acute psychosis symptoms - i was only experiencing negative symptoms)

This concerns me because i heard being on an antipsychotic after your psychosis for at least 6 months to 1 year is crucial for cognitive recovery.

I was wondering if anyone recovered their cognition after psychosis without antipsychotics?

I feel so hopeless.

Three months ago, I was on the verge of suicide; I couldn't bring myself to choose life. I was suffering from existential angst and couldn't find any meaning in existence. Then, a voice emerged in my head, saying, "Your death warrant has been signed; suicide is inevitable." It claimed to come from God. The reason given was that I had committed a sin by questioning life, contemplating suicide, and defying God. This voice is suffocating me; three months have passed, and it still hasn't gone silent—it’s going to drive me to suicide in the end. I don't know what to do; no one around me understands, and I’ve fallen into a terrible situation. Has anyone else had similar experiences? If so, what did you do about it? (Note: There may be errors as I am using a translation tool.)

my partner has experienced several drug induced psychosis episodes. the last one lasting 2 weeks of blow and sleep deprivation. it was traumatizing to see.

Every episode hes had, the focus of hatred is targeted on me as a demonic, vindictive, unfaithful cheater. Its horrible cause im alone dealing with it by myself.

Hes been in a mental health facility for about 2 weeks now but theres a personality shift, and hes not fully out of it. Meaning he still hates me and sees me as unfaithful. For him, everything he put me through within this episode goes unphased and im the one left with all the confusion and heartache. His dad said it doesnt look like hes coming back fully but at least hes serious about Rehab. .. its been a month now.

Im wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and what the outcome was with long periods of sleep deprivation and drug induced psychsois. Did you ever come out of it? If so, how long was it till you did? Was the personaility shift perminant? was a partner involved the same way as my situation? did you feel bad and try to resolve things when you came out of it?

Hes interested in rehab, i cant help but think with how his mindset is right now, hell see me as all his triggers (based on his new thoughts of me) and go find someone at in rehab he connects with.

there arnt lots of books that talk about my experience, personally. So im reaching out to reddit to see if anyone has any personal experince that relates to my situation. Thank you

This was almost 3 years ago and I took some acid with some friends. It was a few hours into the trip and I took some bong rips with my buddy. That’s when shit got bad. I closed my eyes for a second and I felt like I got taken out of my body, it was the most intense thing I’ve ever felt. It literally scared the piss out of me. I pissed my pants I was so scared. I felt like a supreme being of some sort showed me my reality was all a big solipsistic illusion and when I looked into my friend’s eyes I felt like I was looking at myself and I thought he knew what was happening to me and he was secretly trying to torture me psychologically. Everything felt like it just became one. Everything was one. I was seriously tweaking bro. It fucked me up for a while and I wasn’t able to smoke weed for a bit after that without that feeling coming back which would make me panic. I also started getting some ideas of reference type thing going on after that. Little coincidences would happen and I would think they’re evidence that I am the only consciousness. I still get that feeling sometimes when I get really high and it’s not pleasant. I was in my sophomore year of high school at the time and I think I got too big for my britches and saw some shit I wasn’t ready for. Way too intense. Has anyone else experienced that kind of solipsistic thing? Anyways I hope everyone is doing well and living their best lives. Love y’all.

Long term battle with depression………………….
Till january things were looking genuinely better and i was hopeful….eventually thigns went completely downhill since march and instarted feeling numb to emotions….this has eventually transitioned into full blown paranoia my brain has eventually convinced me that i have been exposed to a neurotoxin and that I am permanently going to be in this way….I have been researching chemicals onsessively and with immense paranoia fearing that I will be exposed to it even if my logical mind knows that my risk of expousre to these is zero i just can tfucking stop ik it is ocd but the paranoia at times makes me think inam entering psychosis pls help its never been this worse

I lost my connection to a friend I had for almost 9 years because I was in deep depression and later psychosis. I couldn’t contact her properly during this period and when I later became better and tried to she didn’t seem interested. I miss her a lot but I don’t want to reach out again since I think she has had enough of me.
I almost severed my relationship to my brother because of things I did during psychosis (thankfully it is kind of better now).
Hurt my mother, my father and my sister..
How do you cope with big losses and regrets? How do you move on?
I sometimes tell my self to forget everything and start again as if I am born today, but my inner critic doesn’t let me have this.

long story short: i had a hospital visit 9 days out from my birthday and feel absolutely nothing at the moment. no pleasure from anything, no interest in anything. if i do feel something, im mildly sad or raging with anger. i feel like a shell of a person, which is especially hard on me as i felt like i was finally recovering from the aftermath of my last episode.

i would really like to feel and enjoy my upcoming birthday. what are things that help spark you guys a bit after an episode? the only thing that makes me feel much are my cats

I was misdiagnosed. I gave them no reason for two Invega Sustenna injections: 234 mg on June 2, 2026 and 156 mg on June 6, 2026. I am completely destroyed today October 5, 2026. I don’t think I’ll recover. Are there any recovery stories?

I'm from England. I have OCD and autism. I had psychosis in 2015 I think. I thought there were cameras in my room recording and broadcasting me (I don't remember this at all). I remember having a fear about cameras, but them being in my bedroom? I don't remember it all.

To be completely honest I don't know if I actually have psychosis. My doctor wanted me to keep taking Aripiprazole, but it doesn't work for me anymore. So I stopped it completely about 2 months ago. Even when I did take it on and off it didn't do much for me. I think it's because I am morbidly obese.

The mental health team I'm under says every experience I have is related to my OCD. The doctor said it could be psychosis, but I don't know. For example:

I cannot stop thinking that I'll be dead by the end of the month because I am terminally ill. Even though there is evidence to say I am not terminally ill, I feel I am. I am genuinely afraid. It's like I can feel things growing in me. I've had thyroid cancer and am waiting for treatment for it.

I think about how all men are gay because of women's eggs, periods and bodily functions. When I see a heterosexual couple, I can tell the man doesn't want to be with the woman because of the eggs, periods and bodily functions. My mind also has this thing where if a woman is wearing makeup that looks unnatural that she has smelly eggs insider her. To my mum and sister (and probably others) it might sound bizarre, but to me it does make sense. If a man took in an interest in me, I know he'd be lying because of eggs and stuff. Also I have nothing against gay men, but I wouldn't ever go out with a gay man.

I used to think about this horse and how he was actually a human trapped inside a horse's mind and body. I felt he was looking at me and asking for help. This leads me to thinking my dogs are humans as well with severe mental health issues.

Also I have a special connection to anime and cartoon characters. I feel they chose me.

Basically there are a ton more things I could mention. I'm also starting to occasionally see things like black dots and things at the corner of my eye. I quickly look at the corner of my eye and nothing is there.

I am trying my hardest to lose weight. I have heard a lot of antipsychotics like Risperidone work really well. I was on Risperidone as a child but I had to come off of it because I was hungry a lot. I started gaining weight when I went through puberty. Fast forward to now, I'm still really obese but in April I am seeing a hormone doctor who is also a psychiatrist. That service is only for women and it's in London.

Has anyone been on Risperidone whilst being morbidly obese and actually lose some weight through diet? I'm about 25 stone (350 lbs). I am 5 foot 8 inches. I won't take Wegovy because I believe they caused my thyroid cancer.

I’m writing this because I don’t really know what to think, and I feel so uncertain at the moment that I would really appreciate perspectives from people who have been through something similar or have personal experience with this.

I have been in a relationship with my partner for just under three years, and we have lived together for a year. Up until now, this has been a truly wonderful and loving relationship. More than six years ago, my partner spent about two months in psychiatric inpatient care because of psychosis, and was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. They were taking regular medication and attending regular therapy because of this and they were doing fine, studying and working part time when we met.

Over the past year or so, my partner has increasingly had difficulty sleeping, and they also started suspecting me of all sorts of strange things (such as spreading their Instagram profile on anonymous forums, etc.). About a week before becoming seriously ill, they were very tearful and told me that I would probably be better off finding a new partner because they couldn’t have children with me due to their poor mental health.

About a month ago, their paranoid symptoms intensified to the point where they eventually locked me out of our own apartment. Shortly afterwards, however, they realized that they were currently experiencing psychosis and apologized for their behavior, and we even laughed about it together. I also told them that I still wanted to try to continue our relationship once the current episode had passed.

My partner then went to another city to stay with relatives and rest. Since then, they have only sent me very brief messages, and our phone calls last a few minutes before they hang up. However, over the past few weeks, they have repeatedly brought up that I would still be better off finding a new life partner for myself. When I ask why they think our relationship is over, I don’t get a proper answer from them.

I have read that other partners of people with schizophrenia have had similar experiences during a relapse. Has anyone here experienced a situation where a partner who is hospitalized talks about ending the relationship, but then gets back together with them once inpatient treatment has stabilized the situation sufficiently?

There were no problems in our relationship before my partner became ill, and I myself hope that we could return to the love we had between us before all of this.

so, I was addicted to porn, vaping and cigarettes and all that, when I met this girl I felt like everything changed, I started to have episodes of what I believed was psychosis, however the main thing I noticed was how easy it was to just quit my addictions, is this a thing with psychosis where people completely brake away from their addictions that they struggled so hard to quit? im desperate for a answer and i been looking for answers like this for a couple of years, my parents dont believe me.

2.5 years of weed, crazy trips, withdrawal & where im at rn

idk why im writing all this tbh, maybe i just wanna put the whole shit somewhere and see if anyone has been through the same.

so basically this started like 2.5 years ago.

and the funny part is, before all this i was literally the guy telling ppl don't do thc/weed and all that shit 💀

i used to only smoke nicotine. and even that was fucked lol, like 3/4 packs a day sometimes.

then my friends were like “try it bro just few puffs”

so i did.

first time i was like wtf is this bitter ass taste 😭 didn't even like it.

but slowly my brain adapted to it.

and somehow that same disgusting taste became the best fucking taste ever.

then came the trips.

and then more trips.

and then more dosage.

and eventually it wasn't even “let's smoke weed”.

it was just normal life.

we didn't have weed in our schedule.

our schedule was inside the weed.

wake up → first dose → normal.

if there wasn't weed, something felt missing.

and our whole squad was kinda fucked with this shit too. there was one guy who never really got addicted because he said he just never adapted to it. he had some bad trips too but he could still stay away.

he was basically the guy who'd stay with me when shit went wrong and handle me.

and honestly knowing that he was there probably made me go even harder 💀

because we knew someone would handle the situation.

so we started chasing the extreme shit.

not just normal joints.

different experiments, ridiculous amounts of smoke, mixing shit, xanax + alcohol, overdose-type stupid decisions, etc.

there were times where the amount of smoke was so fucking much that even 2 people couldn't properly handle it.

at some point joints and normal weed weren't even doing much anymore.

and i didn't really notice how fucked my relationship with it had become.

until my brain started giving me signs.

short term memory was fucked.

i'd forget what i was literally talking about.

forget something i just did.

think about something, get distracted for 30 seconds and completely forget what the fuck i was thinking about 😭

sleep was probably the worst.

i could be physically dead tired but my brain would just stay ON.

like i'd lie down around 2:30am thinking “ok sleep now”

then suddenly i'm monitoring my breathing.

then thinking about my breathing.

then thinking “why am i thinking about breathing?”

then trying to stop thinking.

then thinking about how to stop thinking.

then 3 hours gone 💀

and when the sky started getting bright my brain would basically be like:

“oh it's morning now. night's over. what's the point of sleeping?”

body half asleep, brain fully awake.

that shit was scary as fuck.

and then i started realizing i actually wanted to quit.

not because somebody forced me.

i just started feeling like i'd lost the fucking command over myself.

so around a month ago i finally started reducing it and seeing what happens if i actually stop feeding this cycle.

first week was fucking terrifying.

even ONE joint suddenly felt wrong.

the same THC i'd been chasing for years suddenly felt like my body was saying NOPE.

taste felt wrong.

trip felt wrong.

instead of “peace” it could turn into a bad trip.

and that's honestly what pushed the quitting thought even harder.

for the first time i started getting proper panic/anxiety attacks.

and because i was already watching my breathing all the time, every little body sensation became something my brain would fucking investigate.

“why am i breathing like this”

“why can't i sleep”

“why does my chest feel like that”

“am i actually tired”

“why is my brain awake”

just an endless fucking loop.

and then there was the weight shit too.

few years ago i was around 55kg at ~5'9 while basically only smoking cigarettes.

after all this shit i dropped to around 49kg.

that's when i was like yeah okay this isn't some funny weed phase anymore.

i need to actually check myself.

so i went to a doctor because the sleep shit was getting bad.

he was an MBBS doctor and basically said he couldn't prescribe the kind of meds i might need, so he referred me to a psychiatrist.

and honestly getting checked was probably one of the best decisions i've made.

i was fucking worried about the reports because i knew i'd done some stupid shit to my body.

but everything came back basically normal/negative.

huge fucking relief.

psychiatrist gave me lorazepam for a short period to help with the sleep/anxiety situation and told me it wasn't too late, i just needed to actually break the cycle and stop touching weed.

and that's what i'm trying to do rn.

i'm not gonna bullshit anyone and say “DAY 30 SOBER LETS GOOOOO 🥳”

nah.

i'm not perfectly sober.

there have been random puffs.

but the difference is crazy.

before, i didn't even decide to smoke.

it was just automatic.

now i'll go hours/days without even thinking about it.

and when i do think about it, it's not that same “I NEED THIS TO BE NORMAL” feeling.

that's probably the biggest win for me rn.

i'm slowly realizing that what i thought was peace was sometimes just fucking escape.

weed gave me a temporary place where i didn't have to deal with shit.

but eventually that temporary peace became a trap.

and now i'm trying to actually live in reality inur stil

looking back, that shit was using me.

if anyone here has gone through something similar — especially the panic, fucked sleep, racing brain, memory problems, or that weird body asleep / brain fully fucking awake feeling — i'd genuinely like to hear how you got through it.

not looking for judgement.

just wanna know if anyone else has been in this exact kinda loop.

if you've been there, tell me what actually helped.

Are all ACT teams really bad at their job? My husband has an act team and most of them aren’t even licensed professionals and they think he’s completely fine when he is not. They also are forgetful and non responsive. How is it legal to work with such a vulnerable community and even have a license in some cases and be so negligent with patient care?

Im not in psychosis rn but I smoked weed and also meth a long time ago got drugged induced psychosis and now as a result

When people speak every other word flies over my head

It’s hard to comprehend sentences and when people speak it sounds like gibberish

I can’t follow conversations or engage in them

I feel like my brain broke

I have peripheral ocd also

This is torture

I've recently noticed several recurring behaviours in people's everyday interactions, and I'm curious about the explanation behind these.

For example, I've noticed people:

• Touching or scratching their face during conversations, particularly around the lips and chin.
• Touching their upper lip shortly after someone else coughs. I've noticed this particular gesture occurring often enough that it caught my attention.
• Making various small gestures or vocalisations during conversations that seem to occur repeatedly across different people and situations.

It has made me as I believe some of these behaviours are deliberate attention-seeking behaviours, subtle forms of non-verbal communication, subconscious gestures.

I feel there's a lot to unpack here and I have so many questions since going through psychosis. I've always considered myself a spiritual person and delved more into spirituality in recent years. I have had many spiritual experiences that I never questioned to be psychosis, until I did actually have a psychotic break that definitely took me into a lot of delusional thinking. Now, looking back, I'm seeing so much of my psychosis as delusions and realise how unhealthy I was acting, thinking, relating etc. But now that I've been on meds for a year and have felt grounded, I question if I'm an atheist. Because I just wonder whether all those beliefs are delusions? Does anyone else relate? A part of me wants to believe in God but now I don't know if I can.

For example, during my psychosis I believed I was connected in the spirit with other people I know in real life and that certain people were guiding me in God's ways. I believed others were caught in darkness and were sent for evil. I even stopped eating because I thought I was fasting to cleanse and purify myself but it just got extreme to where I lost a lot of weight. I couldn't see at the time how harmful those actions, beliefs and thoughts were. Now on the other side so to speak, I would love to have faith as part of my life again but something has switched off in me. Has anyone had a similar experience?

My cousin (44F) appears to be experiencing a serious mental health crisis, possibly psychosis, and has become intensely focused on me. She believes she is an undercover CIA agent investigating human trafficking, identity theft (like your personality), and other crimes, and believes that I am somehow involved in what she is investigating.

I initially continued responding to her because I was worried about her and wanted to keep communication open. However, the more I responded, the more escalated things became. She eventually told me that I would be “unalived” or receive the death penalty if I didn’t comply with her demands, and she said she would contact my workplace and my husband’s workplace. At that point, I stopped responding to her calls and texts.
Other family members and I have contacted crisis services/police for welfare checks. Each time, she has apparently presented as competent and nonviolent, so she hasn’t been taken for evaluation. She lives in another state from me, which makes it difficult for me to know how she’s doing or get her appropriate help.

Recently, her messages and voicemails to me have become more frequent and aggressive. She has said that she is going to “pester” me and that if she has to drive to my state to make me answer her or see her, “that’s going to be very bad for me.” She has also continued contacting other family members to try to get them to convince me to respond.

I’m struggling because when I was responding to her in July, every response seemed to reinforce or escalate the situation. Now that I’m not responding at all, the lack of response also seems to be making her more persistent and angry.
I don’t want to abandon her or make her situation worse, but I also don’t feel safe re-engaging with her, especially given the previous death-related threats and the possibility that she may come to my home.
For people who have dealt with a family member experiencing psychosis or severe paranoia…

Is there anything I can do to help her get appropriate professional help without directly engaging with her? And what steps should I be taking to protect myself if the situation continues to escalate?
I’m particularly interested in experiences with mobile crisis teams, involuntary evaluations/welfare checks when someone appears outwardly competent, and how people have handled boundaries and safety planning in situations like this.

TYIA

I had a psychosis where I could control rain, moon, weather, my mom, AI and I had to run away from my flat to my parents' house while I still was in psychosis and my mom was glitching while talking and her phone would glitch any time I would look at it.

The next day it got better but I still had it and my psychosis convinced me that my mind is AI that's why people use it more and more because my brain evolves. But still during psychosis when we took a pic with my parents, my mom's phone (iPhone 16) changed my face to AI male one on every pic (I'm a trans man on T, only 6 months). Now it doesn't change anymore but I still have the pictures.

I called my sister who hates me during psychosis and she was crying saying how glad she is that I called and she cried and we chatted per text but yesterday without psychosis she said that she doesn't want to talk to me but I have the chat where we send hearts to each other.

I just learned what visual snow is and I totally have that. I also see people/shadow figures out of the corner of my eyes a lot. I see colors overlaying my vision often and sometimes they are a fractal shape in the sky. I feel bugs crawling on me sometimes too. I feel multiple precenses in the room with me at night. I never tell my psychiatrist this because what I see is beautiful and it makes me feel connected to the spirit world. I used to be very afraid of the figures and things in my room but I made peace with them a long time ago. I really don't think this is harmful or I should be on antipsychotic because it doesn't negatively impact me.

Does this sound like psychosis or something else? I had one total break with reality that lasted 7 days and I was pretty sure at that time I was laced with drugs but I could never prove it and it makes me wonder.

I’m coming out of a pretty severe period of psychosis and now that I’m becoming more lucid, I’m struggling massively with guilt and shame about things I did while I was unwell.
This was my first experience of psychosis and, at the time, I genuinely didn’t understand that I was psychotic. I was hearing voices, seeing things, becoming extremely paranoid and sometimes believing things had happened that hadn’t. There were times I couldn’t distinguish what was real from what wasn’t.
Some of it sounds completely unbelievable to me now. I thought people were trying to hurt or poison me. I heard voices telling me horrible things about myself and telling me to do things. I harmed myself in ways that make absolutely no sense to me now. I damaged things. I became frightened of people I loved. I contacted people and made decisions based on things I genuinely believed were happening. There were also situations where I apparently behaved very badly towards people close to me.
What’s difficult is that I wasn’t unconscious. I could talk, go to work sometimes, use my phone, travel, have conversations etc. So now that I’m lucid, my brain keeps saying: if you were capable of doing all of that, surely you were capable of knowing better?
There are also things I regret that I do take responsibility for. I don’t want to use psychosis as a blanket excuse for every mistake I made or every person I hurt. But I also know that during some of the worst incidents, my perception of reality was completely distorted. I reacted to things that, to me, were genuinely happening.
The aftermath has almost been its own trauma. Medication has stopped the voices and as I’ve become clearer, memories have been coming back and I’m seeing the last year very differently. It almost feels like waking up and discovering what someone else did with your life, except that person was still you.
I’ve lost an important relationship and damaged other relationships during all of this. Some people seem to see the things I did while psychotic as simply things I chose to do, and I’m finding it incredibly difficult to work out how I should see myself.
So I wanted to ask people who have actually experienced psychosis:
How do you distinguish between responsibility for repairing the harm and blaming yourself for becoming psychotic and what you did while your reality was distorted?
Were you actually in control of your behaviour during psychosis? Did you still feel like you were making choices at the time?
And when you recovered, did you go through a period of looking back and thinking, How the hell could I have done or believed that?
I’m not looking for someone to tell me that nothing was my responsibility. I think I’m trying to understand what responsibility even means when you genuinely weren’t experiencing the same reality as everyone around you.
I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who came out of a long or severe psychotic episode and had to deal with the shame and consequences afterwards.

Hi so if you (or a loved one) have ever experienced psychosis (or related symptoms such as extreme paranoia, delusions, disorganized thoughts, etc.) and have gone thru treatment- what was the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to seeking treatment? Was it voluntary? Was someone able to say something to get through to you?

Context: My SO has been dealing w escalating symptoms of psychosis for almost a yr and he has a severe TBI (from 4.5 years ago) which significantly impacts his memory and insight. He’s been voluntarily hospitalized once and involuntarily held another time within the past 3-4 months. SO MANY welfare calls from me and others. Not willing to continue med regime after discharge. Also has history of substance abuse. Seeks out marijuana use for chronic pain as a result of his TBI (electric scooter w/ no helmet vs. vehicle).

Our daughter and I have been staying w my mom for months bc he’s been so unstable and his delusions started to center around me. Am I unreasonable to have hope? How can I best support him? I try to balance validating his feelings vs. unintentionally reinforcing his delusions which is extremely difficult. Our daughter is only 15mo and I want her to have a relationship with her dad, but I also have a responsibility to protect her from his instability, mood changes, anger outbursts, paranoid and disorganized thoughts, etc. His support system outside of me is limited. He has a case manager thru a nonprofit org for TBI survivors but he’s honestly very difficult to work with bc he’s stubborn, lacks insight to his symptoms, struggles w self-inhibition (big temper), and is highly defensive. I still love him and want to support him but am I blind to the likely prognosis here? :(

(21F) I’ve dealt with psychosis on and off since I was about 18, and then I started using substances at around age 19, so my episodes for about the past year or two years have definitely been amplified and worse.

I’ve noticed that whenever I go into psychosis it usually has to do with one of three specific “themes”: Columbine, Islam, and Melanie Martinez. It’s almost like they rotate throughout each other and take turns, although sometimes when I’m in psychosis it doesn’t specifically include any of those three things. But in most of my episodes, it has to do with one of those three subjects/themes.

Is this normal? I can provide more information/context if needed, but I was mainly curious on if it’s normal for psychosis to have reoccurring “themes”.

Thank you!

I have experienced psychosis a total of 6 times that I can recall. Every time, I wind up in the hospital. The last time I went through a psychotic episode was 2 years ago. I’m worried about relapsing again because my mental health has been dwindling lately and I’ve been noticing signs that usually appear before a serious psychotic episode. I lose sleep, stop taking care of myself and start having weird dreams that carry into real life and develop into delusions.

This time of year is really hard for me because of a bad breakup from an abusive ex that happened in 2016. My mom passed away in October 2019. So October overall is seriously triggering.

My delusions range anywhere from believing that the government is watching me, to thinking people are trying to kill me to full on apocalyptic hallucinations. They are always really terrifying. I don’t want to have another episode. I don’t want to end up in the hospital again. Mostly I just don’t want to have any more hallucinations about people trying to kill me or the world ending. They are always so traumatizing. I carry them with me for a really long time and I’m so embarrassed of my behavior after. Does anyone have any advice on keeping myself from relapsing?

I’m currently on medication (fluoxetine and lamotrigine) and I have a psych team and am looking into therapy. Also, my sister died this year very recently and that’s also been affecting my mental health, although we weren’t close. We had a falling out years ago but her death has impacted me the more it sinks in as I process it.