Life After Psychosis
I want to preface this with 2 things.
1. I think I am doing good, great, even. I am as stable as I could ask for, my medication routine is working for me, I haven’t had a hallucination in nearly 4 months and my depression is, for now, controlled. I am thriving. I am in a place that even 6-8 months ago I thought I would absolutely never see, and I am so proud of myself for getting here.
2. This is just my experience. I don’t speak on behalf of every person who has experienced psychosis, but for me - this is what life after psychosis has looked like.
Ok, now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let me tell you why postpartum psychosis continues to ruin my life, even 4 months removed from my last “episode”.
That’s half a joke, and half only funny because its true.
Before psychosis, I struggled with PTSD from an accident I had in college. The accident caused damage to my lungs, and after that every time I felt even a little bit out of breath – my brain would go into fight or flight and start to go into “panic” mode about not being able to breathe. These anxiety attacks were infrequent, and in the grand scheme of things – not that bad.
Fast forward to now. I’d kill for a panic attack that minor again. But oh no no no, not this new Tiffy. New Tiffy, post-postpartum psychosis Tiffy, PTSD controls so much of her life now.
For a solid year and a half, my brain tricked me about once a week… So, somewhere around 78 times my brain convinced me of something that was not real.
Imagine finding out your spouse lied to you 78 times. SEVENTY-EIGHT lies, from little white lies about your cooking, to really big lies about their loyalty or faithfulness. That would lead most people to divorce, or at least into extensive couple’s therapy. Would you be able to just ~*trust*~ them right away? Absolutely not, they have lost that right and not earned a dime of it back.
This is the relationship I have with my brain now. I just don’t trust it. When I feel the most untrusting of my brain, I start to panic about my perception of reality.
I hate the word “triggered” but I am about to use it a lot, so - here we go.
There are certain situations I know will trigger me to question my reality, and I struggle with these almost daily.
Noises I can’t identify (also, loud noises) - Thumps, whispers, creaking, people on the other side of a wall talking on the phone, people wearing masks and having a conversation. Can’t handle it.
Large gatherings - People gathered into a space where multiple conversations are being had simultaneously. Can’t handle it.
The most triggering place for me is my office. There is a lot of both of those things happening at the office. I used to be so panicked about the office that I was throwing up, daily, at just the anticipation of having to go. I have worked through a lot of that anxiety that its not “throw-up-panic-attack” bad anymore. But its bad enough that I only go into the office 2x a week, and the thought of doing more than that does still make me want to throw up. When the construction began in the office above mine, the thumps and drilling noises made me spiral so badly I was nearly in tears when my boss told me to just go home. The spiral doesn’t end when I leave the office, either. It puts me in a headspace that follows me home, has me questioning my house as it creaks or the oven as it ticks… for the rest of the day my body stays in *panic* mode until I am so drained I fall asleep by, or before, 8 pm.
The other most triggering thing for me lately has been family gatherings. I’ve got a big, loud, crazy family that I love more than anything in the world, BUT yikes has it been hard to be a part of it lately.
Last month we had my favorite yearly family get together. It’s the guaranteed one time of year we are all going to be in one place, have a good time, play charades, and just hang out. This year, we even had limited the number of people so instead of a normal 75-100 people there was only about 25 of us… it was so physically and emotionally draining for me to be there, I had to excuse myself before my favorite part, the charades, even started. It was just too overwhelming to be in a conversation and be hearing 3 other conversations, then I start to panic about whether or not those are actual conversations or if I am just hearing voices on top of my own conversation… the whole thing is a mess in my head but it all leads to the same place – panic. Panic, for me, is usually followed by a full-body shut down. I get so overstimulated, I quite literally run out of battery power, and can not function without just going to sleep. I left the party early, went straight to sleep, and slept through the peak of the party. That was the second time in a week I had to leave a family function early.
It’s pretty defeating to be the person who just *can’t handle* daily office work or simple family functions. It’s pretty disparaging to be controlled by small, meaningless sounds. I’ve put so much work into returning to “normalcy” and it can all feel wasted after just a single “thump”.
I think I am making progress though, and that’s what keeps me going to the office when I can or pushing out of my comfort zone and forcing myself into large gatherings.
This is what “normal” looks like after psychosis. Its over-run and dominated by the inability to trust your own brain. Everyday I celebrate small victories like grocery shopping without being triggered or lasting in my office for a full 9 hours without crying or throwing up.
I don’t know if this is how I’ll be forever, but I am hopeful I can keep working through it one small victory at a time.
