What It's Like To Have a Psychotic Episode

 

*Picture courtesy of Pixabay*

So earlier this week I had a psychotic episode. 

I've talked about my mental health problems before but I thought this would be a good time to revisit that subject. I think that talking about it, and removing the stigma tied to mental health is a good way for people to feel comfortable to seek help when they need it. 

I have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, agoraphobia, Schizoaffective disorder and schizotypal personality disorder. If you look up any of these that you don't know, it will give you a better understanding of what I deal with. I don't have many psychotic episodes but they do happen. 

I hear voices/whispering and have hallucinations most days. But I usually know that they aren't real and I can ignore them. Yes, I'm taking an anti-psychotic medication but it's a low dose because I still want to be able to function during the day. But it does help. 

On Sunday I started hearing really loud voices. There were 2 of them at first. One was a menacing man's voice cackling at me telling me that he was a demon and was going to possess my mind and body and there was nothing I could do to stop him. 

My daughter was sleeping on the couch and I was moving around the living room trying to figure out what was possessed. My daughter woke up and asked me what was wrong. Then a 3rd voice emerged and I thought I could hear my daughter's thoughts. 

The other loud voice was a woman who was telling me that I needed to find the possessed object and destroy it. I could hear them clearly and they didn't stop shouting at me. I searched for the possessed object and the closer I got to my bedroom the louder the voices got. I picked up a few books on my bookcase and listened but they weren't the possessed object. It wasn't until I found a different book and picked it up that the female voice started screaming for me to destroy it. I had to light it on fire and burn it until I saw the blue flames, she told me. This was my grandsons book, I don't even remember seeing it on my bookshelf before this. So I picked up the book and my matches and took it to the sink where I was going to burn it. 

My daughter took the book and matches away from me and wouldn't give them back, all the while she was texting a neighbor to come over. The neighbor also has some mental health problems and she works with people with disabilities, so she knew what I was going through, kinda. 

I yelled at my daughter and told her that I could hear her thoughts and that I knew she wanted to put a whole stick of butter in the rice in order to get my gratitude journal. But I was mad because I said there was no reason to waste that much butter in order to take my gratitude journal. *I don't have a gratitude journal* My thoughts were clearly all over the place. 

My daughter told me I should go get some fresh air and take the dog for a walk. She didn't know what to do. So I did. But as we came home, I saw blue flames sprouting from Falcor's paws so I picked him up and brought him inside. I was going to wash his feet off so he wouldn't burn but my daughter and neighbor told me the flames were gone and he was ok. 

My neighbor took the book and told me that she would light it on fire for me in her bbq outside so the demon would be expelled. That calmed down the female's voice a little. But then I saw blue flames through the walls of my apartment and told my daughter that it was so hot because there were blue flames in the walls and we had to destroy the book right away. My neighbor took the book out to her bbq and burned the book, I went outside to make sure and as she was lighting it on fire, she turned it over to get the rest of the pages. Right on the back cover was what looked like to me a ghost with blue flames. It was a R.L. Stine Goosebumps book. I'm guessing it was this image. 

Looks like a blue flame ghost to me. 🤣🤣🤣👻👻And since the blue flames were burned everything was ok again.

I calmed down once the book was destroyed and the voices started to go away. But it took about 3 hours before I realized that what I had been hearing and seeing wasn't actually real.