Recovering from a psychotic episode at the moment.

I certainly look forward to hearing the community's responses @DownMoreThanUp

Have you read this post Hearing voices and psychosis 🗯️ ?

I'll also tag @Dimity and @RiverSeal in case they are up to sharing their experiences.

Hello @DownMoreThanUp . Commiserations.

Thanks for the tag @holdinghope5 .

I hear you re the psychic energy keeping you awake and wondering if it can "run its natural course" and then peter out. It's good the voices have already quieted.

You're also wondering about sleepers. I don't know. It probably depends on your diagnosis and the other meds you're taking. Me, at first I was told I was likely schizophrenic then BPD with psychotic break then arrived at bipolar.

Sleep disruptions are a big red flag for me, whether causing or exacerbating or being symptomatic of problems. Many years ago when I was on a different antipsychotic I used sleepers for 1-2 nights at a time as a

circuitbreaker if I was highly stressed, not sleeping and fearful of spiralling. These days I can take an extra 50% of my antipsychotic in the same way. Interestingly when I was on a mood stabiliser for a while I felt it dramatically slowed any spiralling and I could sleep it off.

I think I've always been medicated with higher doses of antipsychotic when I've been psychotic for any length of time so my experience of coming down might be different to yours. I usually seem to resurface over a period of a few days, perhaps a week, as it takes time for my sleep and thoughts to readjust - its gradual, not like an on/off switch. And I have to process and integrate what I've experienced, and recognise what was delusional.

I understand your hesitancy with sleepers. I was careful as I knew mine were potentially habit-forming but they were definitely helpful when I did use them. There's also a sleep hormone that can help with sleep initiation and jet-lag. And I share your aversion to having your mind dulled during the day. That's why I appreciate my psychiatrist having let me titrate my meds so I'm usually on a small maintenance dose. But I recognise that there are times when I need the extra.

Practising guided progressive muscle relaxation or yoga nidra has been a big help sometimes, as a night time ritual.

From what you've said it sounds as though youre doing OK all things considered, and things are already improving but sleep is still a worry. Hope it works out over the next few days. Do talk to your team - not just about this time, but to plan ahead.

Take care.

Thanks for replying your experiences about this.

i found that psych medications mess big time with my ability to work things through, especially a psychotic episode, and more often than not make me deeply depressed and totally unable to process any painful trauma experiences always bubbling underneath my psychosis.

Medications can be useful to help me when i lost grip with my reality but only ever short term. My latest psychotic episode had everything to do with my sexual assault and near murder when i was a kid, and threw up many fearful, as well as painful emotions i have never been able to work through medicated.

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This is why i try and keep psych medications out so instead of again suppressing the trauma emotions i can finally process it, especially while raw like after a psychosis. i have had really good counselling and have been given many ' mental tools' to deal with my run away emotions rather than keep suppressing them.

i have been doing this for near 10 years now and have been able to work through much of my rage, distrust, and overwhelming grief. Constantly trying to use less medication rather than more. Therefore my daily suffering has finally taken a turn for the better. For i have been much more in control of my healing process than ever before, and keep working very hard defusing my bad emotions rather than burying myself alive trying to suppress them as i did for all these years before that.

i know that sleepers can really stuff this process up when my emotions are raw and sensitive like now and i'm much better of dealing with them, hot as they are, than suppress them with medications

This does mean psychotic times are more turbulent, and sleep is then often hard to find. However when i run to far short on sleep, or get too emotional then i medicate myself to balance this out again.

@Dimity i believe the above reply is for you 😊

@DownMoreThanUp it sounds as though you're very self-aware. Your early trauma is very sad and I hear you re trying to process it. I've tried EMDR but ran out of therapy sessions before completing it.

Medication needs and preferences can be complicated and do need careful judgement. Falling back on meds when you recognise you're sleep deprived and/or over emotional sounds wise.

Good counselling is so important. I'm glad you've had that.

Hint: if you type @ you can choose who you're replying to and they'll be notified.

Thanks @Dimity for reminding me about that i forgot.😁

About my trauma.

i think my biggest mistake was to take on a victim mentality when it came to how my life turned out to be after the assault. Therefore could not deal with the bad life put into me by my attackers, but would rage at anyone coming close to the sore spots within. Which always ended in psychosis.

For i would suppress my angry rage, as well as the pain underneath the rage, for i was petrified i would literally die the volume of the pain of my sadness. It sure felt that way each time i myself, or someone else, would come near those sorely festering parts within me.

So rather than dismantling my rage, taking small bites accepting myself an angry person, but no longer wanting to be, so i could give myself the compassion, love and forgiveness i needed there and the pain could begin to heal within, i always suppressed my rage feeling bad raging. Even denying the evil of my attackers and blaming (raging at) myself for what happened.

So my rage, as well the my inner hurt underneath that, is what i have been dismantling over the last 10 years or so, and the uncontrollable rage has been dying, as well as the overwhelming sadness stuck underneath all that. And the psychoses have been lessening in frequency, intensity and as well as duration.

The last three major psychoses, over a 9 year period, i have not raged at all. Rather i experienced a process of healing and acceptance a psychotic person. With my wife right behind me. For now she actively supports me through my nightmare. And because she is always loving, kind, sympathetic, forgiving and compassionate me going through the pain, i have learned to trust her enough to heed her. For my wife is no longer scared out of her wits seeing me psychotic, which in the past has had her running for her life, but she knows how to help me get through it safely, helping me to undo the triggers.

So yes though the going is hard, reliving everything in my last psychosis, it has been so very good to see me finally gaining control over this part of my life and not doing more damage but seeing my gone bad life fixed, even when i'm in what used to be my worst self.

i slept a total of 5 hours last night, over three sleeps, the best i have done for some time. Hopefully soon i will be getting 5 hours plus a night, and make more than 3 hours in my first sleep.

Thanks for caring.

@DownMoreThanUp hi DownMoreThanUp touch wood i have been stable for some months as i am on the right amount of meds with the pdoc gradually trying to reduce some as i am on alot. it is unsettling when having voices and hallucinations and when i cant sleep on top of that it raises my anxiety levels. recently i was having trouble swallowing one of my pills (it is huge) anyway within days i was hearing voices and seeing things. the idea of having to take these pills for the rest of my life depresses me at times tbh.

that really doesnt answer your question sorry. being a middle aged woman sleep doesnt come easy most of the time.

Hey @DownMoreThanUp, thank you for sharing your experiences with the communtiy!

I can totally relate to not sleeping while in psychosis and at regular times due to my mental health and ruminating throughts or worrying abou the future. I took sleepers after my last psychotic episode for a while and found they did no thelp me sleep but felt very tired the following day due to the side effects of the sleepers. I had to stop taking them in the end as the side effects the following day was harder to cope with that the reason I was taking them in the first place. It's always best to have converations with your prescribing doctor if you are thinking of changing how you take medications.

Thanks @holdinghope5 for tagging me and the referral to the Hearing voices and psychois thread!

It's in spiring that you have your wife to support you and I'm so pleased to hear that the relationship was not affected. I have lost three relationships due to my mental health and each time I have had to rebuild my life and had to cope with many other life challenges that would not have presented if the situation was different. It sounds like you really value your relationship with your wife and I encourage you to keep it strong and the communication open.

Thanks so much for sharing again and I am sure the community will have insights to share too!

Take care

RiverSeal

@RiverSeal Yes sleeping medication can really bite us in the bum after a psychosis. Very much the same experience as you. i found that because it was so hard to keep an eye on my thoughts racing, i fell for emotions firing which otherwise would not bother me near as much, or i could easily negate with a wakeful eye.

i did end up using just a [edited by moderator] sleeping tablet last night and i got 3 1/2 hours in my first sleep, though after that it became much harder again, i added only 2 hours to that over another 2 sleeps. Still 5 1/2 hours is getting close to the 6 hours sleep a night i need to function.

The good thing of sleepers is that it cuts us off from my thoughts so i fall asleep, even a [edited by moderator] tablet will do that after about 20-30 minutes of taking it. i always find it so hard to fell asleep after a psychosis for my thoughts wont let me. And even when i kind of snooze off, because i'm so exhausted, my thoughts wont stop keeping me from falling asleep properly. A real pain. When sleep is what i need most right now.

@RiverSeal @Bunniekins @Dimity @rav3n @holdinghope5

A quick update wherei'm at at the moment.

i took the smallest effective dosage of an AD last night. Even though i know full well such will depress me. For as a person with Schizo-affective disorder, i cannot tolerate AD's much at all.

As a matter of fact only this one i can use for longer periods. i took it because i know i can sleep better on it. Once i used it for almost 2 years, sick and tired of not sleeping, and resigned myself to the depression that would follow, before it stopped helping me sleep, as well as making me sick of life lived like that.

So all in all i'm doing much better today than been the last 14 days. In my down cycle i have a lot less chance going psychotic, (although it is much more severe when it does, i usually see it coming now.)

i slept 7 hours last night over 3 sleep, the longest one being near 5 hours, so that was great. Neither did it cause bad nausea like the antipsychotics do, however i'm pretty down today, and still feeling tired and drained without the ability to sleep any longer.