A Life Lived Vividly Series: ‘I Thought The Voices Were Normal’ Realising I Had Psychosis

A Life Lived Vividly

I suffer from bipolar disorder, well known for it’s symptoms of mania and depression. What many people don’t realise is that some sufferers also experience psychosis. These could include delusions, auditory, visual and tactile hallucinations. For me, I hear voices. This happens during periods of extreme moods, so when I’m manic or severely depressed. I may hear voices that are comforting or spur on my mania. Sometimes the voices are just a jumble. When I’m depressed, it becomes disturbing. Voices will scream and shout at me, or sneer vindictive threats. You can read my journal entry My Hearing Voices Journal

When I was younger, I thought having someone talk to me in my head was normal. Then, as I grew older, I knew something wasn’t right. I was denial for years. Something like this couldn’t happen to me. It just didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon an article that explained the symptoms that I began to truly accept this wasn’t right. I sat reading, with tears welling up as the realisation dawned on me; I was experiencing psychosis. I cried for a long time. The idea of telling anyone I had psychosis terrified me. What if they were afraid of me? What if they thought I was dangerous? My fear of being labelled as ‘mad’ or ‘insane’ stopped me from being honest with the people closest to me. I didn’t want to lose friends or have family treat me any differently.

Even as a sufferer my view of psychosis had been skewed by pop culture representations. You were a disturbed, dangerous individual that didn’t fit into society if you heard voices. It couldn’t be further from the truth in my case. I was just an ordinary woman; I was in a long term relationship, I worked, I went out with friends. Yet I felt stigmatised before I even reached out to anybody. I stayed silent for years, only telling my psychiatrist after a year of treatment.

I eventually opened up to my partner. It was an awkward conversation, with many pauses and silences as I struggled to explain myself. Although he initially found it difficult to understand, he was supportive and caring. He could see how upset I was becoming and how much of an internal ordeal I had been through keeping this bottled up inside. He knew all I needed from him was a hug and to hear him say ‘I love you.’ Later, I told my family and they excepted it with an ease I wasn’t expecting. I’ve begun to be open about my experiences on social media and the outpouring of support from friends has been incredible. I am truly lucky to have such open minded family and friends.

I know there and people out there who don’t understand some that are scared of psychosis. If these people opened themselves up and had a genuine discussion with someone like me they wouldn’t be afraid. Psychosis doesn’t equal dangerous . I’ve met people who believe it’s edgy and cool, or use it as a fashion statement. It’s none of those things and isn’t something you should ever wish on yourself. It is debilitating, bewildering and terribly frightening, but with support it can be tackled.

What Does ‘Recovery’ Mean?

The word recovery means very different things to different people. The word is problematic and can ultimately be damaging. When people talk about recovery it marginalises those that can’t.

Some people use the word to describe the process and not an actual milestone. Some see it as having a positive outlook, that they see as a form of recovery. Others actually mean being in a stable place and free from mental illness. ‘Clinical recovery’ is a term many mental health professionals use to describe someone who no longer presents symptoms of their mental illness. I think many people think of this when we hear the word recovery and this is my main problem with it.

I prefer to say manage rather than recover.

Managing to me signals acceptance. That the person has come to the point where they’re no longer in denial. They’re now willing to find a way to manage the condition they’re faced with. This isn’t a phenomenon categorised just for mental illness, but for many physical health problems. Managing diabetes and other long term illnesses comes with similar challenges.

Ultimately it’s about building something new for myself.

I can’t go back to who I was before. I don’t recognise that person. For a start, she was a young teenager and without mental illness and its impact I would be an entirely different person. Would I even want to be that person? I have no idea.

If you’re not seen as moving forward, you end up feeling like a failure. There is so much pressure to be better, to be able to work and socialise, to be a productive member of society. The impetus is put on recovery above helping those that it isn’t feasible for. It’s this unattainable goal that is set for us that so many with severe and enduring mental illness will fail at. Why isn’t there more support for those that need and want to manage a mental illness? There’s this idea that we can recover if only we tried hard enough. For some of us it’s an impossibly high standard to measure up to.

I’m not here to be an inspiration. I’m not someone that’s going to miraculously be better and totally stable for the rest of my life. It’s not realistic. I can’t pretend that everything is going to be ok. I can’t pretend to be in some form of recovery, because I’m not, and I don’t think I ever will be. I’m managing bipolar and psychosis and it will also be a part of who I am. I don’t intend to recover from bipolar and psychosis, because it’s just not an option. This is an illness that I will have for life. It’s severe and chronic and I’ve had to accept that. It’s part of my life. I can be miserable and hate the fact, or I can learn about it, start to understand it and find ways to manage it.

What Nobody Tells You About Mania

As I’ve said before there is more to mania than just feeling good. It’s a complicated symptom of bipolar. When someone asks me “What’s it like to be manic?” I have to really think about it. There’s so much to it, I can’t sum it up in a couple of sentences. It goes through many stages, with different symptoms appearing, disappearing and resurfacing again.

One of the major parts of mania for me is anger. I’m not talking about irritability, like you can have with depression. What I mean is real, intense anger. My partner and I have coined the phrase ‘KatieRage’^TMto describe these moments. I turn into an entirely different person, I’m completely unrecognisable.

It’s like a constant itch I can’t scratch. I can’t seem to find any relief from the anger I’m feeling.

I have a scar on my right knuckle from when I punched the wall. I hit it so hard, I left a dent in the bedroom wall. You’d think something unbelievably dramatic had happened to make me do that wouldn’t you? In reality I’d found out I didn’t get the day off work, so I couldn’t go to a party. That’s it. I get stuck in a loop of anger. One little thing will trigger it and then, I can’t move on from it. It just keeps going around and around in my head, until I found an outlet for it.

Delusional thinking can be another aspect of mania. I’ll believe I’m the most important person in the room. Actually I’ll know I’m the smartest, most valuable person on the planet. Anyone that disagrees with me is wrong. Anyone that calls me out is an idiot. Even when the right answer is staring me in the face I won’t believe it. I have to be right, because nothing else would make sense.

The anger leaks through to my delusional thinking. Because I feel that I can do no wrong, when I see people doing something differently to me, or not listening to my opinions, it makes me extremely angry. I feel like there is a tremendous pressure in my head that can only be released by me screaming, shouting, ranting and raving.

Along with delusional thinking, people with mania may also see, hear or feel things that aren’t really there. I’ll hear voices that are sometimes comforting, but mostly they drive my manic behaviours. They push me to take risks and do things I wouldn’t normally do.

Overspending. Not “Whoops I lost track of how much I spent on Saturday night” I mean serious, crippling debt. Making the choice between the gas meter and food, sort of debt. Bailiffs at the door kind of debt.

It’s a compulsion I can’t control. I know I don’t have enough money to cover my spending, but I don’t think about the consequences. Mania makes me believe that everything will sort itself out, that it doesn’t matter.

As a young person with bipolar, I was free to collect as many credit and store cards as I wanted. At one point I had four credit cards and three store cards, all spent to their credit limit. I’m still paying them off years later. I got to the point when I would regularly go beyond my overdraft limit and had literally nothing to fall back on.

Mania varies for everyone that experiences it, but for each individual it’s a complex set of symptoms. Listen to people’s experiences of mania and ask how you can support them. Whether it’s keeping an eye on significant changes to their behaviour, or their spending, small gestures can make a positive impact.