Is it still psychosis if you recognize it's psychosis?

[Geister]

Is it still a delusion if you know it's a delusion? I have been wondering this for a few months now because my delusions/psychosis whatever they are have been getting worse, as in its getting harder and harder for me to recognize it as psychosis or a delusion and not real. I can still tell, but it's harder to tell myself that, they feel more real, and they're worse, but I still (for the time being) know they're delusions. Does that make it psychosis? Or is it something else because I recognize it? They still distress me greatly and I react to them, I sort of just have this little voice trying to keep me calm saying "this is just a delusion, you'll be okay" but its harder to listen to now. I think it's still psychosis, like one person I read mentioned:

"Is it still a headache if you know it's a headache? If you didn't recognise psycosis as psycosis, would you have gotten help for it? I think our subconsious does a pretty good job at helping us distinguish what is real and what's not. When our subconsious stops noticing I think that then we have a problem. No?"

[Kensho]

of coarse delusions are psychosis, at least in their holy book... but the fact that you recognize they're delusions is a great sign... when you're truly delusional, it's a real event... there is no play at work here, you get caught up in it... it is real and no one else can understand where you're coming from... i had many delusions, simple examples of the many experiences i had... i thought some of my neighbors had cameras in the grills of their cars, and they were watching me, so one night i slipped outside and covered the front ends with plastic bags and duct tape to prevent to prevent the cia from filming me! i went through long stretches thinking i was an alien, all because i had a pretty significant experience when i was 13... it all came back to me... i was really wrapped up in it, for many years... in the beginning i thought i was meant to play an important role in the second coming of christ... and it all came from my subconscious... i felt a tremendous guilt that i turned my back on christ when i was 13 and i was being given a second chance to redeem myself... this kind of addresses your second point... if you didn't recognize psychosis as psychosis you wouldn't get help on your own... intervention from others is needed at that point... my wife and sister sat me down one evening and drilled into my head that these things weren't real... i began to accept some of they said and eventually agreed to get evaluated... up to that point people were talking about me, i thought people could read my mind, the TV or radio were talking about me and my life openly to others... that shit stressed me the fuck out... i was already thinking i was an alien and there was more... and even after i was diagnosed new shit popped up... i went through phases where i thought my wife worked for the cia and she was being paid to watch me... i got this idea when she was able to buy things for herself, and i'd ask myself, where is she getting the money from since i knew things were tight at home... during one pretty long period i thought she was poisoning me... she would bring me my meals to the bed room because at this point i rarely left my room... i would simply clean my plate onto a sheet of computer paper and waited till she fell asleep, then i would dump it into the trash and make something for myself...  and there were more, many more... i have to admit though, there were times i was in touch and i'd think how weird this was, but that didn't happen too often...

your quote says: "I think our subconsious does a pretty good job at helping us distinguish what is real and what's not. When our subconsious stops noticing I think that then we have a problem."

i'm not so sure of this really...  i think it's bad subconscious programming behind it... a simple example is someone having low self esteem... it's not your upper level of consciousness at play here... it's your lower level telling you how to react to stimulus... years of feeling put down or the perception of being put down feed the subconscious... soon you have a low level perception of yourself... any reaction you have from an outside experience is based on your subconscious program. could there be a disconnect between the subconscious and upper conscious? geeez, i don't know really, maybe it can... who really knows what can happen then... maybe i do know... there have been times i've eaten high doses of mushrooms in the past in order to loose ego...  i've learned that ego is a result of upper and lower consciousness working together, at least that's what i've found so far... when i've done this, i've never become psychotic in any way, i would lose all sense of self... i literally didn't recognize who/what i was, i was just taking in information... this was just my experience though, there have been many reports where people have flipped out on small amounts of mushrooms, although rare. but i honestly believe it's a reaction of an over stimulation of the brains neurons at play, not a separation between conscious and subconscious... it's the drugs reaction on receptors

try to follow my logic here, because the great spirit knows i can confuse the hell out of anyone.  my thinking can be out in left field sometimes...  when we dream, there is some external input... our brain is taking in a noise like a fan running in the background, odors, temperatures, light, taste if we fell asleep with a cough drop in our mouth... and why do i assume this? because if someone makes aloud noise, or i smell smoke from a fire, or it becomes to hot or too cold in my room, or someone turns on a very bright light, it can easily wake me up... i can't account for taste because no one has ever added several drops of lemon juice on my tongue while i was sleeping... i would guess so to be honest, if someone placed an unusual taste in my mouth... i think i'd wake up... what i do know about taste is just by thinking about something, like eating a lemon for instance causes me to begin to salivate... have you ever tried that? try it now... picture yourself sucking on a juicy lemon, it's juice is running down your chin... think about what it would taste like... is your mouth watering like mine is now?  i was side tracking you here... are these sensory inputs a conscious experience? smelling, hearing, feeling, responding to light? i don't believe so, but it is input... i know far a fact that he subconscious rules dream state... and i don't know about you but i've had some pretty wild dreams and many of them bordered on psychosis sometimes... yes i've had more pleasant dreams but still this can't be ignored... i remember reading a little about the bridge of dreams or the bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind during a dream... this is all vague to me right now, so i'm not really sure if i should be walking you down this road right now, but if there is a bridge between the conscious and subconscious mind during dreams, a loss of the subconscious may not even be possible while awake... the subconscious is said to be about 90% of the brains actual function/processing during periods of consciousness and i've already explained it's role in dreams, can their ever truly be a duality between them? i don't think so... but lets say it can, and your psychotic your still taking in the exact same sensory input, nothing has changed there... what has changed is my perception of it... and i already know that i can have some pretty fucked up dreams, some of them very terrifying, that came from the subconscdious... is it really my subconscious spilling over, overflowing so to speak, while i'm aware or conscious? whose to say that it's not the subconscious mind at play during psychosis? do you get what i mean? nothing has changed from a sensory standpoint... i still see the same tree, i still hear the same wind, i still feel the temperature, i still smell the odors in the air, but out of nowhere i experience psychosis... have i just experienced a separation between  upper and lower consciousness? or is the psychosis like a dream, and a bad one at that... a waking dream, a living nightmare for many... does this make any sense to you? i hope i explained myself well... i did a search on this quote and found where you got it from... this edyn seems pretty cool... do you go there often? do you post? just curious... i bookmarked the site, maybe i'll join when i have more time... if you joined there you'll have to tell me your name... if you don't want to, that's cool... just be aware if a Kensho pops up all of a sudden there's a very good chance it's me! 

hmmmmm Geister... you really got me thinking, that's one of the things i like about you... i hope i don't find myself thinking about this during the christmas party... i still do tend to dissociate a little bit... i can seem me now, sitting at the dining room table, just drifting out into space in thought while someone asks me to pass the salt!   


Kensho 

[Kensho]

yeah Geister, i thought about this and i'm pretty damn sure i'm right about this... if there ever was a disconnect from the subconscious, fear wouldn't exist among all the other baggage the subconscious carries around for you.

Kensho 

[LadyAshley]

I have been questioning this as well. Psychosis is something that confuses me and I truly don't fully understand. I had thought I was experiencing psychosis but I guess I wasn't really. Maybe I'm just batshit crazy haha!

[Geister]

It's always fun to read your posts Kensho :3 lol

What happened to make you think you were experiencing psychosis LadyAshley?

[macrent2]

If nobody hears a tree that falls in the forest... has it indeed fallen? Yes, it is possible (sort of) and is defiantly still psychosis. However, normally if it gets to the point of psychosis, then it might not be recognized by the patient or person suffering from psychosis. It might not be obvious to a mental health worker like a social worker, psychologist or psychiatrist to why the person is psychotic (at least right off the bat) either. The health mental health team probably would suspect intoxication or drugs at first (but then narrow it down with blood work, toxicology tests and a history of the patient). Many times this is the case. It upset me that when I was first diagnosed and was in a manic psychosis, my friends and family (maybe doctor) thought I was taking drugs and lying about it (they thought it was some kind of upper). When the drug tests came back negative for all drugs they felt guilty. It sucked to feel like a criminal when I was in severe distress.

Most people begin to see patterns as they have depressed, normal (or next to), hypomanic and manic states. It becomes easier to know when to be on alert for a possible change in states. For example, I am Bipolar I, and I range from depressed, to as normal as possible, to hypomanic, to full blown mania. Right now, I am hypomanic so my doctor, family and friends and myself are on HIGH ALERT (if you will) as to any changes in behaviour which would warrent a medication change or review. I can now tell where I am on my mood meter and have not had psychosis since because they medicate as needed and I have a great team of doctors (general, psychologist and psychiatrist) who work together, a great family and good friends. Unfortunately, the problem with any mental illness is that it can change like the weather... at anytime or place without any fair warning. Something could work for years and you hit rock bottom within a series of hours or a few days.

[Dreamline]

I got asked about doing coke and speed but they didn't test me....just kept asking....as I watched their skin melt and peel off smiling saying, no, I'm not on drugs.  LMAO. 

[Geister]

They've never asked me to take a drug test, even when I went to the hospital because I was super edgy, shaking, paranoid, etc. I guess it was because they've seen me there before and have records of my visits to the psychiatrists there. That and I've covered the drug questions like 20 times by now lol. I couldn't imagine seeing something like that. But sometimes, when I'm in an edgy/paranoid mood, faces and things look distorted and scary. I'd see faces in things too.. like my moms garbage can in her bedroom, it scared the hell out of me for a sec because I swear I could see a face in it. And peoples faces look dark twisted and distorted, almost like out of a horror movie, and it seems like the more I focus on peoples faces when I'm like that the more distorted they look. Anyone else have this problem?

[Dreamline]

Yep I have had that, and the longer I look at a face, the worse it looks.  Sometimes they look like plastic and foam or rotting or growing crap.  Their expressions look exaggerated which is connected to their skin color, eyes, haircut and everything.  Freaky shit.

[Geister]

I dont even remember posting the face thing here. Ugh,.   Yeah it's really freaky, know anything that helps fix it?

[Dreamline]

LOL risperidone    I wonder if CBD (Canabidiol, remember that?) would get rid of it...I want that shit.  Other than that just try to focus on other things or if you know why the face looks that way, think about those reasons.  They are manifested by your own mind and go with your emotions, so you can decode their meaning....like a bad trip. 

[Geister]

Risperidone doesn't seem to do anything for me aside from make me sleepy.  But my doctor refuses to change my meds until I see someone to make a recommendation, and my appointment for that was cancelled, so I have no idea what the hell to do. :/ But canabidol sounds like something neat to try.   And I'll try to focus on other things.

[macrent2]

I have seen shadow-like figures a few times at night when I have been alone in my apartment bedroom and one time I saw a face that was distorted and wickedly evil. I live alone and I was so terrified that I slept in my living room for a week with the TV on for a nightlight. I would classify them as delusions because I knew they were not real after a few seconds. Normally, the delusions are objects that I think for a short time are other objects (for a flash of a second). For example, a pair of boots might seem like the dog for a second or two. I also have heard people in the room next door, water running, and the tea pot whistling (for a split second). I also will occasionally smell things from an earthy or mud like smell to cigarette or marijuana smoke (sometimes it really is my neighbor smoking and sometimes I will go into the hall to investigate and no smell is there). I noticed that these events tend to happen at night. I am on an anti-psychotic and it is metabolized very quickly and by the time that I take it (at night) it is pretty much out of my system (I can feel it). My theory is that these events may be a side effect of the medication leaving the body.

[Geister]

That seems kind of counter productive if the medication is supposed to prevent that sort of thing in the first place? It hasn't really stopped any of my paranoid thoughts or anything, just makes me sleepy.