My Experience with Psychosis
Artwork by Richard Kahwagi. Photos by FLY:D and Ben Scott on Unsplash
In early 2016 I experienced symptoms of mild depression in which I lost motivation in wanting to do anything. I completely stopped going out, and I stopped interacting with friends and family but never really paid attention to the change in my behaviour.
By the end of the year, I had an unusual experience where I was having intrusive thoughts, having visions and delusions appear in front of me and hearing voices while at work that was getting worse over a short period of time. These symptoms were so alien to me and felt like an out of body experience. I couldn’t shake the feeling; and if I tried to, the visions and intrusive thoughts only became worse.
Now for someone from a Black Caribbean heritage I’ve never heard or experienced anything to do with mental health. I know with some Caribbean households we were told the best way to deal with being unwell or sad is go to bed and you will feel better in the morning.
During this period, I was trying to disguise and hide that I had any mental health issues. I used to dress up like I was going to the club with a face full of makeup wherever I went, whether it was to work or to the shop just so nobody would know what was going on under the surface. I convinced myself that everyone could read my mind and know that I was really unwell without saying anything.
When my mental health was at its poorest, I would look online for anything that could explain my symptoms and why this was happening. My OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) would have me sitting online for hours obsessing over things I found and how it could relate to me. I did this in search of anyone that may be experiencing the same symptoms as me to take away the lonely feeling of having mental health issues, but in turn all it did was make me feel worse about myself, and scared that I would just get worse.
I was really scared to go to the doctors and speak about all the symptoms I was experiencing. I’ve never really known anyone with mental health conditions, and the stories that I did hear about were always negative ones of how people are treated in mental health services especially people of colour. Statistics show that Black people are 40% more likely to access treatment through a police or criminal justice route, less likely to receive psychological therapies, more likely to be compulsorily admitted for treatment, more likely to be on a medium or high secure ward and be more likely to be subject to seclusion or restraint. On my way to the doctors, I remembered thinking if I display too much of what’s going on, are they going to lock me away? Will I always be labelled as a crazy person because of the things I can see and hear?
I spoke with my doctor and tried to disclose as much information as possible that I was comfortable speaking about which resulted in me having to self-refer to a mental health service, which I later found out only dealt with low level depression symptoms. My symptoms were too severe for the service to help me, and they had to forward me to a specialist service who were an early intervention team for psychosis.
The psychologist who I initially saw was not very understanding of the symptoms I was displaying which made me feel uncomfortable and less hopeful that I would get better. To make things worse I asked for any documentation that would need to be provided to my doctor to be sent to me first so I can be comfortable as I was feeling paranoid, and anxious about speaking out as I thought that I would be locked up If anyone saw what was said. They ignored my request and sent my letter to the doctors without my consent which in turn made my symptoms worse.
It was really distressing leaving that service but luckily the early intervention team I ended up with changed my life for the better. I thought I fully lost trust in the mental health services but with the OASIS team (a mental health service for young people living in the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon) they managed to normalise my symptoms and supported every aspect of my life even things I didn’t know I needed help with (e.g. my self-esteem and career).
The OASIS team gave me understanding of what triggered my breakdown with a diagnosis of early signs of psychosis and primary OCD. Psychosis is a mental disorder in which your thoughts feel like they are your reality. Your mind convinces you that you are a different person from who you are and living in a whole different reality to what is actually happening in the real world. Primary “Pure O” OCD is a purely obsessional form of obsessive-compulsive disorder as it is based on distressing intrusive and obsessional thoughts instead of external compulsions (e.g. checking and cleaning) and is a lifelong disorder.
I had no history of drug or alcohol addiction but the traumas that I never spoke about that I experienced in life had triggered my breakdown and having a low self-esteem was one of the key factors of my breakdown. Before becoming unwell I never really spoke about how I felt or things that affected me.
During my talks with my support worker, I always explained my concerns about there not being anyone that looked or sounded like me that I could have related to when I was in my most vulnerable place. I made a promise to myself that I would speak to whoever would listen about living with mental health conditions and try to take away some stigma regarding mental health conditions.
When I left the OASIS team in 2019, I started to do workshops in London promoting awareness around psychosis and me speaking about my mental health journey and conditions. I spoke whenever the opportunity presented itself with the OASIS team to university students, hospitals, and local communities.
The transition from leaving my service to helping them with the workshops was a very hard one. I struggled with goodbyes, and I felt like my service was my crutch with me coping with my conditions. To say that I never had small relapses during this period would be a lie as it was difficult to be open with something that I was so private about as I felt like nobody would understand and judge. Some of the things I disclosed in the workshops some of my family and friends have no idea about, but I felt like I had to be open and honest about my symptoms just in case it might help someone who is too scared to speak up or not ready to talk about their symptoms.
My most impactful talks were with the local communities, especially the black community. I feel as a community we don’t speak about our mental health and if we do it’s more for conditions of depression and anxiety instead of the taboo subjects of psychosis, primary OCD and other mental health conditions. I had people come up to me after the workshops explaining that they have suffered with similar symptoms but had not expressed it publicly, but I made them feel a little more comfortable which is what I wanted to achieve.
The reason for wanting to reach out to as many people as possible is to send out the message that this could happen to anyone if you do not look after yourself and your mental health. Seeing yourself in a positive light and being kind to yourself makes such a difference and I hope this can resonate with anyone that reads this.
For more information on Psychosis visit: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/psychosis/overview/
