For me, coming out of psychosis isn't as simple as switching to a clean new view of reality, where everything you believed just clears up and any delusions are obviously false and in the past. There is a lot of uncertainty where one scrubs the evidence for clues about what is true, and some things just never can be determined to be indisputable facts. Previous paranoid concerns about what others think of you may be reinforced by their continued response to your previous suspiciousness and unusual behaviour. It can be quite difficult to shake paranoid beliefs when others continue to treat you with fear or caution.
Once you are alienated from your friends, the hurdles to regaining their trust can be a huge challenge when you are still busy recovering from fried brain syndrome, or feeling numbed from powerful meds.
What I remember most from psychotic episodes are the hallucinations - I can hear the words, the tone of the voices, and remember the sight of the strange visions with unusual clarity.
What fades is the feeling of fear and suspicion, and overwhelmingly powerful trust in my intuition that I only seem to experience in a psychotic episode. Normally I can't bring back the feeling by simply remembering it. It takes another episode for me to recognise the familiar sensations.
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Life is like a storm with millions of eyes. So deceptive.
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