I had a really long psychotic episode, and absolutely no help at all or treatment during that time. It's a long story. But, basically I believed a secret organization was after me. Their base was an office building in my neighborhood, near the park. I had magical powers and was the protector of the magical energy of my neighborhood (which I inherited from my grandfather.) And the organization were like evil magical people, trying to drain all the energy out of the park for their own evil plots.

Anway, that's it in a nut shell. This episode lasted about 5 years. I can't remember when it started but I was about 18 or 19 years old, and then it ended sometime between when I was 25 and 26. I don't remember when it ended or how it ended. And, I forgot all about it until confronted with the building one day.

Anyway.... I think it ended around the time I had a traumatic event of losing custody of my oldest son and not seeing him for a year. During that year I took abilify for 2 weeks, which I am curious if that helped knock it out. (I had a bad reaction to abilify and had to stop.) I can't remember.

Since I never had treatment during that time, I the doctor only "suspects" I have psychosis. Since I'm not regularly in treatment, but I have a lot of paranoia of a lower level, and random hallucinations both visual and auditory. These always shake me up, and I feel off balance after they happen.

Coming out of paranoia causes me a lot of confusion and self-doubt. My cognitive functioning is in decline, and very noticable over the last few years. I recently was tested for it and I scored very far into the high risk catagory, flagging the possibility that I'm going to fall off farther is imminent, it scared the hell out of me, really. I have no answers, but I suspect that having that long period of psychosis has something to do with it. I'm planning to see a neurophsycologist once I get insurance again.

I think depression is a normal response in illness. After I came out of the hospital in July for physical reasons, I became very depressed. It lasted about a month which is a very long time for me, with my rapid cycling. Don't be hard on yourself right now. Just take care and allow yourself to heal. I firmly believe that psychosis is physical, not mental. There is a lot going on and your brain needs to heal up.