Hi!

I am really sorry your daughter has to go trough such horrible things at such a young age. I have had two psychosisis and I have some input. First of all - if she has paranoia (as I had) she thinks it is real. It is real to her. So she will act like it really happens. So, what would you do if you were really followed, everyone talks about you (in a mean way) and you thought you were going to die? You would avoid everyone, make sure the talking stops (by not saying anything to anyone), not leave your house/room, etc. So her not having any friends and being alone is a complete "normal" reaction (to her). I had very little contact with people when I got paranoid and I think that is a good thing. If you do not want to spend time with anyone, why should you? Also, when you are that sick and hear voices, I had so much input in my brain, my brain went on overdrive and minimizing the input made me fell better, I couldn´t even watch TV or read papers. Also I missunderstood information people gave me - if someone said "I am fat" - I thougth that was code for them saying to me "you are fat", so if I were you I would try to avoid to say anything mean about anyone in her precesence. I am sorry to say there is not a "cure" for psychosis in terms of medication, antipsycothic drugs are just taking away some of the symtoms. So all you can do is to "wait for it to pass". My first psychosis took a couple of weeks, the other one lasted for more than 6 months. I did however trick a lot of people into thinking that I was over it earlier by acting normal. It is really hard for people around the ill person to know when it stops ... Once you are over it you can talk about what happened, how not to make it happen again and what triggered it. In the middle of it it is really hard to know what is true or not (I made up a lot of things wich i thougt was true at the time). So I do not think it is wise to try to bring up any issuses about her being abused or so when she is still in the middle of her psychosis, because there will not really be easy for you to know if she is telling the truth or not. It is however wise to figure out if you have any history of mental illness in yours or your husbands family, some of it is probably genetic (science think). I do have that in my family. Try to give her a quiet and calm surrounding until she snaps out of it. Take her out of school if neccesary (no grown up would work in that condition). And ask her about what the voices in her head says, talking about it makes them less scary and she´ll be less likely to follow stupid advice from them. And tell her you love her a lot. And encourage her to paint or write or do other creative things to express her feelings, sometimes putting words on emotions makes them less intimidating. A lot of people with mental illnesses end up in really creative jobs, thats how I earn my living. Good luck! I really feel for you and your family.