hi angelgirl,

don;t worry, im sure you didn't offend anyone. It's always good to see people trying to learn and understand.

well, first off...psychosis is defined by losing touch with reality. This can come in many forms, i guess. The most common forms are hallucinations and delusions
A hallucination is a loss of touch with reality because you are seeing/hearing/feeling something that is not real. A delusion (false beleif) is concidered being out of touch with reality because it is not real. For example, someone with a paranoid delusions will strongly believe something like: the government is spying on them with cameras and microphones and following them.. or aliens are abducting them and controlling their thoughts.

Some people realize they are psychotic (ex: they know they are hearing voices and seeing things that no one else can) other times, people might not realize they are psychotic, especially if it is a very severe case of psychosis.

I've heard someone say, that you are not psychotic if you realize that something is wrong. I dont know if that's true or not. In my case, i believe my delusions and hallucinations to be real, but i am aware that other people see them as abnormal and "weird"

I started hearing voices and seeing things when i was about 3 years old. At that time..because i was so young...i did not really know that anything abnormal was going on, and of coarse, i had no idea what psychosis was. So i have been having psychosis all my life, but i was not aware of it until i started learning about it. so i was not diagnosed with schizophrenia until 1 year ago when i was 17.

When i was 16 and i was really depressed, i started believing that i was communicating with trees and other objects through telapathy. I felt like i was attached to them in some ways and they seemed like they were alive..moving and breathing and such. Thinking back on that episode, i remember how real it all felt. Now i dont get those feelings so strongly, so it's weird how much i believed it.

well, i hope this helped answer some of you questions. Feel welcome to ask any more you might have.

-becka