[0ldsoul]

Just curious,

Does the descriptive term psychosis apply per individual and there state of minds compared to their "normal" level of functioning?

When I read what is described by some as psychosis, I relate some descriptions as everyday "normal" patterns in myself (when viewed from the idea I am sick). Or is there some sort of pattern(s) that make it true psychosis, like heightened "normal" paranoia and such to alter your behavior?

Having a hard time explaining this... Ok, I always feel people are after me, that's normal, I always try and avoid situations and typically am always fighting my thoughts to simply function, live or go out/be social ... that's normal. So would psychosis be when the thoughts, "delusions" etc... get so bad I withdraw, hibernate, stay home, loose time, act differently?

The only altered state of mind I can clearly see and differentiate from the norm, is that when things get really bad, a week later I can look back and say "whoa, that was not rational thinking, how could you have believed that, those were some bad days" Since being on meds, I can now actually see how irrational my thoughts and behavior was in "bad times" rather than constantly believing these new things and thoughts and simply melding them into my everyday life and learning to deal with them as truth over time.

Probably confusing, but I'm confused...

Thanks

[Perna]

From what you describe, your "normal" could actually be psychosis. Most healthy people do not feel people are after them. Most healthy people do not fight their thoughts/selves to function, etc. I come and go when I wish and go wherever I want to, whenever I want to, talk to whoever I meet (store clerks, other customers, i.e., strangers). I have simple goals throughout the day and meet them. If I think of someone I need to talk to, something I need to do, I call the person or go do the task, etc. Daily life isn't "difficult" for me.

[0ldsoul]

That is what troubles me on this topic...

Is it even possible to have 24/7 psychosis? When I asked what to expect from the drugs and recovery, I was told that because I have went untreated for 10+ years, I have engraved a thought process patterns and engraved in my mind a way of life that will take time to "re wire". It made it hard to even talk about things and explain, as topics like "episodes" came up... I never had them, it was just a constant for me, I never understood half the things that are normally discussed. Now that I am getting "better" I can somewhat see "episodes"... guess that's a good thing though... I don't know.

[Perna]

Yes, I think of it like a child in a family who doesn't have much contact with other families. So, until the child is older and does more on his own, what he experiences is his "norm" whether it's a norm-norm or not. It's hard if you're raised to eat only McDonald's to then learn that you should be eating fruits and vegetables and can take quite awhile, if it's possible, to switch over to eating more healthfully.

I am a woman and have read about and experienced walking down a city street. Women walking down a city street, are generally more hyper-aware of who is around them and what those people are doing, what sex they are, etc., especially if it is around nighttime. A man doesn't have as many worries about strength, size, sex, nighttime, etc. so doesn't have the same almost unconscious thoughts and anxiety in their body. I think that's sort of what it might be like to grow up psychotic, one gets "use" to it and just responds "as if" it were normal. There's nothing wrong with thinking people are following you and out to get you but it makes life more difficult since we need to get along with other people and life is more pleasant with their help and companionship.

[Shoe]

Originally Posted by 0ldsoul

That is what troubles me on this topic...

Is it even possible to have 24/7 psychosis? When I asked what to expect from the drugs and recovery, I was told that because I have went untreated for 10+ years, I have engraved a thought process patterns and engraved in my mind a way of life that will take time to "re wire". It made it hard to even talk about things and explain, as topics like "episodes" came up... I never had them, it was just a constant for me, I never understood half the things that are normally discussed. Now that I am getting "better" I can somewhat see "episodes"... guess that's a good thing though... I don't know.

Hi Oldsoul,
When you mention rewiring your brain I thought that you might like to check out this website. http://www.wisebrain.org/
If you click on Tools and Skills you will find a lot of talks and articles that you can download for free.
I find mindfulness very helpful. It helps me become aware of when I am getting caught up in the thought stream. I think this is what you are starting to do when you state that you can somewhat see "episodes" Learning to soften my sense of self I also find beneficial.

Wishing you the Best, Shoe

[spiritual_emergency]

Hello Oldsoul,
I tend to think of psychosis as a very marked state. In terms of my own experience, the portions of it that people might label as "psychotic states", I was immersed in a completely different world in which everything took on a profound sense of meaning and was only connected to "this" level of reality by the slimmest thread. I suspect that might be the more extreme end of the spectrum but I don't know for sure. There was also a preceding stage that I refer to as "reality-blurring" wherein the two worlds began to bleed into the other.

In terms of my own child's experience, they seemed to remain a little more connected to "this world". Sometimes, unusual thoughts or beliefs would arise out of their interactions in their daily life; these thoughts and beliefs then became very true and real to them. For example, they might believe that someone liked or disliked them very strongly but there wasn't really any rationale present for them to develop those beliefs or thoughts. After seeing them go through this a number of times I felt this might be what some people call "delusional" thinking but these "delusions" were not as marked as the full-blown psychotic states they underwent wherein they experienced themselves as being in a completely different state of reality.

To put it another way, let's say that you and I are engaged in a conversation with someone who is talking about his car. We might both agree that his name is Bob and his car is blue.

If you later pulled me aside and said that you thought Bob was secretly in love with you and he bought a blue car only because he knows blue is your favorite color and he wanted to impress you, I think that might suggest more of a "delusional state" -- especially if I hadn't seen Bob do anything that indicated a romantic interest in you. In this case, you're still responding to "reality" but something in your response is a little off, it doesn't quite mesh with my sense of reality but it also seems to go beyond a mere difference in opinion.

If you, still later, were to share that Bob was actually Christ and there was a battle going on between good and evil and the blue car was actually a holy chariot we had to get into before the world ended, I think that would suggest more of a "psychotic" state. In this scenario, you're very much in a completely different reality, very separate from this one.

This brief article may also help shed some light on different states of consciousness...

Q: Can you tell me what a psychotic break is? I can't seem to find any information about it.

A: There are, at least to my way of thinking, several states of mind... "normal", meaning consistent over time and situations; "disorganized", meaning a little scattered, unfocused, fragmented; "disturbed", meaning a state of mind leading to behavior that is socially unacceptable and potentially harmful to self and others; "disordered", meaning a display of clinically definable and diagnosable symptoms that are clustered under one primary heading (Depression, Borderline, Kleptomania, etc.); and "dissociated", meaning a collapse of the "ego integrity", a state of mind where the person is unsure of who they are, where they are, what they are doing and how they should be behaving - a pervasive and overall loss of "identity" and "sense-of-self".

The last, "dissociation" is generally considered a "psychotic break". In other words, a person is so overwhelmed by either internal or external turmoil that what we generally think of [as] their "ego" just plain collapses.

Source: Ask the Therapist

[spiritual_emergency]

OldSoul: I was told that because I have went untreated for 10+ years, I have engraved a thought process patterns and engraved in my mind a way of life that will take time to "re wire". It made it hard to even talk about things and explain, as topics like "episodes" came up... I never had them, it was just a constant for me, I never understood half the things that are normally discussed. Now that I am getting "better" I can somewhat see "episodes"... guess that's a good thing though... I don't know.

A few more thoughts for you OldSoul. The first is that as people digest and begin to understand what their experiences have been all about, they develop ways of explaining it to themselves. For example, I much prefer the terms "ego collapse" and "fragmentation crisis" to describe the experience that other people call psychosis. While you are developing your own sense of understanding, it's normal to feel a bit confused and even desirable as this is what keeps you looking for answers.

The second is that we can all fall into patterns of behavior and it may take time to "re-wire" ourselves when we're breaking free of them. Something I have found very useful for myself is understanding the role of triggers. It's when we get triggered by something that we can go into "automatic pilot" and then, these patterns of behavior can become activated. As you work with your own experiences, try to see if you can notice any particular pattern that serves to trigger you. Then, if you can, try to trace those triggers back to the original trauma -- whatever it was that set that particular scenario up as a trigger for you.

Naturally, this is where a relationship with a caring therapist or alternate such as a support group can come in handy. Because they are not as emotionally attached to the triggering events these other people may be able to see the patterns more easily. They also may be able to help you defuse the energy/thought pattern associated with the original trauma as well as help you develop coping skills for dealing with any re-triggering events.

Don't lose sight of the fact either that people do get through these things. This kind of processing also tends to be cyclic -- you deal with something, feel you've gained some new ground, move forward, and then, it comes up again and you deal with it once more, at a slightly deeper level and from a slightly different perspective.

[spiritual_emergency]

This pdf file may also be of interest because it explores the concepts of dissociation and psychosis in greater depth. It may also touches on issues of trauma, childhood abuse, voice hearing and DID.

Despite increasing interest in the relationship between trauma and psychosis, relatively
little attention has been paid to the potentially mediating role of dissociation. The
important role dissociative processes may play in the development of psychotic
symptoms is explored below.

Over the past several years, there has been considerable discussion about the relationship
between the diagnosis of schizophrenia and dissociative disorders (and processes). The dramatic decrease of interest in multiple personality and associated disorders at the beginning of the 20th century has been attributed to Bleuler’s 1911 concept of schizophrenia, which substantially broadened Kraepelin’s ‘dementia praecox’ to include a wide range of apparently dissociative phenomena. Indeed, Colin Ross (2004) has recently argued that some of the cases Bleuler described as ‘schizophrenic’ would be considered DID today...

Issues of comorbidity between dissociative, (other) post-traumatic, and psychotic disorders have been the focus of dozens of studies and papers, resulting in proposals for a psychotic subtype of PTSD and a dissociative subtype of schizophrenia, and measures of dissociation and psychoticism have been shown to be highly correlated in numerous populations.

Here, we take a different approach to exploring the apparently close relationship between
dissociation and psychosis. As the broadest definition of psychosis in the DSM-IV is simply all the symptoms of schizophrenia – excluding ‘negative’ symptoms –we decided to examine each of the ‘positive’ symptoms making up this diagnosis and consider the extent to which dissociative processes could be employed to understand them. In addition, we considered whether research findings on cognitive impairment and brain dysfunction in schizophrenia would be consistent with a dissociative interpretation of these symptoms.

Source: Are psychotic symptoms traumatic in origin and dissociative in kind?

It may be OldSoul, that you can better understand your experiences when measuring them against a dissociative spectrum.

[spiritual_emergency]

I also came across this book, which has been on my wish list for quite some time. It further brings together some thoughts as related to psychosis, dissociation, and trauma...

In the 100 years since Eugen Bleuler unveiled his concept of schizophrenia, which had dissociation at its core, the essential connection between traumatic life events, dissociative processes and psychotic symptoms has been lost. Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation is the first book to attempt to reforge this connection, by presenting challenging new findings linking these now disparate fields, and by comprehensively surveying, from a wide range of perspectives, the complex relationship between dissociation and psychosis.

A cutting-edge sourcebook, Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation brings together highly-respected professionals working in the psychosis field with renowned clinicians and researchers from the fields of traumatic stress, dissociation and the dissociative disorders, and will be of interest to those working with or studying psychotic or dissociative disorders, as well as trauma-related conditions such as borderline personality disorder or complex post-traumatic stress disorder. It makes an invaluable contribution to the burgeoning literature on severe mental disorders and serious life events. The book has three sections:

• Connecting trauma and dissociation to psychosis - an exploration of the links between trauma, dissociation and psychosis from a wide range of historical and theoretical perspectives.

• Comparing psychotic and dissociative disorders - a presentation of empirical and clinical perspectives on similarities and differences between the two sets of disorders.

• Assessing and treating hybrid and boundary conditions - consideration of existing and novel diagnostic categories, such as borderline personality disorder and dissociative psychosis, that blend or border dissociative and psychotic disorders, along with treatment perspectives emphasising humanistic and existential concerns.

Source: http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTi...470511737.html

I had originally quoted the following from that book. It might help paint a more concrete picture of psychosis that you can then compare your own experience to.

Ego-Fragmentation in Schizophrenia: A severe dissociation of self-experience

In this chapter, I will propose that schizophrenic syndromes represent a unique type of 'ego' or 'self-pathology', an ego fragmentation that in extreme forms could be considered an annihilation of the "ego/self". I consider this fragmentation or splitting of the ego to be a special form of dissociation, striking the ego/self along the five basic dimensions of vitality, activity, coherence/consistency, demarcation and identity. From this perspective, the schizophrenic syndromes can be thought of as lying on a continuum with other disorders, such as dissociative identity disorder (DID) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) all of which can be characterized as "non-cohesive" disorders. However, the perculiar rigidity and fragility of the schizophrenic ego which predisposes it to fragmentation contrasts with the fluid ego-states observed in DID and BPD. This 'ego-fluidity' may protect those with DID or BPD from the extreme fragmentation and deterioration seen in the schizophrenic syndromes....

... I assume that a highly unstable and fluctuating ego-self is less disposed to ego-fragmentation -- the most severe form of dissociation. It is even possible that is it the very instability or fluctuating nature of the ego-self in dissociative identity disorder that protects it from ego-fragmentation. This would mean that the precondition for a schizophrenic dissociative ego-disorder would be a more rigid ego, predisposed for fragmentation, rather than fluctuation. One can imagine schizophrenic symptoms as glass and dissociative identity disorder as quicksilver: the rigid glass fragments split apart and do not reassemble easily, whereas the quicksilver glides smoothly apart into globes -- little wholes -- but quickly unites without splitting apart.

Source: Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation: Emerging Perspectives on Severe Psychopathology

The table of contents is listed here. It looks very good for those who are better trying to understand the jumble of terms used to describe extreme experiences and find themselves confused at the places where they overlap.

[0ldsoul]

Wow!

Thanks for all the info!