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My struggle with paranoid psychosis
Posted Thursday 13 September 2012
I was lucky enough to be in a profession that was also my passion. The added bonus was that I worked as part of a great partnership. But then things started to change.
My friend and boss developed a bowel condition and his wife was diagnosed with MS. Though he put on a brave face, he began to struggle to keep on top of things. One evening, I listened to his endless chatter from one subject to the next and that weekend he collapsed. He took some months off and I took on his workload. His medical certificate said ‘depression and anxiety’; later he told me he assumed he had had a nervous breakdown.
I felt really guilty that I hadn’t seen it coming. When he eventually came back to work, he was a totally different man. His new life didn’t include me: he’d get irritated at everything I said or did and I was gradually shut out of his family life and side-lined by him at work. This was really difficult and I grieved for the person I had lost whilst he slowly got better. This experience meant that I took a much greater interest in mental health, and even attended a course funded by my employer, to help me be more aware of mental health problems in general.
Then a ‘reorganisation’ of departments at work led to us being split up. I struggled with my new life; my role was changed and I was no longer at the pulse of news which meandered around my former team. I felt totally abandoned and unfulfilled.
Two years later, a chance came up to return to my former team, but I didn’t get the job and was crushed even further when my old friend left it to Human Resources to inform me. Then someone we both knew described him as a ‘two-faced user’ and I was shocked; were we talking about the same person? I then started to learn just how much the brain is like a computer and my circuits started to malfunction as one piece of a ‘memory jigsaw’ fitted with the next and the next. I felt out of control and I unhealthily started to analyse and question every aspect of our relationship. I even began thinking that he must have been making jokes about me for years and I decided to keep out of his way.
I then started to get negative vibes from my current team and I worried about people talking about me or putting me in a bad light. Some people started challenging me on my options, about my wages, my role, my approach to work and everything. It felt like I was being bombarded with smirks and lack of team-play. A colleague even implied that my emails were being looked at by senior staff, so I became very conscious of everything I said and wrote.
I tried to act my way through the days and to be as professional as possible, but I was scared of what bullying I may be subjected to next. One day, three derogatory comments were said in my face and suddenly, for a few seconds, I felt suicidal. I was shocked. I had always been someone who loved life. I didn’t tell anyone.
A year later my mother became ill and died. My attempts to get a job elsewhere came to nothing. A male friend, in his concern of me, followed me everywhere, leaving me no space to breathe at home or at work. And then came the day that I wasn’t sure that I could trust my last handful of friends or my family. At that point, I went into crisis.
I spent two weeks in the mental health unit at a hospital, deeply scared that I was not even safe from harm there. My nervous breakdown was coined ‘depressive paranoid psychosis’ and I felt nervous with absolute fear and doubt in my abilities. My brain felt like jelly with the churning of thoughts going round and round in my head. A few months off work followed before I came back part-time. But I couldn’t cope with being anywhere near the people I had worked alongside. I had absolutely no confidence or clarity in any aspect of the work I was doing. I eventually took my escape route through redundancy.
Despite trying to get memories of everything out of my mind, they continued to haunt me almost every hour of every day, even a year after I left. The catalogue of memories were partly real and partly in my mind, but both were just as damaging. I doubted most things and was suspicious of most people. I was sensitive to negative comments and it took me six months to summon enough concentration to even pick up a book. I totally forgot what relaxation really was, I still had no job and didn’t even know if I would be useful, even if I managed to get one. Even strangers saw something in me that wasn’t at peace.
I was eventually weaned off one of my prescription drugs and started to feel more confident about volunteer work and attending job interviews. But then, out of nowhere, it all started to happen again. My brain started linking the past with the present and the present with the imaginary until I was creating stories in my head which felt scary and totally real.
It never ceases to amaze me how physically and mentally strong people can be but also just how fragile they can be too – it doesn’t take much to go from being well to being in crisis. The original version of me was strong and independent, but my story shows that mental health issues can happen to anyone and this is something I didn’t truly understand until I went through it myself.
Elene
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4 Comments
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Your story has moved me to tears. Much of it mirrors my own life. I used to be successful in a caring professional career, happy to have lots of people relying on me. In the last weeks I have lost the fight to keep control of my mind, and with it I have lost my job and my self respect. I am not a likeable person right now. However, the bad days are now interspersed with chinks of light and I believe that recovery is possible- not to my former self but perhaps to a new self that will be acceptable. I do not find my local mental health services helpful- it often seems they exist to delay or obstruct any potentially helpful intervention. It is impossible to judge if the problem lies with me or the system, so I tend to believe that it is me that is at fault. It is so hard to make the right decisions when I can't trust a single thought that enters my head, or trust anyone else to make decisions on my behalf. Never give up because in the worst moments you will make the worst judgements. Go with your best decisions and hang onto the self-belief that you are a wonderful human being who is just having a really awful experience. If you can fight through it you are the sort of person who will use your knowledge to help many others.
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The building blocks are certainly small, but a supportive family have helped me along the way. I agree that support from mental health services can be flaky and if I had needed to rely on them solely, I would have felt adrift. I can only say, be patient and try to trust whatever medication is advised for you. I didn't really believe in mine, until I went off them and saw the consequences. Wishing you all the best in your recovery and in looking for work. Find someone you can trust and talk to them.
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Please can u help me! And advise me on how i can be their for my mum who has the same illness, she is very suspicious of me after her break down in may, i myself have felt like iv lost her and was greiving but now am feeling stronger i need to help her and feel closer to her again xx
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Gee, I put my sister in particular through a lot when I was ill, and was very suspicious of my brother. She had to challenge me on every thought I had, saying it 'would be okay'. But often I couldn't believe her. I didn't trust the psychiastrists either - thinking they were 'in on everything'. Time, sleep and medication are the best healers from my experience. I think its really important for you not to take it personally by her not trusting you. Do things together that make her feel safe and wanted, especially things that are familiar and that she can trust as real. Make a meal together where she can see what you're doing and she can help you and see everything that's going on, so she feels she can rely on the food being 'good.' Go for a walk in a park of her choice and stay with her to let her know you won't abandon her. Talk about good memories. 'Protect her' from people she does not like. As time goes on she will see that things she was worrying about as being real, didn't actually come true. If its more about her having being 'put under pressure' that led to her coming apart, then try and keep her away from things that will stress her - but don't hide things from her either as then she'll become even more suspicious. I'm now trusting of my family as I see how they've supported me - and the same will happen to you I'm sure.
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