GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC Well, you're returning
to a world of fear. When you wake up, you're still believing
all of the same things. It can be really daunting,
facing the world when
you're in the middle of it. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC FADES Hell. It's hell. You feel like you're surrounded
with just flames and just <BLEEP>
at you, man. There's nothing you can do
about it, except for take it, and it's just something that, you
know, you just gotta... you gotta...
Yeah, it's hell, man. For me, it was more of
a huge episode that... kinda took me off the planet. You think something's
real, but it's not. Yeah, and that's kinda how
I felt when I had my episodes. I felt like I knew things about
the world that nobody else did. Like, I had a secret
insight to the world. You don't realise that you're in it.
It feels in some ways quite normal. For me, it was a lot of energy that
I had. Just pent-up energy that
I needed to get out. HAUNTING PIANO MUSIC Most common age of onset for people
experiencing psychosis is kind of
late teenage years, early twenties. From a neurological perspective,
during that time, the brain is developing
at a very rapid rate. If you look at a brain scan of a
child, the neural connections are
huge, but there are too many,
and the brain's inefficient. So the brain goes through a
process called synaptic pruning, which is the idea of the brain
becoming more efficient. It's a very stressful
time in people's lives; the huge amount of social change
that goes on in teenagers and
early adulthood. Finding your own way in
the world happens at that time: moving out of home, a lot of
experimentation with drugs
and alcohol and sex. If someone's experiencing psychosis,
uh, we often talk about their ability to be able to determine
what's, kind of, real from
what's imagined or what's, um, what might be
thoughts or fantasies becomes
a bit more blurred. DREAMY MUSIC Psychosis can happen to anyone
and does happen to anyone, and we all have a breaking point
where we might experience psychosis
or maybe depression or mania, or other sorts
of mental health difficulties. DREAMY MUSIC CONTINUES I think a lot of different
things triggered it. Um, the lack of sleep, um, having a
really stressful period in my life up until that point. Um,
just pressures with work. Um, I'd been in a bicycle accident,
and may or may not have had
a concussion, so I was having medication for that. There were signs of it
happening before I left. I had a weekend where I did
some really risky things. Like, I've climbed over the balcony
to get back into the apartment after being locked out
at eight storeys high. Had no sleep, wasn't eating much.
Just did way too much. DREAMY MUSIC DARKENS Things were... very unreal. I had seen, on the
television, a lot of hallucinations. My friends had told me that we
were watching Midsomer Murders. It didn't seem like Midsomer Murders
to me. It was a story about my life. When I found out that nobody else
was seeing it, I didn't know what
was going on. I thought, maybe it was aliens or...
I really had no idea. It was truly terrifying. UNEASY MUSIC When I first starting
dealing with the psychosis, it felt like I was, like,
you know, a martyr for the world. For the person I was, the things
I'd done, and for the people
I knew, you know. I caused a lot of, you know,
a lot of bad, a lot of harm. This is what the voices
were telling me, you know? And I was a bad person for that,
you know, and I deserved to be dead, and because of that the world
was gonna kill me because of that. Like, they were gonna take me by
piece by piece. This is what the
voices were all saying, you know, starting with my hands, because my
hands are so important in my life. You know, this was this is dealing
with it, like, consistently for a
good week, even a little bit longer. Low sleep as well, you know.
You got the insomnia, and and
that's when not long after that, that's when I got to the point
to where where, uh, yeah. I ended up in hospital,
hospitalising myself. UNEASY MUSIC CONTINUES Before I went into hospital,
I was taking drugs every day, uh,
party pills and weed and drinking and I didn't sleep for
maybe four or five days. Like, people are always say drugs
unlock pathways in your brain. It's, like, yeah, but they unlock
the things to the dark the bad
side as well, you know? Yeah. Near the end of it, I just didn't
have a grasp on reality anymore. My mum found me in the morning
one day, and I was just
in tears, crying, and then she rang up the,
uh, crisis team, I think, and they took me to
the mental health ward. I didn't really realise where I was.
I didn't know if I was in hospital
or where I was. It just seemed like a daydream. Mm. EERIE DRUMBEAT People experiencing psychosis
can be quite risky, because their experiences
are really distressing. Um, they can be at risk of,
you know, harm from other people, because their behaviours might be,
um, you know, scary for other people or might be unexplained or unusual. Um, they can be at
risk of suicide. So, suicide rates of people
experiencing psychosis are
really really high. When I actually eventually woke up
about two days after when I was in
hospital 'cause I had a good sleep. And when I actually... the first
thing I remember too, just the
first thing I actually remembered when I woke up from the hospital
first time I woke up, I heard
a ding, ding 'cause everything's quite blurry still.
And once I got my vision right,
I looked over, and I can see all the wires and
the pumps and stuff, you know,
everything, and I just f... And I realised what I'd actually
done. I still remember what I
actually done, but I couldn't believe it,
because it felt so surreal. It felt like, you know, it was
a dream. I didn't know what was
what, you know. It's just... Yeah. (SIGHS) Took me a long
time to get my bearings, man. GENTLE PIANO MUSIC I met somebody that I went
to go and see a play with, and I really enjoyed connecting
with him and talking about life, um, and it got me really
excited, and I was so elevated that I found it really hard
coming down from that high. I just wanted to keep going,
so I stayed awake all night, and wrote and wrote and wrote
about all sorts of things, from friendships and relationships
to, uh, Snapchat, nonsense,
song lyrics, weird things, poems. And, sometimes, my writing would
be so fast and free that I couldn't
read it back the next day. I had quite a strange experience
like I've never had before, time passing really quickly. Delusions, hallucinations, hearing things that
aren't real like, the way wind blows in trees will be
translated into whispers or words. Being able to see different
creatures or monsters or alien
things inside trees and clouds. If I do get insomnia, it brings
you to a real manic state, where it's quite enjoyable. If I've got no responsibilities,
I can get quite in a big, manic
state and really energetic. But after a long time, if you don't
get sleep for a couple of days, then it's like you can't
sleep for the next few days. Just you can't switch off, yeah. So it's hard with responsibilities
if you've gotta go to school,
you gotta go to work, you've gotta be sleeping. GENTLE PIANO MUSIC I would say I was quite unlucky,
because my Mum is schizophrenic, so I already had a chance
of becoming psychotic. I think my own drug use may have
contributed. I'm still not sure. You can't really get away from it,
um, especially if you have a
genetic predisposition. It, sort of, always looms over you,
the thought that you could have an
episode at any time. And it almost feels like a life
sentence, but it shouldn't be
viewed that way. I started studying
Environmental Science at AUT. I'm worried that exams or
something similarly stressful might trigger another episode. When you experience that kind of
fear, the last thing you want to
do is experience it again. I mean, there's a lot of what we
don't understand about how the
brain works. We're kind of finding more and more
out about that over time. Life experiences, perhaps turning on
or off genes, resulting in people being more susceptible to
experiencing things like psychosis. And that's looked at things
like trauma, so the result
of, kind of, early-life trauma, use of marijuana
before the age of 14, heavy use before the age of
18 being, kind of, more... risky for a certain
sub-group of people. When I was 10 years old,
my dad, he passed away. Uh, he had epilepsy.
He had an epileptic fit, and then he had a heart
attack in the hospital. And that was a real hard
time, and sometimes it's still sad
to think about him. Yeah, very traumatic
actually seeing him die. And we're kind of trying
to figure out, like, how the
psychotic episodes happen, and it's, sort of, a past trauma
can lead to things like that. I left high school when I was 16,
and then I didn't go back into
tertiary study until I was 20. And so for those four years, that
was probably the hardest years of... starting out just partying and
taking too many drugs and... doing all the bad things,
and then that led to the
first big psychotic episode. For my mum, it would have
been really devastating. The hardest part is her probably
thinking that she's lost her son, thinking that I'm gonna end
up killing myself or killing
someone else, going to jail, or just never having a normal life again. SOFT PIANO MUSIC If my mum wasn't there to help me,
then I wouldn't have been able to
recover. I would... either... yeah, still be on the streets
just doing nothing, being
a homeless person, crazy and have no... 'cause she's the one
that got me into hospital and made
sure I take my medication, made sure I saw psychologists and
counsellors. She organised that. So without that guidance
and that support, then I wouldn't have had
the care, that I had, and... yeah, my life would not
be as good as it is now. For me, I would usually wanna
withdraw from social contact if I'm having a tough time, and I've
had to learn to be more open about
what I've been going through and let people in, and my friends
do want to be there for me, and they do wanna support me through
this, so it's been a good learning curve. You need a good network of support
when you're dealing with something
like this. Having Teva be there alongside the
journey has been really important
to me. I've been grateful for all his
help with sticking with me through
this. Um, some other people might run away
at first signs of someone
with wavering mental health, but he's been, um, a consistency.
He's always been there for me. And I feel really lucky
to have his influence. (CAN HISSES)
Whoa.
(LAUGHS SOFTLY) Sorry. That was dangerous. He's been open-minded. He hasn't
been judgemental or anything
like that. And he's been, like, the voice
of reason, as well. Always
a good sounding board when I'm having trouble with
something, and I need to talk. I've never actually openly spoken
to anyone, even those close around
me, in my circles, anything
like that, because I can't. People think, you know, 'He's tough;
he's strong; he's got a lot of
mana.' You know, that sort of stuff. But they don't actually realise
I'm actually broken. I'm hurting,
and I'm struggling. You know, I'm just having to put on
this bravado, like, you know, like, just trying to come in and
trying to deal with things. They don't realise my, you know,
dealing with all this shit. That's so hard.
I can't explain it. But you just feel like giving up.
How do people understand, you know? How can they explain this?
That's why I never told this story. Not many people actually
understand and and actually
know what psychosis is in general. I didn't, you know, and until I actually got it. Just to have someone around you,
supporting you, is a big deal,
you know? It's just... Like I said, they have to sympathise
and understand what you're going
through by just being there for you,
you know? Just being a friend
is... yeah, it's awesome. It can be quite difficult
and quite disorientating, going from being psychotic
to being 'normal' again. Not only have you possibly fractured
relationships with your friends
and family, but you... gradually figure out what's real and
what's not, and that can take a long
time. And, also, there can be a lot of
depression associated with being
sane again. Having Matt around has really
alleviated the loneliness that
I was experiencing before. Um, I feel a lot happier,
a lot more content, a lot safer. I think that I'd be less likely to
become psychotic again while
dating him, because he brings me so much joy. THOUGHTFUL ELECTRONICA MUSIC MUSIC WARPS SOMBRE NOTE People almost always don't want to
come and see a mental health team because they're worried that we're
gonna, kind of, be men in white
coats and drag people off, and we're not. We make that connection with people
over time, and that's based on
conversations, and some of those conversations
might be about their study, might be about their hobbies,
might be about their mental health
experiences as well. So we built that, kind of,
rock-solid foundation where they can trust us, and they
know that, you know, we're not gonna
freak out when they tell us stuff. Medication, that was something that,
like, I didn't accept at first. I'm
not gonna lie. I didn't wanna take it myself.
I couldn't, 'cause I couldn't
accept, you know... (CHUCKLES) being in
this state, you know? So that was the hardest thing
for me, was even trying to
accept that, you know, I needed the help for a start, and actually accepting that,
you know, what I've been going
through is actually happening. I was experimenting with it.
So I was trying to take it like, if I had to take it, if I
knew for myself I needed some help, I'd try and take it at a time where
I felt like, you know, it's time I
needed it, and trying to keep it as minimal
as possible, but it didn't work. You know, it was only a short-term
relief, and then I realised once
I got it consistent, it actually started like,
everything I was dealing with,
it actually started decreasing and started easing a little bit
easier, so I could actually start
finding myself and, you know, getting a bit of balance back again
and, yeah, start working on getting
better. We kind of see medicine
as having a role of helping reduce down the symptoms so that
people can learn to manage them; maybe using, kind of, psychological
techniques for managing that as
well. Um, both are important. Recently, I started receiving
really good therapy, and it was invaluable in terms
of the effect that it had on my
mental health and, just, my general
emotional well-being. To have a psychiatrist
who genuinely listens when you say that
you're experiencing negative
side effects, um, is crucial. I think you can minimise a lot
of distress by intervening early
in terms of psychosis, because, um, a person could go
for years and years having all
sorts of different delusions when, really, they might have needed
to be on the right medication, and that could have
alleviated a lot of their suffering. At the beginning, it was OK.
I just took it day by day. But then it started to get harder.
I put on a lot of weight from
having the medication, and I wasn't happy about that. I biked less. I wasn't as active. My world grew a lot smaller. I didn't have any of those highs
anymore that I had in the past,
and I missed that. So I went and, um, had courses at
the Taylor Centre, which I found
really helpful, um, about how to deal with distress, um, I had a really
supportive care worker there. Um, and they they gave me a
lot of skills to cope with this. Um, yeah, there's a lot of
value in what they do. THOUGHTFUL ELECTRONICA MUSIC Drug-induced psychosis is,
I guess, the most accurate
description of what I had. Um, and that, I mean, it's really
hard to define between just being
on the drugs and having a psychotic episode,
you now. But, like, once drugs
were out, and you've slept, then you're then you come right. Or if you have the drug-induced
psychosis, then once the drugs
are out of your system, you're still in a state that you're
just you can't return from. It takes a much longer
time to come back to reality. Life is very fragile.
If you're sick, psychotic,
and you're having episodes, you know, you shouldn't worry
about work; you shouldn't worry
about university. You should worry about getting
better. That's the first priority. QUIRKY PIANO MUSIC Looking after the body is a really
important way to also look after
your mind. Just being outdoors, getting
out there, staying active. I can just focus on myself and get
away from the noise of the world. It wasn't always easy going through
this, but as time went on, um, things got better for me, and
I established a routine and
rekindled some friendships, um, and just started to feel
a lot more positive about life. Um, being in full-time work
again was a huge part of that. I felt like a valuable
member of society again. And it just allowed me to be
more independent and, um, freer. And, yeah, it was a huge
part in getting well again. I've really enjoyed
getting into yoga. Dancing on a Monday night
as well, with my friends, that's been a lot of fun. And bike-riding, of course. I can't be without my bikes, and... I look forward
to doing these things, because I know that I'm nurturing
myself when I'm doing them. My dad and my mum divorced
when I was about 2 because of the delusions
that she was experiencing, and she went through a
lot of grief at that time. Because she was quite unwell,
I didn't really form a very
close relationship with her. For a long time, she felt
a lot like a stranger. Now that I'm older, I see things
more from her point of view. I'm sympathise with her a lot more,
because I've actually experienced
psychosis, so I know what it's like. I understand the trauma that she's
been through a lot better now. My therapist actually encouraged
me to form a closer relationship
with her and I decided that it
was a good idea as well, so I've been making more effort
to call her, ask her if
she wants to hang out. And I've met some resistance,
because she likes to have a
very ordered life, which is fine. I know that she has her reasons. You know, I don't
wanna stress her out. The intensity of it can get,
like, it can get really like,
really really, like intense. And then it get like, at
its slowest, it's like a whisper,
you know. You can You can hear it, but you
can't make out what they're actually
saying. Um, yeah, you know. Even saying
that, you know, is actually quite
hard. But within the last, well,
couple of years or so, it's been a lot easier,
better for myself to deal with.
It's actually getting easier now. The voices are not as consistent,
not as violently strong as they
were. Hey, sup, ladies?
Hi, Brandon!
What's up, what's up, what's up? Sometimes now, within
the last couple of years, I actually have periods of times
when I don't actually hear them
at times. And, um and that's a great relief
for myself, and because it gives
me that sense of knowing that, um, I think I'm almost there, you know?
I'm almost getting through it. I got hope back again.
That's the main thing too. Because I lost my hope a long time
ago, and, um, just you just feel
like what's been happening lately, you know, with work, just getting on
my feet, just getting doing the
things that I love to do again, it gives me hope that it's
gonna get better. And it is. Hey!
GLOVES THUD Nice!
GLOVES THUD
One more, doll. Aha! Yeah-yah. Very important to seek some help. 'Cause I'm that type of
guy that never does. Um, lucky for myself, the people
at the Taylor Centre, you know,
they never gave up on me. They kept um, you know, they
kept turning up at my door
when I didn't want 'em to, ring me up when they you know,
when I didn't wanna talk to anybody. But they were there all the time,
to the point when I was
ready, that's when I was you know, they were there already, and
I was ready to accept the help. GLOVES THUD
At the cross! GLOVES THUD
Awesome. And again! Bump! Bump! Finish 'em. Whoa! If you know someone that's going
through something like, you know, especially if you can't understand
it yourself, don't dismiss it and
try to say just harden the hell up. Because at the end of the day, if
someone is going through something, it's you know,
it's a problem. And, obviously, the person
actually needs some help. GENTLE, TINKLING TECHNO MUSIC SOMBRE MUSIC Well, thinking about it, what the
way things mapped out in my past, they all led to coming
into where I am now, and so if I was to change something,
it may not be so good now. So, um, like, the drugs led me to
hospital, which kind of led me to
meeting people through poetry. That was where I got introduced
to performance poetry, was through
hospital, and so if I never got sick, then I
never would have started performing. And through performing, I met so
many friends and had so many
opportunities. Yeah, so it's hard to say if I would
change something, because I just
I like what I have now, and that's because of
what I've been through. HOPEFUL MUSIC If you go through psychosis, and
you suffer all the hardships that
it entails, you become a lot more resilient. It teaches you about
the nature of fear. The more you go through it, the more
you learn how to overcome that fear. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst
enemy, but at the same time, I feel like it's made
me a stronger person. HOPEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES I don't think I would
change anything. (SIGHS) Nah. Nah. Nah, I won't change anything.
I couldn't. Nah, I wouldn't
change anything. (SIGHS) You know, even as
hard as it is for me to say, but, because of everything you go
through in life, that's what makes
you who you are. And, um, yeah. I won't
take it back, you know. I won't change anything. HOPEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES Now I have an understanding and the maturity now that
I never had before. And because of that, it's helped
me grow as a person too and actually helped me get to be
where I am today and helped me
get through all this. Yeah. HOPEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES I've learned that, um, it's OK to go through this kind of
experience. It doesn't make me any
less of a person. And just to be more open-minded
about other people, 'cause what you see on the outside
isn't always a reflection of what's
happening for someone internally. And I think... it's just given me a
better outlook on life, and I've been happier with not
being the perfect person anymore. Like, I think it's really cool
that we all have our difference
challenges in life, and that we can talk about them,
and work away at creating less
of a stigma around mental health, that's really important to me,
so I've tried to be as open as
I can about my experience. HOPEFUL MUSIC GENTLY FADES One of the most important messages
is that, you know, psychosis is
treatable, and and recovery is expected,
so we expect people to get better, get on with their lives, um,
and when you're experiencing it, it can feel terrifying and feel that
it's never going to be right again. But, look, we see we engage with
people, we see people get better and
get on with their lives and thrive and actually come out
stronger and better, um, because they've learned a lot about
themselves and about the world. For parents with kids that
have recently been diagnosed, you gotta think of them as being
sick as if they were physically ill. You know, if your son has got a
a gushing wound on his chest, you're gonna do everything you can
to get him into hospital and get
that treated and then once it's been treated by
doctors, you're gonna keep them in
bed and look after the wound, make sure they take their
medicine, and you clean it, and you need the same sort
of tenacity, the same level
of dedication when they've got a
mental illness as well. And you've kind of gotta understand
that they're very similar things, just but you can't see it, you
can't touch it but they're still ill, and they still need the same the
same care, and, you know, without
that care, then they're not gonna get better.
I suffered psychosis multiple times and I really connected with how these people described it.
You become so convinced of something, that it changes your reality and you literally perceive your belief to be the truth.
In my case, I believed I was God.
I'm very lucky to be alive.
But I no longer trust reality.
I live life knowing how the brain can trick you, how you can be so sure you're just sitting on the couch sipping a glass of water, then you suddenly wake up and find you've been beating the shit out of someone. (Not what happened to me, just an example.)
I even expect now that when I die, I'll just wake up back in the midst of that psychosis, still stuck in that eternal moment (I experienced time dilation; a few minutes were perceived as infinite time passing. If you can't comprehend that, you're very lucky) or in a hospital bed as a coma patient, or being reborn as myself about to experience the same life all over again.
Psychosis is like a temporary visit to hell, but you become convinced it will never pass - so it doesn't.
That’s an incredible piece of work
Outstanding content, thanks for posting.
This is a few years old, I wonder how the four.people are doing now?
Thanks for posting this. I hope they are all still doing well.
When I look back I cringe, farc I really did that but owell the trip was interesting.