We talked to one of our patients recently, and one question that came up was, “What would you tell your younger self, now that you have been through treatment?”
We find many of these statements to be so insightful and hope they may be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you may have to have a discussion with a young person you care about. Read hercontribution below.
“Dealing with psychosis can be difficult, but the truth is that you don’t have to live in your delusions all your life. The best thing to do is get help because there are treatments. Here are five reasons you should seek help, as soon as you possibly can.
1. The sooner you seek help, the greater your chance of recovery. If you seek to get help as soon as your symptoms come on, the greater your chances are of being psychosis-free. That means cured—the sooner they catch it, the smaller the fish to fry.
2. You can rid yourself of the stigma by seeking help to cure your symptoms. A lot of the time your stigma is self-inflicted and once you take the leap towards recovery, the stigma goes away,just like your symptoms.
3. Once you seek help, you can start realizing that the things you are experiencing are not real. Trust me, I’ve been there, your mind has you pretty convinced that everything you are suffering from is real. The voices and delusions can seem so real you begin to think that these delusions and auditory hallucinations are in fact reality, but once you begin to open up and talk about them, you can start to be reassured that they are not real.
4. You’ll start to notice that there is a support team behind you and that you are not alone in the world. There are other people that suffer from the same thing you once thought was happening only to you and no one else. Group therapy, and even one-on-ones with your therapist, can start to help you break down the self-centric circle you’ve been living in while feeling isolated from the condition.
5. You can get better and will get better, so why sit around and suffer? Why not seek help when there are medications specifically designed to combat your symptoms? It isn’t like you’ve got an incurable disease. This too can just be a hurdle in your life you can and will surpass, but letting it go untreated will only aggravate it more. Take control. You are not your psychosis.”
