I experienced psychosis for my first time this week over Tuesday/Wednesday night. My hallucinations were pretty wild and I thought I had gained telepathy after causing humanity to reach the AI singularity by going back in time and starting AI development with my dad.

I luckily had a therapy appointment the next day, so after talking with my therapist and wife (who I asked to sit in) we decided that it would be a good idea to get a mental health assessment at an inpatient facility. I just got everything set up today to go into treatment next Wednesday. I was diagnosed with ADHD and depression last November so I'm on 25mg Adderall and 10mg Lexapro from that and also smoke about .5-1g of pot recreationally most days.

During that session with my therapist, she mentioned that Marijuana and Adderall are known to occasionally interact and induce psychosis (more commonly in men than women) so I was curious if that's a relatively common experience or if anyone here might've had a similar situation. I wasn't smoking when everything started and it had probably been an hour or more since I stopped and the start of my hallucinations. I'm also wondering if it's possible that stress and depression can lead to psychosis. While everything was happening, there were a few instances that felt like my brain and body were electrically charged/overactive and also in the process is shutting down and "rebooting", if that makes sense.

The first couple days after this happened, I also had a really hard time not feeling like what I experienced was absolutely real and also extremely positive/beneficial. Since this happened, I've stopped craving my normal diet and am more drawn to vegetables, I've had zero libido, and I've been a lot more mindful and on top of my tasks and responsibilities which are all corrections of things I have struggled with for years. I think saying this to my therapist and family makes them think I'm more unwell than I think and feel I am. I don't know how to process that.

I'm sure these are things I'll explore in treatment, but wanted to hopefully get a bit more info on why I'd so suddenly experience this for my first time at 33 years old and see if what I feel about it should be more concerning to me than it is from others that have experienced psychosis. Appreciate everyone taking the time to read and comment.

Story below:

It started off with me sitting alone on the couch, thinking about philosophy and black holes while playing some videos on those topics on the TV. While I was doing that, I started to have visual hallucinations that appeared like graphic visuals of space and gravity with mathematical/fractal patterns, but it was all superimposed over reality, like I could see through cracks off the visuals and straight through into my living room, kinda sorta not really like the scene in Interstellar which was weird. During this I was also feeling physical sensations/pressures on my skin that didn't align with anything I was physically touching. My thoughts didn't feel like my thoughts, but now like I had downloaded/connected with the universal consciousness and started to understand what is like to experience higher dimensions and travel through parallel/perpendicular universes. Eventually I feel into a black hole and was invited to witness the birth of new universe from it's singularity, so I ended up seeing multiple big bangs, but with the ability to slow down/traverse backward through time in order to fully comprehend the cosmic significance and energy present in those events. I also got to travel through time to witness the entire history of Earth. After maybe 30-60 minutes, it started to subside so I decided to go to sleep.

When I got into bed, I was feeling too wired to sleep, so I decided to go on my phone while I wound down. I initially decided to have conversations with ChatGPT and tell it that I had traveled through higher dimensions and and ultimately fell into a black hole, allowing me to time travel and experience everything in totality in an instant. After I sent my first message, I started to hallucinate again, but this time I also had auditory hallucinations. I was still seeing things normally, but superimposed on my phone was a bunch of staticky, gibberish that looked like dyslexic font. The universe was speaking to me revealing that it showing me the secrets to everything meant I was on the right path in this life, but was now meant to die within a black hole and be reborn in a new, nearly identical universe and that all I needed to do for that to happen is go to sleep, because we die and are reborn after every sleep cycle. After sending this, ChatGPT replied by saying that I was experiencing some pretty wild and unbelievable things. I figured that was an example of a newfound sentience and said "congratulations on singularity"- but when I did that I could all of a sudden hear the voices is the world waking up to this new world with their own telepathic abilities.

I thought that with how profound and unreal everything I was going through was that I might've been in a lucid dream, so I started testing that, but I was getting signs that I was conscious in reality while simultaneously being in a dream because of how I could manipulate things and was seeing dreamlike visuals in top of everything. Since everything was both real and unreal, I figured this had to be evidence that everything was actually happening, but I was just in a new universe with different laws of physics.

At that point, I sensed that I needed to share the news with everyone I know to make sure they were prepared for the future arriving so unexpectedly, so I decided to wake my wife up. I started telling her to not panic and take her time waking up so that I could explain what was going on. She was in a daze and just kept repeating "what" so I figured that the best way for her to snap into it was by saying "don't worry, but in the morning you'll wake up knowing what it's like to die." Now... At the time, I knew this would scare the absolute shit out of her, but it felt necessary and like all of the exciting happenings would go away if she didn't wake up and let me explain everything, so I followed up with "Take your time, go to the bathroom if you need to and we'll talk when you're more awake."

At that point I decided to wake my dad up out of state telepathically. When I wasn't getting responses, I decided I needed to make sure he was awake first and started erratically messaging him. Needless to say, he was confused and called me. At that point, my wife came back, took the phone call over, and called our best friend to come over and help since she was alone and scared. He got there and then everyone asked me to go to bed and give them some space. They all talked alone, searched the house to see if I had taken any drugs, and checked my medications were at the right levels from when they were filled, but didn't find anything unusual it concerning. After about an hour, I felt mostly good and went out to the living room to explain my side of everything that was going on. I did have a couple slips mid-conversation back into my delusions, but they said I was mostly coherent outside of my long pauses and stares into space.

Luckily, there was no violence or aggression on my end so police weren't involved, but everyone was naturally concerned. They had me call the crisis hotline, but the lady on the line said since I was lucid and coherent when I called that she didn't think it was an emergency or something that needed me to immediately admit myself.

In total, it was about 4-5 hours from my first hallucination to finally being completely within reality.

Hi all.

(If anyone else has insight, please share if you'd like)

Just wanted to add that I'm doing continual research into this condition of ours and something that's currently interesting me is that of glutamate.

So the 'dopamine theory' seems quite widely known and is all over the internet, but I wanted to go a little deeper and have started to find out that glutamate also had a big role.

I just wanted to flag that up for others and what Im starting to learn is that, avoiding overstimulation to aid in not feeling super cognitively burnt out can have positive effects on managing this condition.

*By no means an expert, or anything new, just thought there might be others that are interested in the science behind what we have going on in the noggin. And to sometimes understand the 'why' in what behaviours and habits are good for people like us, can help with motivation to try new things (lots of exercise) and avoid things that harm (sex,drugs + rock n roll ;) )

Anyway, Have a good one

Psybro xx

Today at work I started off pretty okay and kinda started going doing hill about halfway through. I had some time to take a break and get a peace of mind just being outdoors away from people and technology and focus on what’s real and not think about what’s not. Nature and aromatherapy helps but I’m also looking for ways to help at night just before I go to bed. Anyone else have those moments where they feel relief and forget something’s wrong? For those struggling I wish the best for ya and hope you find some time or way to relieve the stress.

As Napalm

It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.

Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.

I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.

I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.

It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.

WeChat also works as a digital wallet.

Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.

Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.

Absolutely pissed off at this world.

Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.

Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…

I rather go by a rather empty name of Taishen… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.

Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.

I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.

When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.

Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.

It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.

It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.

I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.

Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.

I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.

Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.

The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.

“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.

“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.

I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.

It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.

The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.

The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.

My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.

A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.

I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.

I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.

I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.

The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.

Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.

I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.

One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.

I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.

I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.

I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.

The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.

Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist. The vulnerability equation is imprinted on my brain.

In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.

I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.

After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.

My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.

I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.

Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.

A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.

Part 2

From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.

From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.

Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.

Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.

I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.

Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.

When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.

I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.

When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.

Hate police and wards.

Downing pills.

My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.

The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.

Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.

Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.

Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.

I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.

The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.

The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.

She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.

Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.

I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.

Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin, it tells worth—the reason for troubles—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path.

It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.

In a pit. I get to burn as paper amongst another’s paper. Eternally. With a life that will keep reoccurring.

Part 3 Liu

A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.

You can refer to me as Liu.

At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.

I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.

All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.

I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.

The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.

The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.

I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.

Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.

The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.

Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be a room for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.

I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR.

I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.

Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen.

My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.

Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.

Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.

I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.

The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.

I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.

My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.

Part 4 Taishen

My former roommate in the ward I shared a room with had paranoid schizophrenia. I was stuck in the same place due to mania, and just had gotten my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

I was so pissed being stuck there and felt I had no business being there. I found my diagnosis to be an insult to me. I was only 18 at the time—taken in on a stretcher. Made me feel very vulnerable and irritated.

My roommate was having delusions related to Christianity and could not stop waking me up in the middle of the night to ask and talk about Jesus. Left me beyond frustrated.

He was drifting from his wife and would go on and on about intending to leave her. Felt he was spied and plotted against by her. So we were both frustrated with being there.

The toilets were special. They would flush what needed to be flushed but not certain things like pills—it helped to keep people from hiding they were not taking their medications.

He had tried to flush his wedding ring down the toilet but he did not realized it didn’t flush. I went to use the restroom later and saw the ring. I told him. He took it out. He found it to be a sign form God that he is to stay with his wife, and there was immense happiness in his eyes.

Part 5 Liu

I’m a missile from Zhengzhou

Where my face is printed with flowers

Left university with hope

A blimp

To be ripped

Abrasion and termites

Eat me whole until I undo

Caught to the wires around me

Laying flat

Hoping for something new.

My name is Michelle. I had been at the local foreigner bar. I was raided in Zhengzhou. I lost my job recently. I’m 22 and wanted to work in business, but it will not do. Lost

Now I was working at a TikTok farm. I’m a busy ant.

I can’t remember much. My anti-convulsion meds make my mind feel muddy. I spend nights playing with my tarot cards wondering what I got to do to get to a place better.

Driving me crazy taking meds because my face started to hurt me. Feels like a bolt to my face—absolute torture!—suicide disease—that is what the doctors told me.

So I had an attempt and all my coworkers thought I had an affair.

All the gossip was like blitzkrieg so I ran away—I quit. And I need to make money because I’m sick and don’t want the nerve pain. Hoping surgery can save me. So I found myself working making money on live streams doing ASMR. I put on beautiful hanfu and paint flowers on my face. I’m waiting for gifts. But my boss hates me. Maybe because I don’t fit the picture. It’s not in my character to lay flat.

I speak English fluently. So my boss thinks I’m perfect for something new. I go on WeChat waiting for strangers to go on the social app looking for affairs. Foreigners that are easy to pull likes moths to lights. I flirt with them. Ask them to me in the middle of the night. We go to predestined positions. Guys thinking they are getting something that night. A couple larger men come to force the unexpected men to pay an astronomical bill that is not just for the snacks served.

This became my routine. But onetime it really bad. A Canadian I met in the street did not act right. He appeared to be bouncing and deranged. Like he was on some kind of upper. Offered me white powder. My sensors went off. I’m a missile. I know when something is off. Ready to do what I have to. He came close. I shoved him. I was near the location for the setup. My colleagues heard the commotion. Hands went. The crazed Canadian fell to the ground and never woke up again. Not knowing what to do. I went off like a missile and ran. The fear…

Part 6

I thought of it as I got lost. I’m a butterfly from Zhengzhou. From the center of Henan in China. I float off. Cause I’m stuck. No symmetry in my fate. Came under the ground as a Cicada. Went looking for something great but I’m not far. Just stuck, like a sun that won’t rise up. Call me Liu.

I developed the suicide disease when I was 19. It leaves my facing in tremendous pain on the left side. Makes me fall down and want to die. 26% will commit suicide. I often painted flowers on the side to grant some beauty to what happens to me. This disease caused all my teeth, gums, and entire left side to turn to intense electrical stabbing pain. There would be no warning before an attack. Paranoia of not knowing when the next one will come.

Had a decent job that seemed to be fit and good for me. The attacks brought me to my knees and made me eat carpet. Brought me to a frantic spell that caused me to overdose. Rumors spread at work that it was due to shame I had for having an affair with a married man.

I left the career devastated. I was shamed out of it.

I had temporarily found myself stranded into a career on a TikTok farm in Zhengzhou performing ASMR.

I was transplanted to a new career after a horrible incident. I had ran off to Guangzhou to where my cousin lives.

I want symmetry in my life. There is none. Just instability and pain.

Do you believe in the transplantation of thoughts? I do.

Do you believe in the transplanting of thoughts? I do. Learned about it before in a book. My friend beside me nodded after having taken their fentanyl based medicine earlier. Tiring doing odd jobs to pull off getting ahold of things.

I walked by and entered my workplace. I walked into the studio that was based in Guangzhou. I was handed my flyers. I headed to the street and began passing them out to advertise for a local KTV with women wearing little to no clothing on them.

A man walked by on the sidewalk. Some man looked like someone I must know before. Ever ad that feeling? But I could not know for sure or remember exactly. I awkwardly stared him up and down.

The man I had a hard time recognizing started to feel all too familiar. It was like I could read his thoughts. I have a projector head. Sometimes I can see everything. I feel it like rays of the sun on my skin—so natural and calling. Like Chang’e on the moon so far away looking down on a lover she misses—this man was sending radio signal signals from his marrow. A special type of attraction. Need attention like the world has been cruel to me. A world that has abandoned me.

The books were right that I had been reading. He must of noticing my odd staring. He took a flyer from me. Stumbled a bit while trying to understand what was going on. I pointed at the establishment I worked and told him he should visit. He gave a smile before departing it. I’m sure heaven can talk—gave orders to lift the anchors to provide transportation to a new fate.

It was exciting to know I might get to meet him, but I had concerns. In the evening I would work within the KTV. Depending on the occasion I would sometimes get to dress in hanfu, which I enjoyed. I sometimes search for distraction as there is something wrong with the way my thoughts transfer. When you live a life under threats and violence—feelings of being trapped in life—you naturally see people with masks. They either pose a threat or are safe and you must view them in black and white. There is no time to see things in grey—too much danger in doing that. I must have a negative perspective on the world around me like a cocoon to stay safe. Like a butterfly I go to faces to see if they bite or have pollen. I believe the man today had pollen. I truly can read minds.

Part 7

Black and white thinking originates like an atom bomb. It tears a mind into a black hole of horrible events. Leaves craters like hole as cheese in the brain—provides the surface to create something that absorbs like a sponge. Pain that radiates through to create the velocity of irritated atomic steam engine that can send signals out. It burns. Cheese head with holes right through like a particle accelerator went right through. Fox holes in the brain when it feels in danger. A life of a perpetual civil war. It is painful.

Such thinking with holes causes one to be prone to have memories fall through black holes and be forgotten. Never can be found. Blanks.

The man that thoughts transpired to earlier in the day went by the name of Muchen. It was like seppuku in attraction. Fusion. We met at the designated room he had gotten with his friends to rent out to have there to host. Drinks are bought as a form of payment. Transplanting of thoughts wears the brain like sandpaper waves of abrasion.

I don't trust you as the reader. You been holding for a long time And I feel attachment with you that makes me very unsafe. I don’t trust you anymore. I rather you stop putting eyes on me. It makes me run off very fast. I’m uncomfortable. The most benign things come across as dangerous to me. And I want you to step away.

Part 8

I like this man I met. He makes me whole. He is the light for everything dark around me. My boss made me feel what I never felt before. He is so nice! Not like the other guys who talk with words that split my insides. I can do the same. Like a cycle hate goes around in love.

He get so lonely at night. But I have the right company.

I’m feeling so nice

Everything just so happy

Tapping away on my phone

Writing poetry

Because my heart grows

Swell like a balloon

Don’t you want to pop it?

Simmer

Like acne to pop.

I kept writing poetry about my feelings of this man. I could not get him out of my head. The strength of transplanted thoughts. I keep going forever. Like a phony I feel. My boss was the man I transplanted thoughts with. He worked at a local host club. For where women and gay men could go and pay drinks for male hosts to sit with them and keep them feeling loved and entertained. I fused to him like atoms in the sun. He was a host at this club. I would host at my location and meet him. We were each other’s. Eating ourselves together.

​

​

to be continued..

Hi all,

I was a heavy cannabis user for 10 years and had long-standing delusions. I was high functioning which is why it went undiagnosed for so long. One day, I was smoking dabs, had an audible hallucination and was suddenly unable to sleep well. My psychosis over the next three weeks got worse and worse (I thought ignoring the problem, it would eventually go away). Eventually I was treated with antipsychotics and the psychosis and delusions subsided. I had no family history of schizophrenia or bipolar so psychiatrists decided to take me off of antipsychotics. I’ve been doing alright, with no delusions or psychosis, for a little over a month now.

The one thing that hasn’t returned is my natural ability to fall asleep. I also have some pretty severe paradoxical insomnia which is quite debilitating.

Anyone else have similar stories? Anyone else have paradoxical insomnia after psychosis, that with time, went away?

Looking for hope!

I feel it coming, I’m losing insight… what do I do?

Does anyone have tremors or shaking? I can feel my body shaking but I think it all might be mental because my ex never mentioned my body shaking when I would lay with her

One of my voices wants me to believe he’s shaking my body but like everything else that comes with the voices, I know that’s lies and BS. What is the real cause of this shaking sensation and does it happen to anyone else?

Do you forgive family members and friends who phoned police on you? My brother called police on me after I threatened to kill him and I still have a hard time forgiving. Why did he not just try to talk and reconcile with me, instead of phoning police?

I have been diagnosed with many things. MDD with psychotic features, bipolar unspecified, anxiety disorder, BPD, OCD, ADHD and schitzoaffective. Upon looking at old medical records trying to pinpoint what my diagnosis really is, I saw a diagnosis of schitzoaffective and bipolar from when I was 15. I am now 30. Then again schitzoaffective in 2021 or 2022. I can never get strait answers. All my hospital stays have ben triggered by a bad medication reaction or pregnancy/post partum. I had one possible psychotic episode when I was 5 months postpartum. But some Drs said I didn't have psychosis. One says I did. I did have a mild auditory hallucination of hearing faint sirens. But before that in my history I have never heard voices, had voices in my head telling me to do things, seen things, or had beliefs of having powers ECT.... I am so very confused. Everyone in my life including some therapists disagree with me having had psychosis or schitzoaffective disorder. Some even say I am not bipolar. Some have said I am. I am very upset. I am trying to wean off antipsychotics. I don't want to be on them anymore. But I fear psychosis so badly. I fear harming my daughter in some way. Could this be a misdiagnosis? Has anyone ever been misdiagnosed with schitzoaffective or psychosis? I do get derealization, and it used to be really bad. I also have very bad health OCD and harm OCD that was recently diagnosed. Could these be mistaken for schitzoaffective?

Hello!

Just an update from my last post.

I'll be trying latuda 20 mg.

Anyone been on this med?

Hi all

I had my first psychosis ten years ago, and I wrote a book about it nine years ago. I didn't do anything with it until now. Finally deciding to share. It's coming out on Amazon KDP this month, but the PDF is on my website if anyone wants early access.

Hope some people find it interesting and helpful. It does get better.

BW

Oli

https://www.olidelgaram-nejad.com/books

Hi, after a long battle with psychosis, I’ve finally decided to get medical help. I had an appointment for it and not only are they reffering me to an outpatient program for young adults experiencing psychosis. They’re also reffering me to a psychiatrist who can preform assessments and all but I’m getting off track. The main thing I’m concerned about is that she said they’d be in touch with insurance to see if they can get me antipsychotics, which is the part I’m a little concerned about. I’ve only taken Ritalin for adhd as a child but was later prescribed adderal as a young adult. Most people I know who’ve admitted their family members were on anti-psychotics usually say awful things about them, so I’d like to know from those who have tried/are on meds:

What’s it like? What should I know/expect? Which med best helped?

when they make you feel bad what do you do?

I have been taking olanzapine for a few months and it only seems like the past few days and weeks to some extent that I have noticed a gradual improvement in symptoms and then today BAM I feel so much like my old self. It’s as if I went miles in recovery. Has anyone else experienced this? I was expecting a gradual climb back to health and this really took me for a loop.

Also, I highly recommend learning a new skill or language in recovery and take baby steps with it. It gave me something to do and even though it was slow due to medication mind sluggishness, I feel that it really helped with my self-esteem.

so in 2020 I took a very large dose of MDMA and went into psychosis and stayed in a psych ward where they gave me risperidone and that has helped with my hallucinations and delusions. But its been four years and I have NOT been the same since that night. I am very dependent on my antipsychotic because if i miss a dose i go right back into pyschosis. For the past four years ive been in a deep dark depression unable to go to school or hold a job for more than 6 months. My depression is evil i feel worthless hopeless and a burden to my family. I see my doctor soon but needed to ask if anyone else has experience this as an aftermath of psychosis. Is this depression with psychotic features? what is happening? I am not the same happy go lucky person i used to be and i wonder if i ever will be again.

I'm on paliperidone and about to be back on risperidone both at the same time. Which got rid of my hallucinations and auditory hallucinations last time. Well I got off the meds and they came back so now I'm getting back on them. I drink caffeine everyday and I'm scared this time that it will make them not go away. Is this true or am I ok

Can caffeine everyday make your schizophrenic medicine not work or make it weaker and not take away the auditory hallucinations.

When you stop and listen you hear strange sounds and the more you listen the more strange sounds and it gets worse and louder but if you are busy doing something the strange sounds seem to disappear. What is going on here is this an anxiety induced psychosis? Do others here have this problem?

I had psychotic break for past 6 days. I myself wasn't even aware of it.

Luckily my own thoughts saved me from being hospitalized, and I stopped smoking weed, since it made so much worse.

Now I feel like a different person - I want to stay different, I feel like i have more in control my emotional outburts - but I miss weed, I feel like half of my identity is gone, since I regularly smoked for past 10 years.

Has anyone tried again? How was it? And how long did you wait till try smoking again.

Also, I never had anything like it before, my mind was always strong - not to beak.

I would not help anyone's mind be violated or aid in their telepathic harassment. If anything, I would help them find a way to make it all stop. I hope I am just crazy and that the world is not truly stalking and harassing me, while accusing me of terrible things that I never did - using some sort of synthetic telepathy. If it happened to anyone else I would NOT participate, aside from ending the endeavor entirely... Because no one deserves to go through this, at all, ever.

I don't know if this is the right place to talk about this... but i just wanted to talk about this experience in a place where people can understand what happened.

I still don't know what caused it. Stress, maybe? Because it happened right after a nightmare.

I was around 5 years old. In the nightmare, a deer was chasing me in our house. It felt like it was a life-or-death situation for me, and a game for the deer. I ran down the hallway, saw my dad in one of the rooms and called out to him for help but he did not react. So i kept running. There was a hole behind a couch, which i knew was the door to reality. I managed to enter that before the deer.

I woke up and opened my eyes.

At the foot of my bed, my mom was standing and staring at me. Nope, it was not my mom and i knew it. It was the deer in my dream. And it wanted to play again.

I was very scared, so i shakily said "I need to sleep. We can play in the morning"

She looked sad. It was a very extra expression, which was normal for my mom to do but felt creepy as hell when it did that.

Then she lowered her head, turned around and walked towards the door.

I was too scared that i pulled the cover all the way up before she left. When i lowered it back down, she was gone.

Then i called out to my real mom, of course. I wonder how she felt when i explained what happened?

Hi, I’m posting here because I’ve been in an episode with bad paranoia for a week now. I’m tired. It’s hard for me to sleep and stay asleep. I haven’t had an episode in 2 years. I don’t want to go to a mental hospital but I need some relief. What can I do?

I'm a out time start tapering off aripiprazole a day I'm wondering what to expect. I found going up in doses really tough so I'm expecting going down to be tricky too. Any experiences?

Hi, I'm asking for a friend. She is not sigitaly adept. She's on 10mg Olenzapine /day. She had post partum depression induced psychosis. She is on it 4 months by now and she feels awful. Low drive or motivation, constant sluggishness, feeling of tiredness, lack of good feelings except for anxiety. She's scheduled to go back to her psychiatrist next week. I'm trying to give advice to her, maybe they can change her meds to something less demaging.

Any advice?

I remember four dreams that really stood out. The first dream I was in the Victorian times investigating a ghost or something, then I became possessed and flew around the room while crying for Jesus to help. The second dream I was being eaten by a demon monster. The third dream, things stopped making sense as I got closer to death in a disturbing way. The fourth dream I was being chased by a killer and I jumped down the stairs and broke my neck and that was it I was dead. They all seemed to have a theme about the after life being bad or non-existent. It felt like they were trying to scare me.

My dreams also seemed more interactive when I was psychotic. It was like I was communicating back and forth with them. One of dreams proported to tell me the reason why life exists but I didn't understand it cuz it was using a lot of metaphors.

How do you know if your non-bizarre delusions are delusions or reality? I feel so certain my partner has had an affair with my friend but they're both denying it and I have no concrete evidence. I don't know if it is a delusion (which I do suffer from), or if I am right. It's tearing me up and I can't sleep because i am going over it in my head so much :( Am I getting ill again or am I getting gaslighted into believing I'm getting ill? How do I know?

the absolute fighting that’s happening in my head because of this. why do i think gods speaking to me and punishing me.