Psychosis and my psychotic thoughts have had a profound and lasting impact on my life. Some of these thoughts firmly rooted themselves and grew like trees while the rest were scattered and covered my world like a lush lawn. They endured like your beliefs and were no less ingrained.
I spent over a year with words, phrases, lyrics and gestures combining into a map of belief. Odd and even numbers confirmed messages while vowels, consonants and gestures of left or right guided me. Full words and conversations sent me in a thousand directions. When the lyrics of a song reach in and match your thoughts instantaneously, they can’t be ignored.
When you are psychotic, all events revolve around your thinking and everything becomes connected creating a reality as solid and based in factual events as that being experienced by anyone else. When something happens that doesn’t fit into your world it sometimes snaps you into a different frame of reality but usually it only causes a shift which can easily be meshed with your world of psychotic thought once again. It could be likened to not knowing you are colour blind. Someone may point out that your blue shirt is yellow but it takes much more to convince you this is so.
Thanks to anti-psychotics my associations and delusions have ended. However, it took time to erase the trails left by psychosis. I am unsure if most people recall their psychotic moments and thoughts but I do. Several were too terrifying to forget while others were all encompassing. If everything you saw and experienced pointed to the world being flat, nothing less than a paradigm shift would change your perception and perspective.
I can look at my psychosis as a simple illness but that does not change the fact that I was guided safely on a perilous journey. I was witness to sane people who were met with violence while I stood unharmed despite my behaviour. Today I blend more with my surroundings and words are often meaningless but my psychosis still holds meaning for me.
Brett Batten 
Very interesting – I would like to hear more in future posts. Thanks.
Thanks Pat, I have another in the works.
I was only wildly psychotic for a short time but it took months to get over. Stupid things happened in the weeks following: eg I would accidentally key in words spelled exactly backwards, my memory went to pot… etc etc. Loads of things that aren’t even hinted at by those same old same old sites that write a description of the disorder based around DSM criteria…
They often refer to disorganized speech and behaviour. I found myself to be quite witty while psychotic. I think they were distracted by taking notes and possibly missed the punchlines. Seriously though, there do seem to be residual effects like you mention. When you are becoming more lucid it can be alarming to get hints from a TV or radio. I’m happy to know you found something different in my description and thanks for sharing your insights.
Your eloquence is truly humbling. Keep doing what youre doing. It’s well-nigh brilliance!
Thanks so much Cheri. Your comments are truly humbling. I read your words this morning. If my words have half the effect of your comments I know why it is I write.
Excellent. I am dazzled. I love reading about psychiatric theory and emotional health and the stories of first person experience. i champion those who have had or still do,struggle-with these lives and the issues,stigma. It is also my own story. I offer a kindred mind that will keep on reading. 🙂
Thank you for the compliments. I do hope that as a kindred mind I will be able to read some of your words. I thank you for being a champion to those of us whose steps sometimes lead to illness. We should not have to stand up against stigma. If people realized they were contributing stigma to those with a physical illness I think they would be quickly shamed to mend their ways.