my biggest fear

@cleodenile

I can relate.

Personally, I never found medication to be helpful. Everyone around me said that I was different. I was like a zombie. Sometimes I'd be so out of it from the medicine that I'd sit in place for hours and have no recollection of what happened. People would say I just disappeared. That wasn't entirely unusual because I could be brought out of my unmedicated dissociation through sensory input, like shaking me or a loud noise. On the medication, it was different. I was just there and nothing snapped me out of it.

Psychosis is an umbrella term and houses many mental health conditions.

Something that impacts a person's personality isn't going to be resolved by medication, but symptoms like anxiety or depression may improve because most medications target neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. The underlying issue in most cases of psychosis (from my research) tends to be a lack of resources to things like affordable counseling/therapy, rehabilitation or behavioral centers, a lack of support within the region or community, stigma, misinformation, and so on.

Mental health and mental illness effects everyone. Psychosis tends to get worse the longer it's left untreated. The most helpful thing I have found to manage my symptoms is therapy and counseling, coupled with self-monitoring (journaling), mindfulness skills/practices, grounding techniques, but I'm also kind of stuck because I have yet to find a mental health professional who truly understands what it's like to live with my condition.

Not the peaches and cream version, where they experienced a deep depression and it made them feel slightly suicidal, but they never acted on it. Or the general anxiety from being within a marginalized community. I mean really LIVED with my condition and found ways of managing it better than I have.

It can feel very overwhelming and hopeless.

However, I'm always looking for a silver-lining.

One day, the life I envision for myself, will be here. I am not going to wait around for it to magically appear. I will continue looking for ways to manage my condition in a healthy, nurturing way in the meantime. And maybe that's all I really need to be doing. By being proactive and seeking results, I'm going to find more opportunities to get the support I need and meet the people who truly understand what I'm going through. It's one of the reasons I joined 7 Cups. To see if someone can understand exactly what I'm going through. Not just relate to it through some distant experience, but have lived it.

🐠