Psychosis (young people)

Hannah

I think it can be a bit of a misconception that someone with psychosis hears voices. That I never have heard, heard voices. I just see things that aren't there. So, I think that's useful to know if you are someone who is experiencing it and you don't have voices, don’t hear voices. That you can still be experiencing a psychosis.

Nikki

So, like when you hear voices, it's a really, really weird experience. You know that other people can't hear it, 'cause they're not reacting to it. But you wonder why other people can't hear it.  And you are like wondering where the source is and you're looking round like where, where is this coming from? And, it's impossible to really concentrate on anything else. And it's loud and it's annoying and it's intense and it's hard. And it's not until you start to speak about them and learn coping strategies for them that you learn to manage them in a healthy way.

Luke

Because that's one thing you've got to remind yourself with psychosis - as catastrophic it can be, as bad as it can be, you go ill and I would say within - you know - a week and a half of being sectioned, under like intensive care, you do feel better. And that's what makes the management and treatment of psychosis quite interesting actually, because your real game plan is reducing the regularity of psychotic episodes.

Green Lettuce

Risperidone didn’t do much for me really. It just made me feel worse, it didn’t do much for the voices, like you think, but the Seroquel, at first worked a bit. But it only did, it normally lasted the effects as well for like half an hour, but I, you know, all the voices all the time, then it just wore off. But I was taking a lot of it and it wasn’t powerful enough to be honest.

And the rest of them well, quetiapine, I can’t remember, if that, I don’t think it helped, but I can’t remember totally. And Abilify (aripiprazole), didn’t do much. The only thing that’s helped really is time, I think.

Joe

Almost now I feel that if I get hallucinations and voices, and they say - and they're trying to warn me of stuff, and I just go 'nah, I'm ignoring you, go away', that's probably not going to be that productive either, because they'll get angrier and then I'll get worse stuff. Yeah.

Fran

But, no, with members of staff in general there’s been good ones, amazing ones, and ones that are truly like, you’re like, “Why do you work in the caring profession? I’ve never met a person that cares less about other people.” So, some people would really bother to sit down and try and work it out with me. And some people, they just don’t give a damn.

Andrew X

When you've lost contact with reality, you don't need forced, artificial interactions – that just makes it worse. You need some humanity. That's why the Early Intervention Psychosis Services work so well, because they're just humans. They are not, they're not pretending to be some sort of super mental health nurse. They are just, let's, let's go and grab a coffee and talk about stuff.