What is Psychosis?
Definition of Psychosis
Psychosis is a set of symptoms which affect the way a person engages with, or understands, reality. These symptoms can form part of many diagnoses, such as depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and schizophrenia.
A psychotic experience is unique to the person experiencing it. There are common themes, but a person’s previous experiences and current circumstances mean that each experience is unique.
There are 3 main symptoms of psychosis:
- Hallucinations – sensory input not based in reality. Most commonly includes hearing voices or seeing things that aren’t there, but can also involve other senses.
- Delusions – strong convictions that have little to no basis in fact. These are difficult to alter, even when you’re presented with evidence against them.
- Disordered thinking – changes to the way we process information. This can be confusing and makes it harder to explain what’s going on and convince ourselves that it’s not real.
More Reading
If you want to learn more about psychosis, I’d suggest starting with the information on Mind’s website here.
There has also been a fantastic post on the Mad Covid blog about what it feels like to experience psychosis. You can find this here.
I am looking at writing about my experience at some point, but I’d need to be in the right frame of mind first, as I still feel very close to it.
Until the next post!
Bronwyn @ LBT x
