Hi, welcome to my blog. Its great you have you here.
This blog is for a Mother, Father, brother, sister or friend of someone who is suffering from a psychotic episode and is looking for some support or advice from someone who has been where you are right now.
My way of dealing with it was not necessarily how the “experts” suggested, though please don’t think that I am disrespecting them. They were supportive and helpful when we actually got into the system, but in the early days of the diagnosis, I was frantically searching for anything that would be of help as to how to deal with the situation and be in a position to help someone I love dearly.
My intention is first and foremost, let you know that you are not alone. It is very isolating for all involved. Those with psychosis are in a very scary place, completely in the belief that what is happening is real, while everyone around them doesn’t. For “Billy”…(my loved one), he would rather have believed his thoughts and feelings were real because the alternative was that his mind was broken, therefore mad/crazy (whatever term you would like to use), but lets face it, whichever way, the delusions or the madness is pretty frightening.
For me as the carer, it was heart-breaking to see him trapped in his own mind. It was also frustrating and would make me angry because I believed I didn’t have the skills or knowledge to change it, therefore helpless.
This all seems very bleak, but I am here to say there is light at the end of the tunnel and I hope I can help you navigate the tunnel and step towards the light.
So who am I?
My name is Nicola Critchett. I am a mother first. Billy is my son, though that is not his name. I am protecting his identity.
I work for the NHS but am also a health coach. Luckily for me what I’ve learnt since becoming a coach has helped me understand the mind and how it works and has helped me personally immensely. Please don’t think that the purpose is to sell my program, my purpose for this blog is to give others the support and an understanding of psychosis that I most certainly didn’t have at the time.
What caused it?
Billy went to Australia in 2022 for work. He is 31 years old. He loves mountain climbing and hiking, He’s always loved to be in nature, ever since a little boy and he’s always wanted to go to Oz.
He doesn’t think much of the UK. He’s very political and always up to date on the next “disaster” that is going to happen in the world! So going to the other side of the world is going to be enlightening…..careful what you wish for!
He’s an aircraft mechanic and has been contracting for about 5 years, going from place to place for 6 months.
He left school with little in the way of exams, and decided to put himself through college to get the equivalent of the 5 GCSEs he needed to go onto a HND program to learn his trade, of which he did very successfully. I’m not too sure that he sees this as a big deal, but isn’t that true for most of us? We do something that is inspiring, but don’t see it as that and play it down.
He then went onto an apprenticeship for 3 years which took him up North and had lived there up until Australia.
He left in May 2022 and went straight into work. In the beginning he went on hikes in the jungle, scaring the crap out me and his Dad by sending videos of poisonous snakes and spiders. He finds it highly hilarious to help us along to a heart attack. Now in the comfort of him being back “home” I can look back and laugh. He’s got a very good sense of humour, a little warped, but I think mine is too!
It was soon after the arrival it started. “They are going to let me go, they don’t like me”. This conversation had happened many times over with every contract. At this time, he had probably had at least 8 different contracts and every time, we would have the same conversation. “You think this every time, but who let you go ever?” “No-one” was the answer. However these thoughts would always re-appear. It seems obvious now that the thought never left at all and was as if it was on a loop pedal playing over and over again.
It was just after Christmas that he seemed a bit down. His girlfriend, who had joined him in Oz, was in a different place, several hours drive, so he was alone where he was, surrounded by people he believed didn’t want him around. He was not in a way that would make me think something serious was going on.
During the next couple of months while out with the lads from work, he decided to take mushrooms. He and I have a very open and honest relationship and he tells me everything….sometimes I wished he wouldn’t…TMI 😂 He said that they had said things about him, horrible things and this fuelled the thoughts about them letting him go. “How do you know they said these things? It could well have been the mushrooms making you hallucinate or hear things that didn’t actually happen?”
Needless to say, he was adamant that what he heard was real and happened.
From the perspective of today, this must have been a terrifying thought. If he lost his job, he would lose his home there, and more importantly, how would he get home to England from there?
It wasn’t too long after this that his psychotic episode started. I am not going to go into all the things he believed, but he was convinced the police were investigating him and that he was going to be arrested. He started to put his phone in the fridge as a way of stopping them tapping into his phone, convinced they had downloaded pictures (that wasn’t even on the phone) and gathering evidence to throw him in jail and throw away the key.
Fortunately he decided he needed to come back home. He knew something was terribly wrong. I think he had moments of clarity, knowing it wasn’t real but would then get sucked back into the spiral of thoughts. He imagined he was being hit at night when he was sleeping. People was talking to him through the radio and everything was subtext. Whatever anyone said there was a hidden meaning saying they knew what he had done and they was coming after him.
So what caused this? Personally I would say the mushrooms triggered it, but was not the cause. The fear of losing his job was there long before this, and was likely a deciding factor in taking the mushrooms to begin with! The fear of losing his job had been going on since embarking on his contracting career. However, I will let you make up your own mind as to what caused it.
We asked the doctors, and they do not seem to be able to give a definitive answer. My personal belief is that it is triggered by fear, and I also think that the fear may be festering for a long time before it manifests as a psychotic episode. I am not a doctor, nor am I a registered nurse, but have had many significant emotional events, which were traumatic at the time, and each of these storms eventually lead me on a journey which has brought me to write this page to help others come through their storms and into the light beyond them.
So where is Billy now?
He is now in a full time permanant job which he is enjoying immensly. He is learning new things and being given the autonomy of getting stuck in to complete jobs he hasn’t done before and doing them well. This is boosting his confidence and he is now alight when talking about his job….most of the time.
He is living with his girlfriend who followed him back to the UK. They are currently house hunting.
He is studying further to get an engineering position within his career.
He is almost off the medication, but he now has a new fear….What if it comes back?
It is proven that fear, anxiety, anger, frustration all play a major part in all mental health conditions and it also has a major effect on our physical health.
But did you know you can choose how you want to feel? I didn’t! It never occurred to me that I could choose how to feel at any given moment. To feel joy, love, happiness and abundant any time I like and you can too!
I want to share this and my only hope is that others, like me, get it and implement it in their own life.
Why is that important for you? It is the way to get out of the storm quicker and also without fear of psychosis returning. Not because it can’t, but because you have survived it once, so you know you can survive it again. If you can survive it, why do you need to fear it?
Thanks for reading, please do drop a comment if anything resonated. All feedback welcomed to help me help others more effectively ❤❤
Much love and light to you all, Nicki x
Tomorrowsyoulifecoaching.co.uk
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