Acaycia had her first episode of psychosis two years ago. Since then, alongside support from the Trust’s Early Intervention in Psychosis team and Asperger’s service, she has found writing – something she enjoyed before her illness – has helped her through some of her most difficult times.
Here she explains how her life has been affected by hallucinations and delusions - symptoms of her psychosis - and how writing about it is helping her recovery.
“In 2015 I was a mature student at university. I lived a full and happy life.
“Then suddenly I began to feel strange. I’ve suffered with depression all my life but this was something else. I started to become very paranoid. I thought I was being watched, monitored. I began to make excuses not to go out and see my friends, isolating myself in my living room because I thought there were cameras in other parts of my house. I existed on a diet of Weetabix. I stopped exercising. I stopped socialising. And eventually, as I deteriorated further, I started to hear voices. They would tell me to harm myself and shout commands to me. I was terrified. I didn’t know who to turn to.
“Eventually I had to leave university as I couldn’t cope with the stress - I couldn’t concentrate on anything and even getting in the car to travel there was too much for me.
“I have Asperger syndrome, and it just happened that I had an appointment with a nurse at the Asperger service coming up. She was worried about me and had been seeing me regularly. I decided to tell her about the voices. She was great - so understanding. She didn’t judge me at all. She explained that she was going to refer me to the Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service, who would assess me for psychosis.
“Two weeks later I met with a team leader, who went through a questionnaire with me. I was still extremely paranoid and didn’t trust anyone, and it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying as the voices were shouting, but eventually I got through it. He said that I was experiencing a first episode of psychosis, and that their team would work with me. I was given a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) and met a psychiatrist who started me on anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication. Over time my symptoms began to improve.
“I can’t say that I am back to my old self, because my life has changed so dramatically and I think that would be unrealistic, but I can say that I’m improving every day. The Asperger service and the EIP service are both excellent, and I wouldn’t have gotten this far without their constant support and encouragement.
“I'm sharing my story now to show others they aren't alone. Psychosis has such a lot stigma surrounding it, and I used to feel ashamed at having the diagnosis.
“One thing that has helped me is writing. It's always been part of my life, and I've recently started writing a blog, charting my experiences with psychosis. When I was diagnosed I felt so isolated. I read as many books as I could on the subject, but they were mainly written by academics, I never found anything personal. So that's what I'm trying to do with the blog, just say to others 'look, me too.' The blog is also helping my own recovery, because it's making me see how far I've come since those early days.”
Follow Acaycia’s recovery on her blog www.psychoticaspie.blogspot.co.uk
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