My wife went through psychosis in december for the first time and is still recovering. As you can imagine it has been a rough few months and I really want to know, in your experience, do you go back to normal afterwards? How long does it take? She is on antipsychotics and is way out of the acute phase, but she still has unusual behaviour like last week she covered up the TV with a towel and says she doesn't like phones or screens around her. She is not as loving as she was, wants a lot of alone time and she has changed some habits for no apparent reason and when I ask her about it she just replies she likes it like that and to stop bugging her. I'd say overall she's like 80-90% back to her old self but still has some weird changes to her personality. Does that fade as well or is this just the way she will be now?
Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
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Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#52I had a ~two years setback at work due to covid. It was not due a psychotic episode, but probably the effects felt similarly bad [to my coworkers]: my thoughts were all over the place, I could not carry a deep tech conversation as I would jump on a tangent and carry on different seemingly unrelated topics, I appeared confused and distracted all the time. I had compounding effects of brain fog and, then undiagnosed, ADHD: to the level that going out to get groceries was a struggle.
I have a great manager at work, but we were relatively new then: I had just transferred into the team before the virus broke loose. He was stellar and very supportive. My whole team was, so much that I shared my story as I recovered instead of hiding my diagnosis.
Nonetheless, It took me almost a year to recover from brain fog and rebuild the trust to work at my level. It was really hard to remain focused and get through working on simple things that I could have done 10y ago. It felt like quicksand for my brain. I almost left the company because of it.
Now, with all the layoffs, I wonder if I did the right thing. Am I at risk due to lower than expected performance [my performance had recovered since then, but who knows]? Is it better this way anyway, for a fatter severance package? Would the sparkle of new challenges in a new company gave me a faster personal trajectory?
TBH, I don't really care that much about career for the money. I just need the innovation of a different level of work to keep me motivated.
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#53[flagged]
Is it a bad sign if I found it completely comprehensible? OP saw fossils everywhere. I can sort of see how someone who has "lost their marbles" might see rocks in such a way. Overall it sounds very Lovecraftan with ancient giant monsters and all. I wonder if OP was previously a fan of Lovecraft?
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#54Yes, I have. No, it's not normal. Yes, it "just happens" to some people, where "some people" are the set of people with pre-existing undiagnosed problems. I got treatment for it. It means you've had an underlying issue. It probably wasn't entirely caused by the work-related stress. After it happens, you know somethin's up, or could be up at any unpredictable time. My goal in therapy and with medication is to manage t…
While what you are saying may be 100% true, I think that basically everybody is capable of being driven over the edge by chronic stress. Everybody has a tipping point. That's normal. Perhaps the difference is what occurs after that point.
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#55Stress induced psychosis maybe? Were you using any chemicals? Feel like I understand the need to escape to the woods but not so sure about the fossils thing. Hope you are doing better now mate
Thank you, and yes, I was taking dexedrine for ADHD, and I’m sure that was a factor here, or at least it didn’t help!
Stimulants, and in particular sleep deprivation from stims (not implying that was you, it's just a common pattern), compounds delusions really hard. Make sure if you continue to take stims you eat good, sleep a lot & drink a healthy amount of water
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#56Normalising talking about it, is good. This needs to be something people can say, water cooler or no.
I had two episodes like this 40+ years ago. I sought mental health advice and have never regretted it. In my own situation CBT worked fine so I have a strong bias toward it, as does my continuing mental health professional.
Non-CBT therapy especially, but really any mental health treatment should be something you discuss with a health professional. Not that you can't discuss it otherwise, (see first paragraph) but it's important you do seek professional advice for treatment.
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#57Yes in my case it was caused by ideas from a shitty self help book that i was trying out whilst a politcal battle was going on at work. Need to trace the origins which can only be done by talking to trusted people, ie family and probably not friends (which i got burnt by). Getting proffessional help was also not useful at all as they cared more about managing symptoms with meds rather than tracing the root cause.
I'm sorry if this is autistically inappropriate but what was the book?
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#58> I’ll never forgive myself This I don't quite get. Why are you blaming yourself for what ex-post seems to have been a medical condition? Do you feel you somehow caused it or that it was within your powers to handle it better? In any case its in the past. What is important is to understand causes to prevent possible recurrence, or manage it better if its unavoidable
Not OP, but perhaps the regret is about putting too much pressure on themselves, not the aftermath. We owe it to our loved ones as much as to ourselves to keep a healthy balance in the things we do.
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#59I'm sorry for what you went through. That sounds rough. That said, I'm (perhaps morbidly) curious about the experience. Were you having fun finding fossils?
I had a fucking blast. It felt like an adventure.
Maybe that was some kind of self-preservation "GTFO and touch grass" ripcord.
Edit: ok! I read some of your other posts about that time. You definitely need help. Glad you're feeling better.
Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?
#60My relative gone through schizophrenia and never recovered fully to normal life. You're happy that you did. Don't blame yourself, you have no control over it, it just happens. Be careful with your work-life balance and keep visiting doctors as long as needed. You can never be sure that it won't get back some day but treating this situation before it gets dire makes everything easier.
Can you elaborate on "never recovered fully to normal life". My wife went through her first episode psychosis and it's likely schizophrenia. Did they ever realize that the delusions weren't true? Do they still have unusual behavior? Are they on maintenance meds?
Sorry for the questions, I know there's a lot of stories the internet already, but I trust NH users opinions more than reddit and I'd really like an idea of how things might turn out in the long term.