PSYCHOTIC EXPERIENCES
What is a psychotic experience? How do i deal with it?
Psychosis (also called a psychotic experience or episode) is when you perceive or interpret events differently from people around you. This could include experiencing hallucinations, delusions or flight of ideas.
A N G E R
Hallucination
Seeing things that other people don’t – such as people’s faces, or other images or visions, like animals or religious figures. You may also see objects that appear distorted, or that move in ways they normally wouldn’t.Experiencing tastes, smells and sensations that have no apparent cause – such as feeling insects crawling on your skin.Hearing voices that other people don’t – these could be positive and helpful, or hostile and nasty. You may hear one voice or many different voices. They could be voices of people you know or be complete strangers.
Delusions
A delusion is a belief that other people do not share. For example, you might believe that you are closely related to the Queen, although you don't share any relatives. You may also experience delusions of grandeur (thinking you are a very important person) – for example, you may believe that you are very rich and powerful, or control the stock markets or weather.
Some delusions can be extremely frightening and make you feel mistrustful or threatened. For example, you may feel that something or someone is trying to control or kill you. These ideas are called paranoid delusions
Flight of ideas is when your thoughts move very quickly from idea to idea, making links between things that other people don’t. Doctors may also call this 'word salad' or 'thought disorder'.
If you experience flight of ideas, you might:
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lose control of your words – speaking very quickly so that other people notice and find it difficult to follow what you’re saying
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link words together because of the way they sound rather than what they mean – for example, if it starts to rain, you might start to talk about railway trains, then brains or photo frames.
Causes
Physical illness or injury – you may see or hear things if you have a high fever, head injury, or lead or mercury poisoning.
Drugs – you may hear or see things as a result of taking street drugs, or as a side effect of some prescribed drugs. This may also happen if you are coming off psychiatric drugs.
Lack of sleep – symptoms of psychosis, particularly hallucinations, can happen if you have a lack of sleep.
Hunger – you may hear voices if you are very hungry, have very low blood sugar, or if you are not getting enough food.
We hope this helped x