Thanks for sharing Gae,
My own experience was really short but it took me several years to fully recover. That nagging feeling of not really believing that reality is as real as it appears, stuck with me for few years. When I was in the psych ward I would have vivid hallucinations of NOT being in a hospital. I would live entire days outside of my head having experiences with people from my life and then SNAP! I would be back in the isolation room staring at the same cell I was in. Soon enough though I would imagine that this was all part of some prank show and all my friends and family were right outside a removable wall and it would open up to reveal the "joke". Guess what; that never happened. I just started taking the haldol that they offered me and then they let me into the general population on the ward, then more weird shit happened like the time I slowed my time index down so that people were these fast moving objects zipping through the halls and I lost about half a day until they led me back to my room while trying to get me to eat something. I guess I just stood there not moving for most of the day?! Catatonic schizophrenia is a thing so is hebephrenic schizophrenia. I was in the activity room and decided that if I moved, "just so" I could break the spell and get my mind back or at least prove to the staff that I was a capable person that is worthy of being set free (I was there on a police hold). I started juggling basket balls, talking backwards, and throwing cards a la Gambit style to show how coordinated I was. You not be surprised to learn that they WEREN'T impressed by any of that. Well, wait, they were "impressed", but the impression they got was that I should totally stay locked up!
The most persistent thing after that experience was the memories of all the vivid experiences, that were total hallucinations, and how vivid my current life was. Sometimes I would smell the hospital in impossible places and even hear the voices of the staff members talking about what a shame it was that I believed I wasn't in the hospital. I am doing great now and never have those experiences any more.
I've though about writing a book about what happened to me and the things leading up to it, but it has been 25 years since it happened so I probably never will.
My own experience was really short but it took me several years to fully recover. That nagging feeling of not really believing that reality is as real as it appears, stuck with me for few years. When I was in the psych ward I would have vivid hallucinations of NOT being in a hospital. I would live entire days outside of my head having experiences with people from my life and then SNAP! I would be back in the isolation room staring at the same cell I was in. Soon enough though I would imagine that this was all part of some prank show and all my friends and family were right outside a removable wall and it would open up to reveal the "joke". Guess what; that never happened. I just started taking the haldol that they offered me and then they let me into the general population on the ward, then more weird shit happened like the time I slowed my time index down so that people were these fast moving objects zipping through the halls and I lost about half a day until they led me back to my room while trying to get me to eat something. I guess I just stood there not moving for most of the day?! Catatonic schizophrenia is a thing so is hebephrenic schizophrenia. I was in the activity room and decided that if I moved, "just so" I could break the spell and get my mind back or at least prove to the staff that I was a capable person that is worthy of being set free (I was there on a police hold). I started juggling basket balls, talking backwards, and throwing cards a la Gambit style to show how coordinated I was. You not be surprised to learn that they WEREN'T impressed by any of that. Well, wait, they were "impressed", but the impression they got was that I should totally stay locked up!
The most persistent thing after that experience was the memories of all the vivid experiences, that were total hallucinations, and how vivid my current life was. Sometimes I would smell the hospital in impossible places and even hear the voices of the staff members talking about what a shame it was that I believed I wasn't in the hospital. I am doing great now and never have those experiences any more.
I've though about writing a book about what happened to me and the things leading up to it, but it has been 25 years since it happened so I probably never will.
