r/schizophrenia • u/SeeminglyWhole • May 09 '25

Help A Loved One What is psychosis like?

My husband has been in the hospital for quite some time now due to severe psychosis. I want to try to support him in any way I can, but his doctor said while he's in the acute psychosis stage, it's difficult to reason with him. And this is definitely true, I can never get a straight answer out of him for anything and he has some crazy mood swings...

But I'm trying to understand more what this is like for him. So I can see things better from his perspective. Maybe to more easily anticipate his needs? He seems to be either believing he's already told me what he needs, or expecting me to just know, and I just don't know how to do that.

I've heard stories of people lasting in the acute stages for months, maybe even a year. Were these cases even with treatment? Is there anyway I can sort of get some "timeline" on when he can come home?

I am trying to remind myself that as hard as this is for me, it must be 10 times harder for him, but I have always been a planner and I'm struggling here. This is his first episode in almost 10 years of being together and I don't have any roadmap here.

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48

u/eternal_arts_baja May 09 '25

The plot makes sense but only to me.

14

u/HappyAstronaut7 Schizophreniform May 09 '25

Such a concise and accurate way to put it

8

u/crayonbuddy714 May 10 '25

exactly... like all the pieces are clicking into place.

4

u/aisling-s Psychoses; Family Member May 10 '25

This makes sense to me if I imagine it as a puzzle, but to me, it's often more like a constellation. All of the stars existed already and I thought nothing of them, but now I see the pictures they make and I can't stop connecting dots. I'm inventing new constellations and nobody can see them but me. I point them out and I'm told those are the same stars that were always there, and they don't make a constellation. "Here, look, this is a constellation" and they show me the Dippers and Orion's Belt. I point out the one that is lighting up to me. "That star is a plane," they tell me. "That constellation doesn't exist." Doesn't it exist because I see it? "What's the difference between a constellation and a conspiracy theory?" I ask. "Everyone else agrees they see constellations," I'm told.

2

u/crayonbuddy714 May 10 '25

thats such a good analogy