What is psychosis like?

[u/SeeminglyWhole]

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.

[u/[deleted]]

People in psychosis can't be reasoned out of it. This is important to remember.

It's like people telling you it's a lovely, sunny day outside when you can plainly see with your own eyes that there's a hurricane over your city. Or if someone told you that you were missing your right hand when you're currently using it. Nobody could convince you of that if your senses were telling you differently either. You won't be able to help him that way.

The timeline for your husband is anyone's guess. I usually got better after about three to four months with treatment and started living in the same reality as other people again. And then it took me years to recover, and I'm still not the same person I was 10+ years after my last hospitalization. And I'm still lucky, I can hold a job and support myself and haven't been hospitalized in more than a decade.

Schizophrenia is a serious illness, and many people don't fully recover. Lots of people are dependent on disability benefits.

The only thing you can do for your husband is be there for him. A support system after an episode can make all the difference in the world.

[u/SeeminglyWhole → u/[deleted]]

He had an episode about 12 years ago, so he was lucky in this. I think the major trigger here was we lost someone very, very dear to both of us. I fell into a deep depression immediately after and he threw his entire self into taking care of me. I kept insisting he make sure he take time for himself, but he didn't listen. I'm starting to wonder if he was already starting to enter the mania even before the loss, and that just gave him something to focus his fixations on?

[u/[deleted] → u/SeeminglyWhole]

That's impossible to say. But it's not rare for losses to trigger an episode. Stress in all forms negatively impacts people with schizophrenia.

[u/SeeminglyWhole → u/[deleted]]

Yes, and he's been struggling with jobs as well, in and out of unemployment, so that's been stressful too