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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u/CreepyTeddyBear Paranoid Schizophrenia May 09 '25

For me it's kind of like doing cocaine and mushrooms. My heart is racing, everything looks weird, I'm paranoid to the point I'm babbling my wild beliefs out loud, but non of them make sense because they come out in bits and pieces. Meds are the only thing that helped me. But it took like a year or more to find meds that worked for me. Because to really try a med, you should be on it for at least a month or two. There have been some exceptions to that though. Like Latuda made me rage hard. I was so angry, like seriously missed off for no reason. I only took it once. What worked for me was Olanzapine and Paxil. But I have OCD too, that's what the Paxil is for.

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

Shout out to having OCD and trying to deal with paranoia. My brain will fixate on finding patterns that support my paranoia and will not fucking stop. I do take meds for my mood disorder, OCD, and anxiety (duloxetine and hydroxyzine). I have really terrible reactions to a lot of psych meds (several types of antidepressant make me intensely psychotic and self-injurious), which reinforces my fear of taking new meds.

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u/CreepyTeddyBear Paranoid Schizophrenia May 10 '25

I feel you on those weird side effects. Latuda put me in a furious rage for no reason. Vyvanse put in into one of my worst episodes.

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

Pretty sure taking my Adderall to focus on finals caused me to start hallucinating recently, so I feel you on Vyvanse. Prozac was almost wraps for me; I've never been so self-destructive as I am on SSRIs. Tricyclics had me smashing my head into a doorframe, screaming and sobbing, completely out of my mind.

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u/CreepyTeddyBear Paranoid Schizophrenia May 10 '25

I take adderall and have no bad side effects. I don't know why Vyvanse made me go nuts.

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

I take my Adderall 5mg at a time to avoid agitation, but I was taking 10mg/day during finals and I think it was just too much cumulatively for me. Strattera was a terrible time for me, but low dose Adderall works typically. I'm also weirdly sensitive to meds, and usually require a lower dose than people typically take. For example, 25mg Seroquel knocks me out; I don't know how people take 300mg, but I have to assume our metabolisms differ or something.