Inigo, would it be possible for another doper to compliment you in a way that you would accept without having to psyche yourself into accepting things at face value? Like, do you take sarcastic comments more positively than sincere ones? Or is there no way around it, you always interpret praise negatively?
I used to work on a mental health inpatient unit and I have to say that the amount of insight and self-awareness you have is remarkable for someone who has suffered with psychotic illness. You deserve a lot of credit for “getting your shit together” at all. Many people never realize they have a problem and their life is just a series of hospitalizations followed by periods where things go ok for a while until they go off their medication again and the cycle repeats.
Some of the things you’ve described make it sound like you might have bipolar disorder (I’m not saying that as a diagnosis of course; just that if I had to guess that’s what it sounds like). If that’s true, that is a mental illness that is very strongly genetic. Don’t blame yourself for your son’s illness. It’s not like you knew. We all have genetic illness in our families. I’m sure you’ve passed on good things to your son too, and perhaps because you understand your illness better now you can help him avoid some of the bad things you experienced when you went without treatment.
In my younger days, I had a penchant for consuming large doses of psychedelics. I’m also a Stage IV lymphoma survivor. My bone marrow pretty much “shut down” at one point, and eventually I became psychotic due to hypoxic anemia. So I have a couple perspectives on what it feels like.
When I took the drugs, it was fascinating. I saw, felt, and experienced some truly wild things. Each time, though, I was fully aware that what I was experiencing was a chemical reaction in my brain, and that what I was experiencing was not real.
During the hypoxic episodes, I didn’t have the faintest idea that none of it was real. And it wasn’t just visual. I could see and hear people and things that were not there. I could even smell things. I thought rooms were filled with sweet-smelling mist. I thought aliens were digging up my front yard. I saw people in my living room inviting me to party with them. It all seemed 100% real. I had no inkling that my senses weren’t to be trusted.
Looking back on it now (yes, after a full recovery, 11 years now), I obviously know it wasn’t real, but the memories still seem as real as any other.