I'd like to state that while I did look at articles and blog posts and such on how to support someone with psychosis to help write
this page, this is all filtered through one person, and you should do more research on how to support us. I do not expect you to remember
all of this immediately after reading it, rather to refer back to it when you need to and gradually learn it all.
This part will cover how to actually support us through a psychotic episode.
I'm going to put first and foremost the #1 most important factor: COMMUNICATION! We're people, we know our needs most of the time,
and you can talk to us about what those needs are. We're individuals with individual needs and the most crucial factor in supporting
someone with any mental condition is knowing what they, as an individual, need. So, if you're looking to support someone with psychosis,
go and talk to the actual person and ask what they think they need. With that being said...
Did you know that psychotic people are statistically more prone to police violence, and human rights violations in and outside of
hospitals? The police, as well as medical professionals, typically will perceive us as dangerous while we are in acute psychosis.
This can lead to incredibly traumatizing experiences like being restrained forcibly, being attacked physically, being forcibly medicated, and worse.
I've been forcibly restrained by my father in a highly unstable state and it was incredibly traumatizing for me, and ruined our relationship for a
long time. Remember that we are people, and that we are ill. Unless it is an ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY, do not do this to us—it usually only will escalate
the situation and saddle us with unnecessary trauma.
Okay, I've already said this, but: we're ill. We are sick. We are going to be hard to deal with at some points. Delusions especially
can shape the very way we see the world—when I was in the height of my first psychosis, I literally thought of the entire structure of the
world differently due to delusion. They can be very deeply reaching, so you're probably going to get frustrated at one point or another if
you're directly dealing with them. Paranoia in general as well is absolutely frightening and we can become totally convinced something is going
to happen to us, and it may seem like no matter how much you reassure us it's gonna be okay that we're not listening. It's not that we're not
listening, it's just that we're suffering from psychosis. Be patient and calm with us, sometimes you may have to speak slowly and be an active
listener. Being aggressive or otherwise not-calm will only increase the chances of you becoming the target of our delusions.
I'm gonna be straight up here: this just flat out doesn't work. Let me use an analogy: Psychosis is like a shitty antivirus. We're trying
to detect the problem and genuinely be helpful, but we think any .exe file is a virus. You may seem like you're helping, but have you ever
downloaded TWO antiviruses to the same device? It doesn't give it 'more protection.' What happens is that the two antiviruses start to fight
each other and bog down the machine even more by taking up more of its resources, making it even more dysfunctional. This is what happens when
you try to logic us out of our delusions. Our psychotic minds will end up fighting with your words and will end up making the delusion worse.
We'll find even more delusional explanations for your questions, deepening the delusion and cementing it more in our minds. Instead, you should
offer sympathy. Instead of "Why would that person try to poison you?", ask "I'm so sorry you have to deal with all of that, what can I do to support you?"
This can be really dangerous for our reality testing. When we reality test ourselves, usually, we compare what we're experiencing
against what other people are experiencing. So, if you interact with our hallucination, it's like you're cementing that the hallucination
actually exists in shared reality. This is harmful because hallucinations generally are distressing to us, and they can become even more
distressing if we think they're actually real.
Reality testing is the process of helping a delusional person question their delusions. First of all: UNLESS WE ASK YOU TO DO THIS, DO NOT REALITY TEST US!
Reality testing, when done wrong, can be incredibly harmful and only worsen our delusions/psychosis. If we have not told you to do this,
do not do it. That is final. There may be other things you can do to help us, to use the above example, offering to make us something if
we're afraid someone is trying to poison us. If you have established communication with us and we've expressed other things we need when
we're delusional/psychotic, do those things instead of reality testing us.
"Snap out of it, it's just a delusion."
"That's impossible."
"Think about it for a second, then you'll snap out of it."
Forcing your friend into the hospital.
Calling the police on your friend.
Trying to 'fix' or stop the delusion.
"Could you describe the evidence you have for your belief?"
"How firm are you with this belief? Would you be okay with other suggestions on what could be happening?"
"You're going to be okay, what you're fearing won't hurt you."
"Can we take a step back? Is what you're going through effecting those around you?"
"Has what you believe happened to anyone else? What is the likeliness of this being real?"
Helping your friend to question the delusion or become aware of how the delusion is affecting them.
Adding new information to the delusion / trying to send your friend deeper into the delusion
"That must be scary to believe something that isn't real"
"Keep that to yourself, the more you talk about it the more you'll encourage yourself"
Dismissing your friend's delusions, saying "everyone thinks like that once in awhile."
Trying to distract your friend from their delusion or act if it's a game.
Allowing your friend to vent or express themselves (sometimes just talking about a delusion out loud can help them question it)
"I'm so sorry that you're going through that"
Encouraging your friend to express their delusions through poetry, song, art, or other non-harmful things they enjoy
"If that becomes too overwhelming for you, you can call me and ask for comfort or a distraction"
Allowing your delusional friend to feel safe around you, allowing them to healthily express themselves.
This will cover behavior that is just considered polite around us, and go over how to not accidentally offend your psychotic loved ones/friends/whatever.
Credit goes to schizopositivity on tumblr for a large, large part of this list! They're an awesome resource and voice to listen to for this sort of thing,
so check them out if you have the time.
(1) Do not use the words "schizophrenic," "psychotic," "delusional," "insane," or "crazy" derogatively. These words describe serious
mental illnesses or aspects thereof, and using them derogatively only furthers the stigma against us. Do not describe someone who is not
suffering from schizophrenia or psychosis as schizophrenic or psychotic; do not describe a politician with differing beliefs than you
as "delusional"; do not call someone "insane" or "crazy" period.
(2) Do not assume a psychotic person is automatically dangerous. This only leads to miscommunication and ultimately, the worsening
of our condition. We're statistically more likely to be the victim of crimes and abuse than the perpetrator.
(3) When you talk about mental health communities as a whole, consider: Does what I'm saying apply to psychotic and schizophrenic
people as well? If not, you're not talking about the community as a whole. Use more specific words.
(4) Include us in your definition of neurodivergent. Our brains differ, so we're neurodivergent. Simple as.
(5) Do not purposefully trigger someone's paranoia, in any way, shape, or form. Don't tell someone that someone is after them or that
someone is trying to poison them, etc. This is always harmful, and triggering someone can be potentially life threatening. It's not a joke, and never was.
(6) Don't assume schizophrenia is just hallucinations and delusions. There are negative and cognitive symptoms as well, and you can learn
on this very site what they are! Learn about the less talked about symptoms like catatonia, word salad/disorganized speech, and the negative and cognitive symptoms.
(7) Don't act "crazy" for shock value. Our mannerisms aren't for you to glorify or make fun of, period. This includes doing things like
"dressing as a crazy person" for halloween, which yes, is a real thing people do.
(8) Don't fear people or call the cops on people that are just talking to themselves on the street. People like these are suffering,
they need help, calling the police on them won't solve anything. Being psychotic does not make us more dangerous than anybody else.
(9) Don't expect people to express emotions in the same way you do. Often, psychotic and schizophrenic people struggle with flat or
incongruent affect, which affects the way we express our emotions.
(10) Don't expect us to be capable of doing the same amount of work as you do, as we are suffering from an illness. Don't tell us we have
it easy if we express we're struggling. It's rude. Schizophrenia and psychosis are disabling.
(11) Tag posts for unreality and derealization. Unreality and derealization are statements or other things that include things that aren't
real, such as "I'm in your walls," and jokes about it being a year that it isn't. It may seem obvious to you, but to us, it isn't.
(12) Don't call someone expressing a delusion stupid. If we say we're Taylor Swift it may seem stupid to you, but we're delusional, and we deserve care.
(13) Don't ask if we're hallucinating right now. It's none of your business. We'll tell you about it if we trust you.
(14) Don't stop trusting us or otherwise think of us negatively if we tell you we're psychotic. If we're psychotic, we deserve sympathy and care for our illness, not distrust.
(15) Don't call us "gifted" or "psychic" or insinuate anything we're experiencing is religious or spiritual. This is incredibly rude, distressing, and
triggering to us, and can deepen delusions. Keep your religious and spiritual beliefs to yourself, we're suffering from an illness.
(16) Don't film "public freakouts." These people might be going through the most worst and distressing times in their lives. It's not funny.
(17) Don't say "schizo" if you're not on the schizophrenia spectrum. This word has been used to hurt and has been used against schizophrenia-spectrum
people for a long time, it's not that hard to type out the whole word you're trying to say.
This will cover behavior that is one step above just having courtesy: directly advocating for us. You don't HAVE to do this,
but we would greatly, greatly, appreciate it if you did, since often, we're too afraid to advocate for ourselves.
Listen to our voices. A good example is the Inside Schizophrenia podcast. In general, search out our voices instead of depending
solely on surface-level WebMD articles and doctor's opinions. Often, we have perspectives you might not have heard before from those articles and doctors.
This can be as simple as reblogging/retweeting/whatever etc our posts, our sharing our stories. Don't drown out our voices in favour
of medical opinions, as the actual experience is just as important (and I would even sometimes argue more important). Encourage us to
speak out about our conditions, spread it when we do speak up.
A large part of advocacy is really just courtesy but spreading it to other people, so correct others when they misuse words like
"psychotic" and "delusional," tell people to tag their posts as unreality, scold people if they call us "psychic" or "gifted" or "stupid,"
and tell people to include us in their definition of neurodivergent and in their discussions of mental illness/health.
We're often to scared to do this ourselves, so your voice is a big help.
Often the mistreatment and stigma we get is from misinformation or misunderstanding, so simply educating another person with passion
and kindness may reveal they didn't really understand the effect they were having. As a mental health advocate myself, I've learned that
people are most often not blatantly ignorant, but just happened to genuinely not know.