agirlought:

galesofnovember:

mindovermatterzine:

Helpful things to do when someone you care about is experiencing psychosis.

(From heretohelp)

Okay, this is really not that helpful. If someone you know if experience psychosis you need to first take actions to help keep yourself safe above all else,  not 4th or 5th down on the goddamn list, especially if someone is experiencing delusions and paranoia and acting aggressively.

And hopefully you know the person well enough that you have some knowledge of how to contact the mental health professionals  that they are familiar with,  or you know someone who is closer to them who can give you guidance on how to support them in receiving professional mental health care in a way that is respectful and actually helpful.

But either way, this whole “friends make the best medicine” bullshit is TERRIBLE and DANGEROUS when put in the context of someone experiencing psychosis.  

Goddamn, I know a pretty disturbingly large number of people (almost all women) who felt like they had to do this “supportive” “harm reduction” bullshit to people in their lives (almost all men) who were losing their grip on reality in a dangerous way and that is fucked up. 

lol when I was delusional (that was fun! and by fun I mean fucking terrifying for me), I wouldn’t have wanted someone to ~validate~ my feelings

I wanted help, and I KNEW deep down that I needed help, and thank God I got some tbh

I read the advice as a kind of ‘first aid’ scenario, not a long term care plan or anything of that sort. Even within my training at the Institute of Psychiatry we were taught at the stage of Mental State Examination (i.e. when the person initially presents to you) not to confront delusions. I have no personal experience of psychosis, so I can’t speak with any geat authority on this, but we were told this under the explanation that this can be a deeply upsetting experience for the person concerned and can escalate a situation, especially if their insight into their condition is poor. The advice is not suggesting that you agree with the content of the person’s delusions, rather that you try to think about how it must feel to genuinely believe something like this. Compassion and empathy are so important when interacting with anyone, but especially when engaging with vulnerable individuals.

The advice here for the lay-person as I understand it is to carve the path of least resistance and hopefully avoid causing any unnecessary additional distress to the person concerned until – of course – a trained professional can provide the specialist help that the person needs.

I’m glad there’s some comment and debate opening up around this post though, it’s great that people are pitching in with their experiences and opinions.

Notes

  1. brainandbehaviour reblogged this from mindovermatterzine
  2. andariel-sirene reblogged this from erinkyan
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  4. green-evening reblogged this from mindovermatterzine and added:
    How is a layperson supposed to determine whether a given person’s episode may be/become violent or not? Blanket...
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  6. me-nya-ntaban reblogged this from mindovermatterzine
  7. mindovermatterzine reblogged this from green-evening and added:
    Because psychosis isn’t always violent and dangerous, and psychosis doesn’t always involve paranoia: it’s a spectrum of...
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  12. agirlought reblogged this from galesofnovember and added:
    lol when I was delusional (that was fun! and by fun I mean fucking terrifying for me), I wouldn’t have wanted someone to...
  13. galesofnovember reblogged this from mindovermatterzine and added:
    Okay, this is really not that helpful. If someone you know if experience psychosis you need to first take actions to...
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