![]() ![]() It was only much later, in retrospect, that I realised, of course, that they played candy-related songs on a loop. ![]() I remember going into a sweetshop and hearing the opening of the old Shangri-Las’ song ‘Leader of the Pack’: ‘I met him at the candy store…’ It seemed like an amazing coincidence, laden with meaning. Everything seemed to be telling me to get off the Tube at Piccadilly Circus. Halfway across London, I seemed to be picking up signs and signals from people around me. I set off on my own but never made it there. I arranged to stay with a friend who lived in a different part of town. But the fear continued to build, and I decided I needed to get far away. ![]() I tried to behave normally, but I was very uncomfortable, I kept shifting around, and my friends agreed to go to a different pub. I felt they wanted to kill me, and somehow I knew they had brought tools (chisels and sharpened screwdrivers) with them to do it. I was sure that the other people in the pub were talking about me. What began as a sense of unease turned within minutes to paranoia. Whether real or not, it was the start of something. One afternoon, I was in a pub with some friends when I thought I heard a stranger utter my name behind me. The author around the time of his temporary psychosis. I was working hard on my final-year project, and had recently succumbed to a bad cold. I was flailing around socially, burning the candle at both ends. I had split from my long-term girlfriend, and moved house several times in a few months. My personal life was chaotic and turbulent. In 1990, in my early 20s, I was a student in London coming to the end of my degree. I’ve decided to share my experience because I think that by speaking about psychosis more openly we can bring it into the light and encourage a conversation about urgent questions: what can be done to avoid or mitigate this kind of mental illness in ourselves, or in those we are closest to? How can we most effectively help people who experience a temporary departure from reality, and support those close to them? Despite an increasing openness, there is still sometimes a reluctance to face up to the challenge of mental illness, especially around psychosis – a catch-all term for a set of symptoms that leads us to lose the shared sense of reality we normally take for granted. It turned out to be a one-off, but it left me shaken and it permanently changed my attitude to my own mental health.Īs a psychologist and neuroscientist, I often wondered whether my experience gave me any useful insight into the science of psychosis but, because of the stigma attached to mental illness, for many years I kept my experience a secret from all but my most trusted friends and family. Thirty years ago, I experienced an intense and terrifying episode of psychosis that lasted around 24 hours. What does it feel like to lose your grip on reality? I know the answer. ![]()
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