Psychosis as Sexual Pleasure

Psychosis can actually be one of the most pleasurable experiences you can have. All it takes is a little courage and self-confidence. It's really tough to gain courage and self-confidence when your world is literally falling apart around you. But if you carefully approach the other world, and get to know it, become comfortable with it in a safe place, it's really not such a bad place.

The fear, for me anyway, was always losing control. Losing control of my mind and becoming something else. But I've experienced many, many bouts of psychosis, and except for once, I NEVER lost control. At least, not because of the psychosis. I became weird and freaked people out, because I was so paranoid... of the psychosis. I would do anything to try and be absolutely sure I was being "normal." But here's a secret: the more you try to be normal, the less normal you become.

Once I overcame the fear of losing control, the fear of losing my self, I recognized that this radically "other" world was a whole lot of fun. The funnest kind of fun. The demons and spirits trying to attack me suddenly became beautiful Goddesses. The fear and paranoia became wonder. The voices (few as they were, with me) became insight. Think of it this way: if you want a real fantasy world, you'll have to make a radical break with reality. I call it a "psychotic revolution." And that can't be anything but scary. But it can also be rewarding.

Make no mistake: I DO have schizophrenia. I've been officially diagnosed, and hospitalized against my will. I know what these feelings are, viscerally. I'm on medications. But I insist: I have come to enjoy them. They are worth experiencing.

In fact, they are more worth experiencing than the medications. I took medications to rid myself of these feelings, and everything became infinitely worse, and I still haven't recovered. Instead of feeling paranoia, I was asleep constantly. I slept as much as 14 hours a day. Sometimes 36 hours at a time. When a filmmaking project of mine fell through, in the deepest depression, I finally had to make a decision. I decided: psychosis is infinitely better than medication. From now on, I would prefer psychosis to medication every time, and if people didn't like it, too bad for them.

Of course, I'm still on a low dose, but only because it's useful to me not to jump ship to the other world and become lost. I still have a stake in the "real" world. But if the beautiful Goddesses whisk me away for a while, even regularly, people will just have to get used to it. Because having a clear and alert mind, which isn't medicated to the point of sloth, is unquestionably better, even if I lose myself from time to time. I'm sorry, but the doctors have done so much more harm than good. I won't go so far as to say I should never have been medicated. But madness has been enriching and beautiful, while medication has been horrid.

Sure I can understand that... when you believe something is wrong, then everyone else assumes that the correct way to fix the problem is to intervene rather than assist you with finding inner peace, so to speak. Hands on, instead of hands off...

So you know something is different, perhaps you start to panic, and then everyone feeds on it, worsening it with solutions that are designed to comfort them rather than yourself.

MultipleTentacles wrote:...

First off, I made a very specific misread of your username, and it made me double-take...then laugh about it.

Other than that, if you've found a way to make your mind work to your advantage, that's great news! Not many people are able to do this.

Psychosis was pleasurable for me as well untill they ######6 pulled me out of it.

Very very questionable and subjective thoughts here. All current safe advice, research and guidance on psychotic episodes points towards immediate treatment to reduce these kinds of symptoms and limit the period of illness to avoid permanent brain damage.

To treat as a pathology and regard psychosis as a state of emergency is the safest way to reduce or avoid chronic schizophrenia and degeneration of brain tissue in the medium to long term.


In kindness
Pablo

I've seen evidence that suggests our current medications hurt the brain but am not aware of any research suggesting that psychosis hurts it. Ive heard of the loss of grey matter in 25% of schizophrenics statistic but it was my understanding that the decline starts before psychosis.

Certainly there are thoughts either side of this - which is more damaging?, the medication to treat/reduce psychosis or the damage to neural pathways as a result of not treating/reducing psychosis. Also there is evidence which allows us to understand the effects of early onset psychosis on normal growth and development of the young brain and how this can be measured in loss of brain tissue etc:- http://guidance.nice.org.uk/TA136/Guidance/pdf/English but I think it is important to understand if these symptoms are the result of organic problems or comorbid problems associated with illicit substances/alcohol or infection.

Current UK practice guidelines are to treat all psychosis episodes as an emergency, reduce immediate symptoms and address longer term condition with psychosocial interventions such as CBT and/or specific treatment plans.


None of this is new, but interesting reading if you have some time http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/ ... enia.shtml

apologies for my dodgy copy/paste of links I will work on this! - hope they work?

I'd reckon most of the people on here, the anti-psychiatry forum, would probably be under the persuasion that drugs are more damaging. At least if you don't want them. Also there's plenty of ways for functioning of brain to change how the brain looks, so whether those brains are abnormal or just different is in the end a subjective decision.

If you want to be psychotic I dont understand why people should have the right to drug you against your will. Also if the frequently regurgitated 1% of population being schizophrenic statistic is valid (which I don't think it is, but my shrink keeps repeating it), it doesnt make sense saying that treating psychosis as a state of emergency is in any way a way of avoiding chronic schizophrenic.

Honestly I don't even know what psychotic means, it just seems a labeling of abnormal behavior. Treating behavior as sickness is just idiotic in the first place, unless theres a biological basis for it, and if there is a proper biological basis for something it's not longer a mental illness, it's just an illness. That's what happened with neurosyphilis, which was thought to be a form of madness.

I've never thought of it that way before. I guess if you have a safe space to live out your Goddess dreams, all the best to you. When I was a teenager I went so far as to pay $30 for LSD to get the same effect. (At least that's what the text books tell me. Schizophrenia is like being on a quadruple dose of LSD that never goes away.) It is fun for a few days.

You're still ok to remember to eat? Use the washroom properly? Navigate through traffic if you have to leave the house? Remember those pesky little laws of physics--especially gravity? I know I had a few problems with those things when I was high. It was no biggie back then, bc I was a hot little blonde teen. People were happy to watch me drop my pants and piddle on some rich guy's front lawn. I wouldn't do that stuff now, tho. I'm 40 and I'm a mom. People expect me to behave a certain way now. They're a whole lot meaner about even little lapses like cussing in front of certain company. If I dropped acid and ran down the street singing to pigeons and whipping out my chubby middle aged bum to pee on fancy bushes&cars now, they'd probably arrest me

Ketamine or PCP is the closest you can get to schizophrenia without having it. I don't think LSD is that similar.