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when I tell people I experience psychosis everything I know immediately becomes discredited everything I feel is suddenly a symptom and in a moment I go from person to pathology

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If you struggle with substance abuse but not addiction, you still deserve support. If you struggle with suicidality/self harm urges but don't act on it, you still deserve support. If you struggle with psychosis and paranoia but have insight, you still deserve support. If you struggle with anything but are "coping with it," you still deserve support.

You dont need to be in imminent crisis to get help - safety planning, harm reduction, resources, and accommodations. You're still struggling. You're still suffering, You're still at risk/in danger. You deserve better - you need better. Your health and wellbeing matters.

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i know that some neurodivergent folks struggle to read typos and disordered writing, but if you are the type of person who feels compelled to correct grammar and spelling when it's not related to struggling to parse what someone is saying, please do not do it to a schizophrenic or schizospectrum person. we often times mix up similar sounding words, mix up the order of sentences, say things that straight up don't make sense, or spell words in ways that make sense to us, but are not spelled 'correctly' and have no idea we did it.

if you can't parse what we said, please just ask us to say or explain it again. don't interject and say "oh you meant this," or go "it's spelled necessary*" or laugh at them for mixing up words or not knowing how to spell something correctly. it's not funny, it's a product of someone else's disability. just ask for clarification instead. we don't care about whether or not every single sentence we say is grammatically correct. sometimes you have to overlook those mistakes and engage with the person on their level.

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one aspect of schizophrenia i dont see talked about very much is one that is, in my experience, the most personally upsetting. and thats the breakdown of word articulation. as i write this i'm havign trouble even putting words to describe how its hard to put words.

i used to be a prolific (fanfiction) writer. i can barely formulate tumblr posts at this point. it's not even that i was a particularly good writer, but it came so easily to me to put words on paper. i've always been a little bad at talking out loud due to my autism, but that used to be much better too.

it's just genuinely upsetting to me. i would trade my medication out in a heartbeat if there was one that treated this instead of my positive symptoms, my ability to pass as 'normal' be damned.

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psa: not every weird esoteric thing a schizophrenic person does is creepy, threatening, or indicative of a mental downspiral. sometimes we’re just stimming or engaging in our interests and enjoying ourselves like any other neurodivergent person! sometimes it involves stuff that can look spooky, like making little talismans or wandering around in the dark or taking strange-looking notes, but unless we’re visibly distressed we’re probably just having fun!

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boy it would be nice to be able to google something related to personality disorders, psychosis, intellectual disabilities, autism, DID/OSDD, etcetera without finding majority articles that are like “how to deal with a person with X” “how to cope with your child with X” “how to spot someone faking X” “can people with X be cured?”

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People with psychosis deserve better.

Psychotic episodes are fucking terrifying.

If you say "delulu" I'm going to hit you with my car !!

Be normal about schizospecs and psychotics *bonk*

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Do you have a severe mental illness that can/has caused a mental health emergency? Are you currently stable? You should make a basic safety plan! [Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, this advice is taken from my own experiences and what I learned in inpatient psychiatric facilities. This post caters more to those who experience severe psychotic episodes as that is my experience.]

1. Find a safe person. Someone you often spend time with that you can trust with the details of your mental illness and feel safe around. Ask them if they are comfortable being the person to look out for you if you have a mental health emergency. Preferably someone you live with. If no one you live with fits this role, find someone you contact regularly.

2. Explain to the safe person what a mental health emergency looks like for you. Think of the way you presented in the past during mental health emergencies and try to describe it. You may have to describe it based on what others have told you if you had memory loss during episodes in the past.

3. Let them know how they can check with you to see if you are in a mental crisis. You might need them to ask you some questions to gage your mental state (examplse: Do you know where you are right now? Are you able to talk?). Tell them what questions to ask to find out if you are in a crisis.

4. Explain to them what you would want to happen in a mental health emergency. If they are able to see that you are indeed in a mental health emergency, what steps would you want them to take? If you will need to go to the hospital, but don't want to interact with police, let them know to tell that to emergency services. If there's a nearby inpatient facility you would want to go to, tell them which one and give them their contact info. If episodes typically pass on their own for you, let the safe person know how to keep you comfortable and safe until it passes.

5. Have an easily accessible contact paper or note on your phone with some basic info in case you can't speak to professional help while you are in a crisis. Add your name, birth date, your diagnoses, and exactly what medications you take and the dosages. You can add specific warnings or triggers about yourself (examples: Doesn't like being touched by medical professionals. Can react violently to loud noises). You can add contact info of people you'd want to let know about your situation. You can add your insurance information if you have it.

6. If you would have to go to a hospital/inpatient facility, let the safe person know if there's anything else you'd want them to handle once you get there. (Examples: Pack a bag of clothes for the inpatient stay. Feed my pets while I'm gone or ask someone else to. Contact my work place for me and let them know I won't be able to come in.)

Yes this is a long list, but I feel it's important to prepare and get your bases covered while you have the capacity to do so. Often when someone is in crisis they don't know how to ask for help, or what to do once they get help. Thinking of everything ahead of time saves you the extra worry later, or the extra worry of guessing by the people around you.

And if you are thinking "this is too much work to make someone else do!" Consider how much harder it would be if they found you in crisis and had no idea what to do and you wouldn't be able to tell them. If you have a severe mental illness that can/has caused you to be in a state of mental health emergency, you deserve to be cared for by others during the crisis.

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Just something on my mind right now.

Allistic people, if you have an autistic friend, what you should be mindful of is that if you want your friend to go out and hang out with you and company, you ought to refrain from giving them a hard time about what they have to do in order to keep themselves safe and sane while they're away from their safe space (home) no matter the circumstances.

Speaking from personal experiences here, I know I want to get out of the house, go to places, spend time with friends, have fun. But if me leaving my comfort zone (which is never an easy thing to begin with) is met with the punishment of no accommodation and no consideration, well, guess what, I ain't going to want to do it again, at least not with the same people again.

It's not a switch that can be turned on and off. I can't make myself 100% socially palatable on the best of and highest masking days. As I was telling my husband the other night after us returning from a summer fest, a little bit of advocacy such as "this place is overwhelming/overstimulating/sensory overloading for her" goes a long way. (Context: I finally snapped after I was made the butt of jokes for the evening, because I was bombarded with noises, crowds, smells, and heat from all sides and couldn't focus on anything, because sensory hell, because autism.)

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Hate the word 'quirky' people call themselves 'quirky' and 'weird' and then go an bully autistic and psychotic people. Bring back eccentric, i liked eccentric. Autistics and psychotics should reclaim eccentric

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Hey, just in case people who already have been having a bad time with this meme are retriggered by Francesca Scorcese's TikTok – Goncharov is fake. It doesn't exist. [Edited for further clarity] That is really Martin Scorsese's daughter, that's her real TikTok account, and presumably that is really her father in the chat screenshot she posted. Francesca saw the piece in the NY Times talking about how Tumblr made up a fake movie, sent her Dad the link and asked "Did you see this?" Martin joked back "yes I made that movie years ago." That's all it was, Martin Scorsese himself playing along with our silliness.

PLEASE reblog this and DO NOT TAG IT UNREALITY. "Unreality" is for posts that are keeping up the bit, but info posts, reality-affirming posts and ones talking about the meme as a meme are solidly real. We really haven't been doing a good enough job tagging this properly and protecting neurodivergent people from being gaslit and traumatized. I've seen way too many people saying they nearly had a breakdown because of being lied to. We never meant to hurt you, and I'm so sorry people were jackasses when you wanted to know the truth.

Edit: I love everybody reblogging this, but a handful of idiots have been clowning on this post so here's an explainer about how site-wide disinformation can trigger psychosis. Please go in the replies and notes, they have a lot of interesting insights, by everyone from non-psychotic autistic people with gaslighting trauma to DID systems. You can go through the notes on this post as well.

There's absolutely no reason to be ashamed of loving and enjoying this meme, or to feel bad about not tagging things properly when you didn't know how. And PLEASE don't harass, dogpile or shame people for failing to tag properly or choosing not to. You're just giving people anxiety and policing them. Do what you can how you can, be kind, and don't tell other people their business. That is more than enough.❤️

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why r nonpsychotic people so protective over Reality like who cares if i think im a dog. "but its not factual" i have bigger problems bro [trots away to continue digging a dirt hole to bury my tennis ball in]

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Schizo-spec/psychotic person: I love myself

Everyone within earshot: HOW DARE YOU??? IT’S HARMFUL TO ROMANTICIZE THE THINGS THAT ARE WROOOOOONG ABOUT YOUR BRAIN THAT ARE SCARY AND BAD AND WROOOOONG!!!!1!!1!1!1

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i am so thirsty but my brain is just

does this make sense