Prior to my first ‘psychosis’ and my first psychiatric hospital in a small Dutch town called Purmerend, I was leading quite a successful life, according to the society’s standards. I somehow managed to get a job as a financial analyst of banks (and later, as a portfolio manager) in a Dutch consultancy without any diploma or knowledge of finances, and from exterior, was projecting an image of someone accomplished. I lived near the centre of the gorgeous city of Amsterdam, I had great friends and a membership in the prime gym club. Not only membership, I actually went there, every single day after work, and I also run in the morning. I was a bit obsessed with perfection, and no one would ever guess that one day I would end up with a diagnosis of ‘severe mental illness’, least of all, me.
My constant stomach pain was a silent cry out that maybe not all things were that perfect. I had quite difficult and traumatic years when I was a teenager in Russia, and my stomach was holding that trauma inside. I assume that each trauma finds its way out eventually, and in my case it was via ‘psychosis’. I went to the Chinese medical centre to get some help and they prescribed me a strong tea to drink each evening. I drunk it all almost in one go, so desperate I was to feel healthy and without pain. I stopped sleeping and it’s on the eleventh day of insomnia that I ended up in what is medically referred to as ‘psychosis’.
I have problems with medical terms, because in my case, it was a beautiful experience. I felt light, divine and very happy. That until I ended up in a psychiatric hospital where the doctor told me that it was wrong, to feel that happy, and that I had to take Zyprexa (olanzapine) to treat it. I will tell you more about my psychiatric experiences, but what I would like to highlight in this post is that absolutely anyone can get mad, especially in our world, with so much uncertainty, wars, poverty and despair. I met so many ‘successful’ people inside the psychiatric hospital’s premises. Anyone can end up in a psychosis. And yet, as a society we shame this experience and we run away from discussing ‘severe mental illness’. You can do well in life, with whatever psychiatric diagnoses are thrown into your face. Bipolar, schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder (I had all three of them lol, they tended to vary, depending on the psychiatrist in charge of my ‘case’),- you can still stand up on your feet and keep going, where you enjoy your life, are rewarded at a good job, have friends, and find love. Anything is possible in this life.
(this post was first published on X platform)
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