“WHO ARE YOU GOING TO PRETEND TO BE?” | REALITY & MENTAL HEALTH | HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Taking your breath, stealing your mind

And all that was real is left behind

-        The Greatest show

With a key component of Halloween being that people don costumes and become someone else, I thought I’d play on that notion of an absence of reality and use it as inspiration for this year’s Halloween blog post…

IT STARTED WITH DISASSOCIATION…

The first difficulty I experienced in regards to reality, was when the abuse started in 2006 and I found myself constantly, desperately, trying to pretend it wasn’t actually happening and I think that a huge reason for this was that I’d known my abuser for two years before he started hurting me. It meant that everything I thought he was – all the things everyone else thought of him – was completely untrue. It was a lie. A cruel, deception that meant when he became the exact opposite, I was so shocked and surprised, that I questioned the entire reality of it! Partly as though he surely couldn’t be the same person, and partly because how could anyone do what he was doing to me?!

Out of panic and fear, whenever he called me or took me to his office, it was as though my eyes detached from my body and all of a sudden I was watching him hurt someone else. Some poor girl who couldn’t fight back. I just had to sit back and watch it happening from my new position on the ceiling – something which rendered my view ineffective when it finally came to reporting the abuse and the details of it, to the Police. It was kind of ironic that me detaching in that way, was very obviously a coping mechanism that my body had seemed to just naturally fall into, yet doing that, was actually hindering of me getting justice for the reason I disassociated.

TIPS FOR WRITING ABOUT HALLUCINATIONS | I WROTE A CHAPTER FOR THE PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF HEARING VOICES – AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!!!

Buy your copy: https://bit.ly/38P5yag

Let the walls crack, 'cause it lets the light in
Let 'em drag you through hell
They can't tell you to change who you are
That's all I know so far

All I Know So Far – P!nk

 A good few years ago, I began collaborating with the author of the book Emily’s Voices (which you can buy here), and she asked me to write a chapter for the book she was in the process of writing; The Practical Handbook of Hearing Voices! The book was scheduled to publish a while ago, but the pandemic kind of put a spanner in the works and so I’m really pleased to say, it has been officially published TODAY!!

I wrote a blog post for World Suicide Prevention Day with advice for writing about suicide (you can read it here), and its popularity has encouraged me to write this piece in a similar format…

Find a metaphor or expect a lack of empathy 

I think that when I discovered a metaphor for my auditory hallucinations not long after creating, I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, it was a real turning point in me feeling understood and that gave me the experience of an overwhelming sense of relief.

Without that metaphor, I experienced such a lack of empathy – which I attributed to the pure fact that no one could understand or appreciate what I was going through. And I believed this was the case because admittedly, even I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t have the words to form an explanation that I believed would be efficient and powerful enough so that others would understand. That might seem hard to believe considering I’m a blogger and all I do is come up with words to explain things! So I think that not being able to do that, really illustrates just how new, scary, chaotic, and unpredictable things were.

BLOGMAS 2019 – POST EIGHT : STIGMA & MISCONCEPTIONS | BEAUTY & THE BEAST PANTOMIME | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE THEATRE ROYAL NEWCASTLE | AD

Thanks to a poll on my Twitter back in November, my wonderful followers decided that I should publish a blog post and film a vlog every day for the entirety of December!

So welcome to December 8th…

I struggled to think of a subject to write about in this post because as usual, I won’t be doing a review of the pantomime. Like I said in Wednesday’s Jack And The Beanstalk post, there are so many media sites doing an awesome job at publishing straightforward reviews that I don’t think you guys need another one doing that! Also, this is first and foremost, a mental health blog so telling you my favourite parts of a pantomime would be completely irrelevant!

For those who don’t know the story of Beauty and the Beast; it begins with an enchantress disguised as a beggar lady. She approaches a Prince and offers him a rose in return for allowing her to sleep in his Castle to escape the storm. When he fails to look beyond her appearance, she casts a spell on him which turns him into a Beast and tells him that unless he meets true love before the final petal falls from the rose then he’ll remain that way forever. And then ‘Beauty’ comes along in the form of a local village girl! And that’s all I’ll say because I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it!

I guess the point of the story is not to judge a book by its cover, through not holding a preconceived idea of a person and seeing beyond a person’s appearance by appreciating their personality and who they actually are. It’s also about being kind to others and treating people how you would like to be treat.

Here’s – what I believe – are the five most popular misconceptions in mental health and what people should know to eradicate these beliefs:

FOUR WAYS TO COPE WHEN THE PROFESSIONALS DON’T BELIEVE YOU

I wrote a post recently about the power of words; which was inspired by the recent battle I’ve had with two Psychiatrists who have accused me of ‘feigning’ the hallucinations I experience. When I was talking to my Mum about it, she told me to remember that the most important people believe me and not to let what was said deter me from talking when I struggle. I told her that I wouldn’t let it; and that instead, I’d use it as inspiration for a blog post to try and ensure that others don’t let similar attitudes and comments impact them in the hugely negative and detrimental way that they have the potential to.


Mental health will likely always be surrounded by stigma but even if one day it is not, people who speak up and talk openly about their mental health problems will always be brave and courageous. This makes it so important and essential that when someone comes forward about their struggles they are met with a positive, supportive, and empathetic response. To be accused of lying or ‘making up’ their experiences can be incredibly debilitating and promote the idea that services aren’t the source of support that they should be. This can leave you feeling alone, and you might find yourself desperately searching for coping strategies to deal with the professionals’ disbelief. I hope that this post can help people avoid resorting to negative, unsafe coping mechanisms…

DEAR SERVICES, DO YOU KNOW THE POWER OF YOUR WORDS? | "DO YOU KNOW WHAT FEIGNED MEANS?"

Can’t you forgive me?

At least just temporarily

I know that this is my fault

I should have been more careful

Ariana Grande – One Last Time

These last two weeks have been so chaotic that I’m completely lost as to what has happened when because I’ve self-harmed so many times but on each of my hospitalizations (I think I’m on about four now) something has happened to inspire this post. 


On one of my hospital stays everything had been going well – I was telling staff when I was struggling, co-operating with the treatment for the overdose I’d taken, and keeping myself safe whilst I was in the Hospital. Then a Nurse – who I’ve met and had a similar dealing with before – made a comment about me ‘wasting a bed’ because she said that it was my own fault I was there. This comment – her words and attitude – saw me refusing the final blood tests and discharging myself. On my way out, I considered not telling the Sister and Doctor what she had said because I was a bit ashamed to admit that I’d let her comment get to me and a part of me always thinks ‘if you’re going to be open and honest about your mental health then you have to expect at least one response like that.’ Of course, it shouldn’t be that way; but the reality of mental health is that there are still people who hold that stigma and prejudice against those who are battling against it. I think that there’ll have to be a time when we recognize that no matter how many people - and how many followers they have – join the fight, we most likely can’t change the world.

AN IN-DEPTH LOOK INTO AN OVERDOSE | WHAT I THOUGHT, HOW I FELT, & WHAT HAPPENED

I almost couldn’t believe what I was saying when the lady in the shop asked why I’d passed out and I said that I’d gradually been overdosing on Co-Codomol since the previous day. You’d think that if anything, I’d be used to saying it and maybe even become quite ‘glib’ about it; but actually, it doesn’t get any easier – it still hurts to admit that you were so desperate to escape the hallucinations and memories of abuse that you tried to kill yourself. And it isn’t just with family and friends; I’m also ashamed and pained to tell Doctors, Nurses, and other professionals that I’ve ‘done it again’ because, I know it’s a very common thought process around mental health, but I actually wouldn’t blame someone for thinking me ‘weak’ for coping in such a way. Some people look at suicide as the ‘easy way out’ and I don’t blame them for misunderstanding something so scary and intimidating as going against all human instinct for survival and taking your own life. 

Telling the lady in the shop turned out to be a mistake because she called an Ambulance and when I refused to go to hospital with them, the Paramedics called the Police and I was told it was either put my seatbelt on in the Ambulance or put on handcuffs in the Police car; and so, of course, I fastened my seatbelt! Part of my refusal was because I wanted the overdose to work and for it to kill me, but a bigger part of it was about not wanting to upset the auditory hallucinations who were telling me not to go to the Hospital. I’d already bartered with them to hurt myself over hurting the people and things the voice was telling me to hurt; so, there could be no more compromising with it. I was no longer in control; my health, my thoughts, my feelings, my relationships… the voice owned them all. Agreeing to go to hospital, however, was much easier when it was the result of a threat from the Police and not my own volition.

“I DIDN’T PRESCRIBE THEM; YOU DID!” | A DISCUSSION ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION

I remember being discharged from the Psychiatric Hospital after my first admission in 2009 and it felt like everyone thought I was better now, and I would never try to kill myself again. Of course, I knew that wasn’t the case; because I could feel that darkness inside of me and I knew it wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. So, when I attempted suicide again and refused the medical treatment for it, I wasn’t really surprised. What did surprise me, though, was when the entire Mental Health Act assessment team came to my Mum’s house to section me!

My Mum had tried to convince me to go to A&E for the antidote to the paracetamol overdose, but I’d refused, and she’d called the Crisis Team. I just remember professionals sat around the living room asking me questions and then I went to my bedroom and the next thing I knew the Psychiatrist from my first admission was there and telling me that he was going to sign the section papers. I remember him sitting in my very pink bedroom and saying; “I think it’s time we start some medication for you at my Hospital.” I joked that it wasn’t ‘his’ Hospital and he led the way downstairs for me to watch the papers be signed and eight Police officers filed in to take me to their van to go to A&E for the medical treatment first. When we got there, there were four support workers from the local Psychiatric Hospital ready to make sure I had the treatment (a drip that takes over twenty hours to administer) and right from the offset I was medicated! I tried to run from A&E and was given a sedative injection and as soon as I’d woken up after it, I was trying to tear the drip out and was given another. I think it took about five injections for me to complete the treatment and be transferred to the Psychiatric Hospital to begin an anti-psychotic medication.

HOW IT FEELS WHEN THE VOICES HAVE GONE

re·lief

[rəˈlēf]

NOUN

1.       a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress.

2.       assistance, especially in the form of food, clothing, or money, given to those in special need or difficulty.

3.       a person or group of people replacing others who have been on duty.

4.       the state of being clearly visible or obvious due to being accentuated in some way

I don’t know if anyone can remember but I once wrote a post when I’d been struggling with auditory hallucinations and I talked about how it feels after I’ve taken Lorazepam and it kicks in and the voices go. I explained that before the medication it was as though there’d been stormy seas in my head and when the sedative had kicked in, the waves were calm and quiet, and everything was peaceful.

“I DIDN’T TELL YOU SO THAT YOU’D FEEL SORRY FOR ME” | SYMPATHY, EMPATHY & CONDESCENTION

The moment something bad happens to you, you’ll forever have a choice: do you tell someone or don’t you? And I don’t just mean do you report abuse to the Police or do you see a Doctor if you’re in a car accident. I mean, do you tell your parents what happened? Do you tell the teachers at School? Do you tell your friends?

My reluctance to report the abuse I went through made the choice a little easier for me; why would I tell anyone with the threats he made and the worries of judgement I held? He told me that people wouldn’t believe me, that they’d think I was making it up for attention or as an excuse for my bad behavior (which was, in fact, a result of the abuse). I also knew that as soon as people knew what had happened, they’d have a choice to make; his side or mine. I’d make the ‘allegations’ and he’d make a denial; so, who would they believe? And even if they thought it was true – even if they were on my side – what if they thought I’d deserved it? What if they told the Police before I was ready to tell them – I wouldn’t have a choice! Telling someone opened so many unanswerable questions that I wouldn’t know the answers to, unless I took the risk and ‘spilled the beans.’

THREE REASONS WHY WE SHOULD ALL KEEP GOING | TW: DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE

We are search lights, we can see in the dark

We are rockets, pointed up at the stars

We are billions of beautiful heats

- P!NK - What About Us

For obvious (I think) reasons, there have been times in my relapse where I’ve felt reluctant to go on with life and have become determined to end it. And yes, sometimes; I’ve tried to. More recently (like literally the last four days) I’ve begun to see some changes in my mental health from the medication getting back in my system and one of these has been finding – and then clinging onto – all the reasons why I shouldn’t die. All the reasons I deserve life. Deserve my recovery.

And now that I’ve learnt these three important reasons, I thought it was time to share them with all my lovely readers in the hope that it inspires others to find their own reasons. Their own rationale to fight back against all of those feelings of depression and all of those suicidal thoughts…

THREE REASONS THAT MAKE ME REGRET SELF-HARMING

In my relapse these past few months, there’s been a lot of self-harm – whether that be through cutting or overdosing – and after my most recent overdose I came to the realization that I often regret self-harming but I rarely regret not doing it. If that makes sense.

My self-harm almost always comes as a result of the voices I hear telling me to do it but occasionally it’s from memories and thoughts about the trauma I went through when I was younger. If I manage to use my DBT skills, call the Crisis Team, or take Diazepam (and it work) then I never wake up the next day thinking ‘God I wish I’d cut last night!’ Admittedly, though, if I wake up the next day and the voices and memories are still there then I often think ‘let’s just do it!’

But then I do – I cut, or I take an overdose and I go through all of the consequences that brings and there are sometimes when those consequences seem worse than if I’d just tolerated the voices a little longer or called the Crisis Team one more time.

My hope is that this post will inspire others to come up with their own list of things that make them regret self-harming to help motivate them to stay safe and to use their own coping skills more.

FIVE LESSONS MY MENTAL HEALTH RELAPSE HAS TAUGHT ME

1.     To ‘self-soothe’ more

      Self-soothe is probably one of my favourite – and most used – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill. For so many years I was hard on myself and blamed myself for everything that went wrong in my life. Even the abuse. I thought that I was a bad person and had deserved all of these bad things in my life; the abuse, the bullying, the self-harm, the hallucinations… everything! For a while, I believed that I didn’t even deserve to be alive. So – perhaps – understandably, self-soothing was a particularly difficult skill for me to put into practice and even harder to eventually master. But being nice to myself felt so good that I fought the voices in my head that were trying to convince me that I should be hurting myself and not helping myself. I told them that I’d punished myself enough and that after all these years of self-harming and attempting suicide, I deserved to enjoy simple things. And that’s what my self-soothe techniques are; simple things. Like, lighting a candle, having a shower, doing my makeup or my hair, playing with my pets, spending time on The Sims, writing, reading, watching America’s Got Talent on Netflix… little things like that can sometimes make all the difference when I’m struggling with voices telling me that I’m useless and worthless and deserve to die.

2.     The importance of medication

The catalyst for this relapse has been that I stopped taking the medication I’m on for my mental health (Mirtazapine, Lamotrigine,

TW: RAMBLINGS OF AN INPATIENT | AN UNFOCUSED POST

I’ve just gotten to the ward from A&E and separating myself from the voices is hard.

That’s probably an understatement – it is near impossible.

But I can do it. When they aren’t horrendously loud and I’m not massively tired; I can do it.

Being in Cygnet Hospital (Bierley) for two and a half years taught me a lot; and one lesson I did learn was to always try my hardest to fight these auditory hallucinations. Cygnet gave me new, safe, and healthy coping skills and I use all of them. Sometimes they’re enough. Sometimes they are not. But I try. The point is, I try. I don’t – though it might seem this way – go straight to the paracetamol and self-harm.

In a – perhaps twisted – way, this is a bad thing because it makes me feel enormously hopeless when all my new coping skills don’t work. And I feel like maybe it’s time to rely on other people to keep me safe and to help me to quieten the voices. I can only do so much myself and if others can’t give me that support, then I worry – and genuinely believe – I will die.

HOW TO SURVIVE HOSPITAL | FIVE TIPS TO MAKE IT THROUGH ANY HOSPITAL STAY

A little while ago one of my medications was increased and with the increase, came a change in the tablet’s appearance. Of course the dormant voices jumped on this and convinced me that it was poison and they reasoned that Doctors were trying to make me more poorly so that I would need them more. Naturally, their thunderous voices were no match for my own and so I stopped taking my medication (which included two anti-depressants, one mood stabiliser, and an antipsychotic).

WHY I'M STILL LEARNING TO COPE WITH CHANGE

My childhood was idyllic; I was wrapped in cotton wool and grew up in a bubble away from all of the nasty people and all of the nasty things in the world. As much as it meant that meeting someone awful was an absolute shock to the system; I still think it was the perfect way to have grown up and would hope for my own children to live such a childhood.

There's a part of me I can't get back
A little girl grew up too fast
All it took was once, I'll never be the same
Now I'm taking back my life today

- Demi Lovato - Warrior

HOW I BEAT THE LONELINESS OF HEARING VOICES

Isn’t it strange that hearing two voices can make you feel so alone? You’d think it’d be the opposite – that they’d be good company. Or at least, company!

Instead, it makes you feel like you’re the only person in the entire world I guess that, in a way, you are.

Because it’s the entire point of auditory hallucinations; you’re the only person who could hear what you do. Except when you’re listening to this voice – or these voices – telling you all of the worst things that you think about yourself, and more(!) it’s hard to keep that perspective.

I mean, how could you possibly keep in mind that you may be the only person what you are but you aren’t the only person in the world; with 1 in 4 people experiencing mental health problems at least once in their life.

It’s hard though, being the only person to hear Annie and Albert makes me questions ‘why me?’ ‘Why am I the only person to hear them?’ ‘Why did they choose me?’

"THAT'D JUST BE MADNESS" | MY THOUGHTS ON MY RECENT OVERDOSE

On the Monday morning I had an appointment regarding my benefits and after arriving there early, I decided it was a sign to overdose. Finally.

It’d been a thought for quite a while now and I’d tried to use all of the coping skills in my arsenal to manage the urges; even using self-harm (http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2018/03/lets-be-honest-about-self-harm-my.html) to try and abate the voices’ (http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2018/03/how-it-feels-to-hear-voices.html) commands to overdose!

In my assessment the Doctor asked me when my last overdose had been; “well… right now” was my reply. She ended up calling an Ambulance and as much as I didn’t want to go to Hospital, I finally agreed because, to be honest, I didn’t want to put that drama on the Doctor. The voices were still loud, and I knew that I needed to take a larger overdose before they would quieten down, but my promise to get help once I was finished (the overdose) and they were quiet, wouldn’t stop their insisting that I go to Hospital and see an A&E Doctor.

HOW IT FEELS TO HEAR VOICES

‘A common form of auditory hallucination involves hearing one or more talking voices. This may be associated with psychotic disorders, and holds special significance in diagnosing these conditions.^[2] However, individuals without any psychiatric disease whatsoever may hear voices.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_hallucination

Recently I’ve been struggling so much with my mental health and a huge reason for that has been that my auditory and visual hallucinations have come back.

I feel as though I’ve been battling the visual hallucinations for a while now… I think it started last year in around May or June because I can remember finally telling someone (my Mum) about them whilst holding the Rabbit I ended up buying (Pixie!)

But the auditory hallucinations seemed to suddenly come back, and with vengeance… It was like they were angry for being gotten rid of for so long. As though they’d still always been there but I’d been ignoring them. It’s like when you fall out with someone and stop speaking to them then you finally confront them… They’d be a bit riled; to say the least! Having been gone for so long, the voices had some pent-up energy and… volume, that they needed to get out of their system.

24hrs with a Patrol Sergeant

24 hours with...Becky Davies 

Date: 11/03/2016

Why have you chosen to write about today? 

Today I start as Temporary Sergeant with my new team in a brand new policing area (Exeter). 

Good morning!

What time did you wake up? 

Officially 05:00 but it was a typical nights sleep before earlier, waking up every hour or so!

Why did you wake up at that time? 

To get into the office by 06:30.

Did you have a dream? 

Not that I remember. 

Do you think today will be 'good' or 'bad' day? (use your own definition of these words to answer the question) 

Overall good but I have lots of new people to meet and names to learn so it will be tiring. I also have woman flu and feel terrible!

What are the first three things you do after waking up? 

Put my uniform on, brush my hair, have a cup of tea.

Do you eat breakfast? If yes, what did you have? 

Yes some people say they can’t eat that early but if I don’t eat when I get up at that time, I feel nauseous. I had salmon and fried eggs, sounds extravagant but is a frequent breakfast as I cannot eat starch because I have an autoimmune disorder.

What would be your perfect breakfast? 

If I could eat starch toast with marmite!

Is there anything that you have to do today but don't particularly want to? 

No :)

List five things that you do between 9am and noon. 

Attended the daily management meeting to discuss priorities for the day, ate some dates, sent some emails about the family support scheme I run to ensure all the ladies accessing the scheme are well supported.

Did you eat lunch? If yes, what did you eat? 

Not until about 3pm as we were looking after a lady who was experiencing severe psychosis and needed to see the crisis team. I grabbed some cooked chicken, tomato and mozzarella from Waitrose.

What would be your perfect lunch? What I had but with mustard mayo! 

Missed the mustard mayo!

List five things that you have done, said, thought, or that have happened between noon and 5pm. 

Enabled access to the lady hearing voices and in crisis to the crisis team (this took 2 hours). Drank a cup of tea at the hospital (RD&E) provided by lovely nursing staff. Set up a meeting to receive feedback on my recent interview (so I can do even better at the substantive promotion!). Thought ‘I’m looking forward to getting home now as it’s been a long day, I’m shattered, and I have a stinking cold!'

Do you eat dinner/tea? If yes, at what time? 

Yes between 7-8pm

What do you eat? 

We had mozzarella stuffed meatballs. My partner cooked.

What would be your perfect dinner? 

Fillet steak!

What do you do with your evening ( 5-8pm)? 

Drive home, see my little girl and put her to bed. Usually work on stuff I need to do for Mind or study for my psychology degree. Sometimes, like this evening when I need a night off I watch a film. Tonight we are watching ‘The Lake House.'

Do you have a 'get-ready-for-bed' routine? If so, what is it? 

Drink a cup of herbal tea and sometimes some Mindfulness via headspace. Clear the mind, re-focus on the present.

What time do you go to sleep? 

It varies, usually a few minutes after i go to bed! If I am on earlier the following day it will be between 9-10pm. If I have worked a late shift it will be the early hours. Then there’s nightshifts when bed time is sometime after 7am!

Is this when you want to go to bed? Or is it influenced by what you're doing the following day? Influenced by shift work. There is no better feeling than getting into bed after a night shift.

Do you share your bed? 

Yes.

Which position do you tend to sleep in? e.g. foetus, starfish etc. 

I get a lot of spinal pain from the autoimmune disorder so tends to be front to stretch my back.

Reflect

What was your favourite part of your day? 

Meeting new people and seeing some faces I haven’t seen for a long time.

What was your least favourite? 

Having woman flu and feeling terrible!

Did anything happen today that you'd like to change or re-do? 

Yes, I was put in the spotlight and wish I had a quippier response but it was 7am!

Did you 'learn' anything today? (use your own definition of this word to answer the question). 

I learnt a few things about how Exeter policing area run things slightly differently to my previous local policing area. 

Are you looking forward to tomorrow? 

Yes

What do you have planned? 

I have a day off and am going horse riding with my best friend for her birthday.

Thank you for contributing to the series!

Goodnight!

10 Things You Should Know About... Psychosis

                                     

     

1. Psychosis is not a condition in itself, but it is induced by other Disorders, e.g. Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar and sometimes, depression
2. 1 in 5 of those experiencing psychosis will attempt suicide. Whilst one in twenty-five will succeed in killing themselves.
3. A sufferer's lack of insight into their symptoms and experiences often means that help and support is only sought when family and friends etc. notice that something is wrong. It is important to have early intervention
4. The severity of a person's psychosis will decide the appropriate treatment, help support. This can vary from anti-psychotic medication, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and admission to a psychiatric hospital; both voluntarily and involuntary.
5. When a person presents with psychotic symptoms, the first step is often to determine whether it has a short-term cause, such as substance abuse.
6. Traumatic experiences, brain tumours and Parkinson's disease, can often trigger psychosis.
7. 3 in 100 people will experience an episode of psychosis in their lifetime.
8. One of the main symptoms of psychosis is to experience hallucinations. Hallucinations can vary from auditory, visual, and tactile; with the most common experience being auditory hallucinations in the form of hearing voices.
9. The second main symptom of psychosis is experiencing delusions; this is when a person believes something that rational people would easily deem to be obviously untrue.
10. Often as a result of their hallucinations and delusions, those with psychosis can experience a difficulty in social interaction, an impairment in carrying out daily tasks and exhibiting blizzare and unusual behaviour.