When You Don’t Remember What Happened During Psychotic Breaks |
Find a therapist to treat psychosis
Psychosis is not spiritual warfare; it requires medicine just like any other health condition.
Not remembering can be scary because of not knowing how your actions have impacted others.
Not knowing what happened can weigh on you and cause undo shame. You are better off finding out.
Personal development and working hard on yourself is one way to trust and believe in yourself again.
I had the honor of interviewing Alison MacComber, a peer of mine I have known for years. She is a wife, business owner, and meaningful member of her family and community. She in fact is the first person I’ve ever met who has openly shared a similar diagnosis to mine (schizophrenia), and I am forever thankful. Even though I remember everything that happened during my breaks and hospitalizations, Alison has shared that she does not remember everything. She has previously explained to me the emotional challenges of not knowing what happened, and I realize she has important insights and wisdom to share with Psychology Today readers about when you don’t remember what happened.
Sarah Merritt Ryan: Tell us a bit about your journey with bipolar schizoaffective.
Alison MacComber: I was diagnosed with bipolar in 1998 after an arduous mission trip to Mexico, where I got overheated and didn’t sleep for eight days. At the end of those eight days, I was hospitalized and diagnosed. My family did not believe I had a mental illness, so a few years later, my dad encouraged me to stop taking my meds. I then wound up in the hospital again in 2001. That was the worst depression and psychosis of my life. I was hospitalized again in 2004. I had seven hospitalizations in my 20s, three in my 30s, and two in my 40s. With bipolar schizoaffective, you have the mood swings, and then when the mania gets out of hand, it can become psychosis.
SMR: What emotions have you felt, and what have been your challenges to overcome?
AM: I have felt a lot of shame and guilt about my diagnosis. The main challenge was not just seeing it as some sort of spiritual warfare, but as a brain that was different from others and that needed medicine, just as a diabetic would need insulin.
SMR: Explain what it means to not remember your breaks and black out.
AM: Some of the days up to my hospitalization I don't remember. The scary part about not remembering is that you don't know how it hurts the people you love, and that's not something I'm proud of. That’s the reason why I never want to be psychotic again, ever.
Finding out can be emotional too. For example, during a hospitalization in my 30s, I found out later I had tried to kill myself by strangling myself with a necklace around my neck. A nurse saw me and stopped me, but I have no memory of that.
SMR: You speak of this desire to know what happened, that you are not comfortable with not knowing, but also being afraid of knowing. How have you confronted these feelings?
AM: A good friend from college and I have been back in contact the last year and a half, and I told her this week about my Psychology Today interview. I asked if she could shed some light on some things I don't remember. I asked, “Was anyone killed because of me in our senior year of college? She said, “No Alison, nobody died.” I then thought to myself, Oh my gosh. All this time I thought that people had been killed because of me, because I thought I was the Antichrist. I carried the weight and the shame and the guilt of that fear for all this time, so that was really freeing for me. I also asked, “Was I ever in the news? Was I ever famous?” She assured me I was never famous. So that was really freeing for me, because obviously, I don't want to be famous for something bad. It is such a huge relief to finally confront my fears and find out information. I just felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It was huge.
SMR: What is your advice for others who don't remember what happened during their psychotic breaks?
AM: Don't wait years and years to find out what happened, because I carried that weight and shame and guilt for years, thinking that people had died because of me. It's literally just been this week that I was able to have that conversation. I would say, don't wait for a long time.
Find a therapist to treat psychosis
SMR: Where are you at currently with trusting and believing in yourself again after your psychotic breaks?
AM: The more I do with personal development, the more I trust and believe in myself. For me personally, I want to work hard. I want to say at the end of the day that I did the best I could. I know that if I don't respect myself, then other people won't respect me. If I'm not putting in the hard work, then people won't respect me.
SMR: What is your advice on emotional recovery from psychosis?
AM: You have to make an effort to come out of your depression, come out of your shame, come out of your lethargy, and work hard. Do the basic stuff, do the hard stuff; it's going to be worth it in the end if you focus on the positive parts of the world, the positive parts of your life, because a sure fire way to end up really depressed laying on the couch all day long is if you don't do the hard work necessary to recover.
Do little things, like go for a jog or journal about your experience. Get up and do the dishes, like something simple, to help yourself each day. Just take it one day at a time, one step at a time, and don't expect too much from yourself too quickly, because it's going to take time to overcome that. I would say anytime I've been in the hospital with psychosis, it's taken me a good solid year to sort things out and get over it.