Suicide Psychosis LIVE at the Temporal Lobe!

Until very recently I considered my past experiences with psychosis to be rare and isolated brain farts confined to the exceptional circumstances of unusually stressful events. But now that I’ve clocked up psychosis number three I’m having to confront the prospect that these hallucinations and disordered thoughts are not simply seldom stress related occurrences but a recurring theme.. which seemingly puts my diagnosis of bipolar III (cyclothymia) into doubt.

About six weeks ago I noticed that the notion, the word, the concept “suicide” was murmuring to the rear of my right temporal lobe. It was like noticing something move out of the corner of your eye; in a deep corner of my mind I could hear the faint hallows of “suicide” being cried. There was no instruction, no direction to kill, just an elusive, attenuated presence of the “S” word. What it was doing there I did not know. I was alright. I was getting on with running my business, writing my PhD, and enjoying being relatively well again. It had been almost two years since my dysthymic state of depression had subsided. I was better, damn it! Why is that word echoing lightly to the side of my brain? The status of my mental health has been variable over the years but suicidality has never been part of my mentalist bag – why now?

On day two and the word, the concept, the notion of suicide was still lurking deep in my right temporal lobe… just past my right ear. My two previous psychoses had each occurred in a specific part of the brain, and this was no different… but I didn’t recognise/acknowledge it as psychosis, not yet. That realisation hit on day three. When I awoke on the third morn the word SUICIDE was plastered in block letters across the inside of my skull like the billboard of a broadway show. The sneaky bugger had moved to the central cranial position overnight while I slept. It was no longer lurking in the corner of my mind but was making a spectacle of itself smack bang, front and center of my brain, commanding my attention. Just imagine your very first waking thought in the morning to be of that word. SUICIDE. That is what I awoke too.. and it pretty much went downhill from there.

I couldn’t for the life of me (pun intended) understand why it was there. I was not in distress, I did not want to die – why the fuck was the word suicide (literally) on my mind? I was well on the road to recovery. I’d just submitted another chapter of my thesis with plans to submit my PhD in nine months time, and then perhaps a trip to London and Paris to visit friends. What the FUCK are you doing there I asked of this intruder? The only reply I received was an intensification of its presence. Like a self-replicating parasite the suicide conceptual blob rapidly spread throughout my mind and imposed itself on my consciousness; it became my consciousness. I was not actively thinking of suicide, but rather suicide was actively thinking of me.

Confused as to why the notion of suicide had taken up residence in my head, I began to suspect I may be experiencing psychosis, but as my two previous psychoses had had visual components, and the fact I didn’t want to acknowledge I was entering wacky land again, I opted not to slap the psychosis label on what I was experiencing and (unwisely) decided to carry on as if it was not happening. Perhaps I ought to have called my shrink, my GP, or taken myself off to the hospital…. instead, I went grocery shopping. Hey, I was out of coffee! As I walked back to my car with two bags full of essentials, I thought to myself…. “this is probably the last time I will do this”. ….. hold up, did I just think that? This is the last time I’ll do what now?

At no time did a voice tell me to kill myself. At no time did I devise a plan to kill myself. At no time did I attempt to kill myself. Only the concept, word, the notion of it had taken up residence in my brain, not a desire or instruction to carry out the act… but… I did have a strong and growing feeling that I was going to die soon. It wasn’t there in the morning, but it sure as hell was there by the afternoon. I did not know how or when, but I thought it would happen soon. And although I did not feel like I was a danger to myself… the fact that the S word had overwhelmed my brain cells seemed to imply that that would be how it was going to end. Could I really do that to myself? I didn’t want to die.. but I wasn’t in control anymore. I could only look meekly on as the psychosis took command of the Skully ship. The weird thing about psychosis is that it has its own logic that is nonsensical to logic of the rational mind. The part about exactly how I was going to die was missing, despite this crucial yet missing detail, as the day went on I increasingly felt like my death was a sure thing.

Before I could stop to try and objectively think about what was happening the feeling of my impending death became so strong that I more or less became resigned to it. Being the annoyingly well organised and considerate person that I am, I started to sort out my affairs. I mailed a book to my friend that I had been intending to do for some time. I paid my bills. I donated the last of my zine collection to the state library where it would join my existing collection in the rare books archive. And then I destroyed all my journals. I started writing one when I was eight years old, I am now in my early-mid 30s. It took a bloody long time to rip, burn and drown 25 years of my most intimate thoughts, of teenage angst, of hope, of bad poetry, of tales of love, and loss, and the depression, the bone crushing depression. As I erased the written record of my life the qualitative researcher in me tried in vain to stop the destruction “HEY, YOU CAN’T DO THAT! YOU’RE DESTROYING VALUABLE “DATA”. “I am not a “subject”!, I retorted, and this is one sure fire way to get rid of a lifetime of emotional baggage! Amidst all this busyness, after a number of hours… the psychosis suddenly began to fade. The feeling that ‘I was going to die soon’ retreated, the notion of suicide vanished from my head, and I was back in control of my thoughts again. The storm had passed, and I was still here.

It wasn’t until I relayed this story to my therapist two weeks later during our monthly session that the potential seriousness of what had happened and the fact that the term psychosis is what describes it, fully dawned on me. I was in denial. I did not want to accept that I had become unwell again. It’s one thing to have mental health troubles, to feel down, to have chronic depression – but to be invaded so completely by thoughts that are not your own, that is another thing entirely, and it’s a scary reality to accept… particularly as I thought I was more or less well again. This event potentially changes my diagnosis (from bipolar/cyclothymia to schizoaffective), sends me off to see a new psychiatrist, and lands me in the neuroscience lab at the local hospital for an EEG, testing for abnormal electrical activity in my brain. It also leaves me with the frightening reality that .. unlike in a depressive state where I have the strength and resources to get myself through it… with psychosis that rational thought process that has saved my arse so many times could well be switched off. Skully could be effectively offline – who will save my arse then? The Clash? Chopin?… Captain Jack Harkness?

Another week passes and I’m sitting in my GP’s office. He tells me that in all his years of practice I’m one of the most intelligent patients he’s ever seen. He laments that all my potential, my brains, are going to waste because of my mental health troubles. I start to well up. He also adds that these same brains have probably ensured that my mental health situation is not as bad as it could otherwise have been. Well, bully for me.

Right now, I await the results of the EEG, an appointment with a new psychiatrist, and contemplate being advised to take yet another break from my PhD to sort this madness out. Despite everything, alles klar, this kid is alright.. as long as the coffee is hot, my CD player keeps spinning what I’m feeding it, and my university continues to support mad ole me, .. it’s a not so bad.

So, this is what psychosis, or if you wanna get technical “formal thought disorder”, can look like. If the story didn’t make sense, well, that’s because it doesn’t. That’s why it’s psychosis, that’s why they call it disordered thoughts. Why it happens and specifically why it has happened to me, I do not know. All I do know is that if and when I ever do finish my PhD and continue doing research or some kind of work in the mental health field, these experiences, disturbing as they are, will be invaluable. When I work with patients and record their histories and I say I understand, I really fucking will. You can’t get that kind of empathy from a text book, from a degree, from clinical experience. Lived experience is the greatest teacher, and its giving me one hell of lesson. All I can do is be thankful and put it to good use.

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