Missing the Psychosis

I’d be lying if I told you I enjoy being medicated. There’s nothing glamorous about organizing your life around injections, pills, side effects, and the quiet understanding that your mind can become unstable without them.

At the same time, mania and psychosis cost me socially, emotionally, and psychologically. In a perfect world, I’d want the energy of mania without the destruction that comes with it.

That doesn’t mean I believe psychosis is a better reality. It means I understand why intensity can become seductive when ordinary life feels muted by comparison.

There’s something about being schizoaffective bipolar type that makes living come alive.

You feel everything from the pain and sorrow to the spiritual cosmic pulse in your veins.

Towards the end of my twenties and early thirties, I started to develop a voice within me. It was almost like another personality. One that was rebellious and didn’t think twice about the projection I was putting out there.

I called him Lucifer. He was only there for a second until I got medicated. But I pushed myself into this chaos online and in reality. There were nights when I would go on long walks and would have this internal dialogue.

I remember walking with a sense of invincibility and having this dialogue within me. I knew I needed help, but as I was walking to the hospital, this entity stopped me and told me to turn around. I remembered projecting the conversation on social media.

Then, when I was younger, I would have this surge of energy and passion. I felt untouchable. I had my whole life planned and felt like I could do anything. I remember feeling chosen and making an impact for Christ in this generation. I was hyped up from events like Battle Cry by Ron Luce, which was a youth conference setting youths on fire for God.

I had spikes of this surge, and then the lows were when I ended up in the hospital. It was like flying a kite, one moment I’m in the air with the wind, then the next the wind dies, and I’m no longer flying.

I’ve had 18 hospitalizations in my lifetime. The medication eventually dulled me and toned me down. And then when I got the Invega, the voices and the personality disappeared.

My days now consist mostly of survival and paying the bills. There’s no jolt in trying to build the next start-up or become the next best-selling author. I’m not emotionally dead, but it is hard to care at all. I take Lamotrigine for the moods and Trintellix for the depression. Invega for the psychosis.

I want the old chaotic life back because it gave me certainty for the immediate future. I knew I’d be thinking of ideas or talking to Lucifer or cursing the world in a blaze of glory. Now, I’m old and colorless. Nobody would suspect the high-octane person I once was.

It’s like the days melt together. Just waiting for the next event. Trapped with the memories of what was.