In the winter of the year 2018, an unusual event happened that I will never forget. I had my first break in reality. To be exact, it was a manic episode with features of psychosis. At the time, I was unaware of anything being wrong with me. Below I have linked an article that talks a little bit about what I experienced, but I will also tell you my own story of what happened that year and what caused it.
Unpacking Psychosis Episodes and Bipolar Disorder
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Let’s go back to the winter of 2018. I was a college athlete, finishing up the first semester of my senior year. I was a thriving, healthy, and normal young adult. Everything was going for me. I had friends, was physically fit, and pursuing my passion in life. I was happy.
You are probably asking the question, “So what actually happened to you”? Well, it was a combination of things that led to my psychotic episode. It seemed to start when I cut ties with a friendship I was in at the time. This was around October of 2018. After this, I remember feeling a shift in my mood and way of thinking. Again, I didn’t think anything was wrong with me, just that I was maybe going through a lot. I then reached out to the health center at my college and started receiving counseling for social anxiety.
This is when things took a turn for the worse. It seemed as though I was slowly slipping into darkness. I started withdrawing socially and was hyper-fixated on being perfect. I remember constantly playing affirmations on my headphones in between classes. I was set on being the best I could be in life, meaning in academics and playing basketball. Now, the wanting to be perfect thing, doesn’t sound so bad, right? Well after reflecting, I was slowly starting to lose control of myself and my thoughts. It was late December when I started hallucinating. The first thing I remember is that I would constantly smell smoke around campus and everyone’s eyes around me seemed to be black.
My teammates started to notice something was off about me. I started acting much differently than my normal, calm self. This was then, the start of my first manic episode. One afternoon, I decided to get some extra practice in at the gym. I started pounding the basketball as hard as I could. It felt like everything was caving in on me. People were running to me with black eyes. So, I left the gym and started running on the street as fast as I could. I ended up being hospitalized for just over a month and was put on medications to help sedate me. I didn’t get to go back to college to finish my last semester, but did eventually graduate at another time (a blog for a future post). So, what exactly led to this psychotic episode?
Warning Signs
Stress and lack of sleep were two of the biggest factors that led to my psychotic episode. I also feel like I was pushing myself way too hard to achieve a certain standard when it came to being a college athlete. It was a perfect storm.
Some things happen that are out of your control. I want to express that no matter what you go through in a year or on a daily basis, you are not alone. Yes, what I went through was tragic, but it has also helped shape me into the person that I am today. I am a hard believer that when life knocks you down and you bounce back up, you will be stronger for it.