“A sick thought can devour the body’s flesh more than fever or consumption.”
Guy de Maupassant
In a world where people don’t quite understand the thin line between being insane and being mentally ill, the word ‘psychosis’ paints a bleak reality for the one suffering through it.
In simple terms, psychosis is a phenomenon that that takes the roots of the mind away from reality. People exhibiting psychosis lose track of what’s real and what’s not.
How can you tell if someone has psychosis?
The human is a fragile thing. On top of that, it is complex as well. The diagnosis of mental disorders is not as clear as that of the common cold. Psychosis, particularly, is not an easy disorder to detect. The reason behind the difficulty in diagnosing psychosis is that every individual experiences it differently.
However, there are common symptoms that help you identify someone with the disorder. Here is a look at what you need to look for.
- Delusional Thinking: A person suffering from psychosis often develops strange notions that emphasized things that are not true. Delusional thinking even transcends to having hallucinations in most cases.
- Incoherent Speech Patterns: Psychosis fundamentally changes the way a person conceives things. That is often visible through rapid changes in speech patterns. The deviation from normal can either be in the form of lack of wordiness, or in the excess of it. Yet again, it varies from person to person. The key takeaway is that speech patterns tend to change.
- Excessive Moodiness: Anger is the most visible emotion exhibited by people suffering from psychosis. Other than that, loneliness, nervousness, and a limited range of emotions can take over the affected individual.
- Deteriorating Cognitive Function: A person suffering from psychosis might associate events of little significance with greater meaning than they actually have. Memory loss is a common occurrence as well. The ability to think and understand things greatly reduces.
- Manic Episodes: Paranoia can take over the mind of the individual going through psychosis. The said person is prone to manic episodes and chronic depression.
The symptoms are greatly varied for different people, but every victim of psychosis will drift apart from reality. His/her demeanor will exhibit steep changes.
How to seek help?
It’s important to detect psychosis early – the sooner you can treat it, the more effective it is likely to be. EPI programs or early psychosis intervention programs are within the reach of people seeking help all over Canada.
Some places contain EPI centers that are fully equipped to handle patients suffering from psychosis whereas other areas contain mental health facilities that can garner the needed resources.
Some of the EPI programs available in the country are provided by Fraser Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, Northern Health, Island health, and Interior Health.
Concerned individuals can contact EPI programs by making a simple phone call. After a few basic questions, the entity being talked with arranges an appointment to further assess the problem.