Hey, so the past couple of weeks my (23m) gf (24f) has been showing some symptoms of delusions and hallucinations while we’re at home. She does not work and doesn’t go out often, yet she’s still pretty social with friends online and usually doesn’t sound anything other than normal when she talks to most people.
For some context, two years ago (nov. 2020) she had her first psychosis episode. She was taking some antidepressants at the time. She suffers from PTSD and OCD and often this would result in nightmares that would ruin her sleep, causing her to be tired most of the day. The medicine helped, but around this time she became very unresponsive during our conversations and would sometimes talk about things that didn’t make sense (like there being a monster in her consciousness).
Eventually one day it progressed too far. I never had any experience with these symptoms so I didn’t see it coming, but one day she came downstairs while I was in the middle of a nap and told me she had been assaulted by her father (whom we were living with at the time.) It didn’t really make sense, the father denied it profusely and shortly after she became completely unresponsive, peed herself and laid on the floor for hours until we were able to take her to a mental hospital early that next morning. She sounded like… detached the whole time, until after a week she suddenly sounded better and they saw fit for her to go home.
Fast forward to now, she’s been given medication following that incident and has been largely fine over the next two years. We moved about four months ago, but she did not have enough medicine to last before they could get them transferred to a pharmacy near us, and we did not have a car to return to the pharmacy she was with already. About two weeks ago, we got a car so she started her meds again because she was having trouble sleeping and focusing on her recent work (from home, streaming so no strict schedule). She started talking about having multiple people living in her head a few days ago, her speech would be spotty (lots of pauses; forgetting the topic mid-sentence) and yesterday I took her to the hospital for these symptoms, to which her doctor admitted her into a psychiatric evaluation center.
Recently.. this has made me terrified of our future. She seemed like she was really back to normal for the most part, but with this relapse it has me worried about how often this kind of thing could occur. I really love her, we’ve been together for three years and this has only happened twice, but I don’t fully understand what kind of things her mental illness will put us through down the line in life. My mother suggested that I think carefully about continuing to date her, as it could cost me a lot of flexibility in my life due to having to take care of her. I visited her yesterday but she was so convinced that she was going to prison that it was hard to hold a full conversation with her. A couple of times she would freeze, her eyes would go wide like she realized something, and then she’d say something that doesn’t make sense. When I first took her into the facility, she was also saying this stuff over and over again, unable to focus, shaking and convinced that the nurses were going to send her to jail and take me away from her forever. I tried multiple times to tell her she was fine and the nurses are only interested in helping her, but it was impossible to convince her. She was that convinced that she was going to prison.
I’m honestly scared. I love her but don’t know what to do. Is this condition going to be persistent throughout the remainder of her life? Will proper medication prevent a future episode? Does anybody have experience dating somebody with a similar situation? She is completely fine when not in this state, albeit besides some anxiety around social interactions, but for the last two years nothing like this.
Sorry for the word vomit, I can’t really focus and I’m also typing this all up on my phone at work. Any and all answers appreciated greatly.
TL;DR : My girlfriend is going through a psychosis episode. She is awaiting diagnoses and I am afraid for our future, but love her very much. My mother thinks I should consider if a relationship with her is viable, and I’m starting to wonder what life will look like should I continue to stay. Also like, what to do at home moving forward to ensure that she can lead as normal of a life that she can manage.
4 comments
Yeah I would peace out of this situation. I’m not on the business of cleaning other peoples pee off my floor
Runnnnnnn
You might want to consider sharing with her the phenomenon of Secondary structural dissociation. It can feel like there’s more than one person in a head sometimes bc of prolonged exposure to traumatic events
These sound very similar to the dissociative episodes that I had when my doctors were trying various anti-depressants to address the onset of clinical depression (as my doc called it) in my early 30s. Some psychoactive medications intended to address one problem can trigger different mental health issues in some people.
Since there’s not really any way to check the oil in our brains and see if we’re a pint low on specific reward neurotransmitters, doctors have to just keep trying various medications until they find one that works.
Early in that long process, one doc tried Cymbalta, and over the course of a few months it did lift the depression… but then it kept going and eventually threw me into a severe state of mania (even though I do not otherwise show symptoms of being manic-depressive/bipolar. I truly went off the deep end – dissociative episodes or “psychotic breaks” (my doc used those terms interchangeably), losing time, etc.
I was fortunate in that I am apparently cheerful and friendly when I’m losing my mind, but I still elected to voluntarily commit myself, while I was still rational some of the time, so I could be in a safe place while my doc tapered off that medication. It sounds like your gf’s experiences in these episodes are negative and frightening, so I’m really glad you’ve stuck with her so far and clearly love her. It’s reasonable to be worried about the future, though, in your situation.
I’m not a doctor, obvs, but I think there’s a good possibility her psychosis episodes were triggered by medication changes, like mine was. Especially if she ran out of meds, was off them for a bit, and then started back up. That medication may work/be safe for her when administered properly, but stopping abruptly without being able to taper the dose down over time or starting back up at full strength rather than a slowly increasing dose can REALLY make the brain chemistry (and hence the brain) go haywire.
If she was stable for a couple of years and this episode did follow abrupt stopping and starting of meds, then it’s likely that this may never happen again as long as she maintains correct medication compliance and follows her doctor’s guidance when stopping one medication or starting a new one. Not ~guaranteed~, mind you, but nothing really ever is. I’ve been on the same medication for over 15 years, now, that 100% controls the depression symptoms, but more to the point, here, I’ve never had another dissociative episode since they weaned me off the med that caused it.
I’m not gonna lie – it may continue to be a bumpier road than dating someone without a mental health condition, but it does not mean that your life together is going to be a chaos of repeating psychosis, either. I would suggest that you ask your girlfriend if you two could see her mental health provider together, talk about how these two episodes unfolded, and let the person with the most knowledge of her treatment and medication effects give you their professional opinion of how likely or unlikely it is that she may have repeated episodes. They might even be able to point you towards some support resources for families who are facing the challenge of being there for a loved one in crisis.
Best wishes for both of you.