A Beginning
As far as I can tell, I was 12 years old when I had my first delusion. At the time I was sure that I had the right explanation for a horrible and persistent pain in my stomach. My explanation was outlandish though. In reality there was a more reasonable perspective that I was unaware of, as this initial madness happened when my mind and body were under a significant amount of stress from what we would later discover to be a dangerous case of appendicitis.
Although it happened over 20 years ago, I can still remember the feel of that day vividly. How every variable in the room seemed to be part of an important puzzle that I was meant to solve. It felt like my body had been invaded by some foreign factor, some enemy I was vulnerable to. I remember lying anxiously in bed, convinced there was a relationship between aliens and the immense and unprecedented disturbance in my physical self. This supposedly looming threat served to explain the all-too-real agony in my body.
The certainty was brief, as I eventually fell back into a state of uncomfortable unknowing. At the time I didn’t think to mention this to my parents, because it wasn’t something that persisted, and also wasn’t something that was easily mentioned. I would soon be admitted to the hospital to have my appendix removed and had moments there that were equally surreal. Luckily though, my mind recovered as my body did. It would be quite a few years before I’d have another significant episode, and a while for me to realize that the falsehood I was certain of when I was 12 was best framed as delusional.
The uneasy truth is that everyone may have the potential to experience a psychotic event. For me, that physical sickness was enough to activate an unwell headspace; for others it might take years of isolation, the death or birth of a child, the trauma of war, etc. We’re all unique: everyone is dealt a different set of cards and a different set of propensities. Although my beliefs surrounding the nature of our will are ever developing, there seems to be some amount of choice in how we decide to play those cards we’re given. Cards that are continually dealt, whose identities we may or may not have influence in determining.
I smoked cannabis in my early teens, which likely contributed further to my vulnerability (1). However, as much as I lean towards this conviction, we should ask: does drug use initiate mental illness or are mentally ill people drawn to use drugs in order to (self)-medicate? The narrative of the relationship between cannabis and mental illness is complicated, and there are a lot of misconceptions. The language we use to describe it is important. The cannabis didn’t cause my psychosis, though it’s likely that it helped activate it. Just like the appendicitis activated a delusion when I was younger, cannabis was one factor among many that brought into reality a dormant propensity. It’s important to note that not everyone who uses cannabis will get sick, that it can be a healthy option for some people. Although if I had known that psychosis was a possible outcome from my use of it, I might have chosen differently. It can be difficult in life to predict the ultimate implications of our immediate decisions.
Now I know that I’m someone with a predisposition to mental illness, and so that there’s no reason to feel guilt or shame for this. This predisposition was set in stone before I was conscious. It wasn’t chosen, and I don’t think it makes sense to feel guilty or shameful about things that are beyond our control and awareness, although I wonder what sort of scope we should have with our awareness.
These issues of responsibility and free will remain important to me. I find it all endlessly interesting. As much as I learn and grow, I don’t think I’ll ever know definitively whether I did drugs and became mentally ill, or if I was already ill and therefore drawn to use drugs to cope with one illness that led to another.
Part of my journey has involved learning to be comfortable with unknowns. I’ve learned that so much of recovery is developing a healthy relationship with the past, and this includes reconfiguring my roles with more realism, moving away from a narrative of shame, of being fundamentally flawed. It’s been important to embrace an attitude of self-compassion, by working towards recognizing the reality that mistakes were made because I was learning, and that I did the best I could with the information I had at the time.
Without sounding too much like I’m trying to convince myself of my own innocence, I was self-medicating in my early days with cannabis because there was a problem I was trying to solve. The early years were filled with joy, but also with moments when it felt like everyone else had the script to a movie I had been thrown into. I imagine I’m not alone in this feeling, as a lot of us are tuned into things differently, or with the volume up higher than others. Thankfully, I would eventually find solace through music and the niche-connecting phenomenon known as the internet.
Ultimately, my sensitivity has proven to be like a double-edged sword. Without it I likely wouldn’t have my creativity, my empathy, my ability to feel the gigantic good in this world. With it I can be too affected by other people’s energies, and fall short of what some people think a man should be. I wonder if genetics works like that? The same brain functions responsible for negative things like madness having positive aspects or potential too?
So much of mental health care seems to entail connecting the right action to the right outcome so you know what changes to make. What is causing a particular effect? Is what I’m feeling a symptom of my illness or a side-effect from my medication? Am I creative because of or despite my illness? In addition, I wonder how much of my identity is chosen, and how much is imposed on me? How much of our identity and truths do we create, and how much do we discover?
Regardless of where I land with these questions and others, my goal is to enable you to understand these issues as I process and reflect on them. One key fact is that I identify as having been psychotic, but it’s important to remember that this is not the only fact that defines me as a person. I am many things, things on both sides and in-between things, and like most people I have made my own blend of good and bad decisions.
