Deb BushongFounder, Owner, & Therapist, Conversations Therapy · Clinical Expertise Meets Lived Experience in Psychosis Care

Oh no, I have Psychosis!!??

13 Dec 2024 · 2 min

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1:37

In this segment, the speaker discusses the profound challenges faced by young people experiencing early psychosis, emphasizing the emotional toll of feeling left behind while peers move forward. The conversation highlights the alarmingly high suicide risk associated with untreated psychosis and underscores the importance of seeking early psychosis programs or therapy. The speaker also explores the heartbreak experienced by parents who must reconcile their expectations—such as seeing their child as a star athlete or student—with the reality of a psychotic disorder, framing the condition as a temporary setback that can be managed with available resources and support.

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So how do you deal with it? How do I deal with my own mental health? And during those times, that is a crushing blow to somebody who is young and vivacious and looking forward to life and sees his peers, his or her peers, like continuing to move forward. And feeling left behind. So there's a very high suicide rate. And that's when they come to something like an early psychosis program, or that's when they look for a therapist who can help them work through finding out that they have a psychotic disorder. So, you know, it is taxing. It is hard, it is heartbreaking. And especially even the parents, they're like, "What has happened? This is never what I planned for my child. These are not the dreams I had for my child. This is not what my child has always been like. My child was a star athlete. My child was a star student." And, you know, having to explain that like, This is a temporary setback. You know, you're going to have to accept this for what it is right now until we can get, you know, so him or her on back on track with the resources that we have at hand.