How did I overcome my psychosis?
I have suffered from psychosis for the last 10 years.
I fought it like a court case, and the case reads: Your thoughts vs. medicine, law, psychology, faith, science, and God.
The following overcomes psychosis concentrically from the inside out. Compiled with lessons from, among others, psychologists, psychiatrists, priests, experiential experts, other people who suffered from psychosis, literature (“How do I eat myself healthy”) and personal experiences.
Types of hallucinations
• Visual (signs)
• Auditory (voices)
The 4 causes
• Stress from, among other things, work pressure, causing you to be constantly “switched on”.
• Setting the bar too high — you create the tension yourself. I don’t have to do anything; good enough is enough.
• Fatigue from too little sleep.
• Low mood: Low energy leads to connections being made lazily.
In this state of being, information is not processed properly. When the amount of information is high and overwhelming — for example, during a major task or in crisis situations — one makes connections that don’t exist.
The most important tool
Psychosis is: Stimulus overload > Brain overloaded > Usually negative feeling > Belief (cognition) > Panic > Voices/Delusions. That is the root.
Neutralise the stimuli, bring the brain to rest, the feeling becomes positive, and you neutralise the voices.
Acknowledge what you feel. Unprocessed feelings lead to tension, which leads to voices. Prolonged anger leads to hearing: “devil”, “lion”, etc.
The court case vs. the voices
What is being claimed here? (gay, you don’t matter, rest, small, orange, stupid, etc.).
Gather the facts for what the voice is attacking. Take in all sides. What is its premise?
For example: because I don’t approach women, I am called gay. However, sexuality is not determined by this.
Take on the voices.
Is there truth in this? What is established, and what is merely suspected? What do you know about yourself? E.g. I am heterosexual.
Then separate these statements by quality. What is its basis? What evidence does it have?
Which statements are actually solid, and which are not? Argue for this. Jumping to conclusions? Overgeneralisation? Confirmation bias?
Also consider the opposite conclusion — what if it is right? If that doesn’t hold up, only then draw a conclusion.
Falsify the thoughts. If you are stupid, then you have no general knowledge. Is that true?
Test, test, and test again
What psychologist Margot taught me is that you must keep testing your thoughts. This is also in accordance with the Christian tradition.
Constantly challenge the voices and signs. Ask yourself critical questions.
Are there other explanations?
The body tends to draw quick conclusions because it is easy. However, you must challenge and falsify your thoughts in order to see beyond the obvious.
Beware of ‘confirmation bias’. Just because you confirm a statement — for example, all cars are red — does not mean you can generalise after seeing one red car. Five red cars does not mean only red cars exist.
Intuition as a cause
Intuition (gut feeling) is actually a very poor truth-finder. It is guesswork. Therefore, you must test your suspicions.
Delay intuition until the last fact has been gathered, in order to combat ‘jumping to conclusions’.
Intuition can be useful in situations where knowledge is not available.
Suspicion > Test > Statement.
With that, you can make a sound judgement.
The truth factor
The truth sets you free.
Only God can truly judge objectively, which is why the Bible says to refrain entirely from one’s own understanding and to rest only in God.
A truth consists of multiple ‘truths’, and even then it is only an interpretation of the real truth. From this, people say everyone has their own truth — but that is not correct, because truth itself is truly absolute. We only have interpretations of truths. And that is what we call opinions.
Weigh the authority
Psychologist Mara taught me to accept the voice. And Evy taught me to sit with it. Look at the voice. What does it look like?
What is the authority of the voice?
It is just one voice. They are like children talking to you. Why do you take them seriously?
Moreover, you can then think that others — such as Jesus or family — love you despite what they say. The judgement of these authorities carries more weight.
Phronesis discipline
The above creates what is called a phronesis attitude.
This attitude is difficult when you have voices that reinforce your tendency to judge hastily. There are also people in your environment who tend to draw quick conclusions. Together they cause your judgement to become poor.
To somewhat soften the flaring emotions, you can tell yourself to temporarily let go of the world and your body. In this way you can control your emotions and then practice phronesis again. You can then think clearly again, in complete calm, and make well-founded judgements.
Artificial Intelligence (automate)
Use AI and enter this file in its settings. This way you can speak your thoughts to it via the microphone — that also helps with venting — and then it tests the thoughts for you.
Physical methods (great effect)
Psych. Mara and Kim taught me to control my body.
Stay calm and do breathing exercises. This prevents you from going overboard. Mistakes cause stress, stress causes voices. They reinforce each other in a cycle. The teachings of Gautama Buddha are very helpful here.
Seek out nature. Walk in the forest — this can be done via komoot.nl. I recommend that everyone with psychosis walks or swims at least 3 hours per week. The water around your body is gentle on your nervous system, which has run wild because of the voices and signs.
Fishing or another relaxed outdoor activity. Visit a farm. Walk with a donkey. Visit horses — everything involving animals works very well. Stroking cats, hugging dogs — these are small moments of affection that take you out of your head.
Something where you both rest and do something. For example, photography or drawing.
Holiday: Especially at the beginning of a psychosis, it is advisable to book a quiet hotel or B&B. Not a spa, as there are many people and stimuli there. One day of good sleep and normal eating can already do wonders.
Nutrition
Eat healthily and drink plenty of water. These are obvious things, but during a psychosis you easily overlook them.
In the book “How do I eat myself happy”, by Inge Wurff, it is described how a boy overcame his psychosis with the help of his mother by using a diet rich in the substance tryptophan.
Ensure the right co-factors: To successfully convert tryptophan into serotonin, your body needs sufficient vitamin B6, magnesium and zinc. You can simply buy these separately at the pharmacy.
Absolutely avoid
• All kinds of substances, such as alcohol (triggers sloppy reasoning), coffee (jumping to conclusions), smoking, weed (overgeneralisation), drugs — stop.
• Food containing flavour enhancers. MSG, E621, monosodium glutamate. These bring noise and energy.
• Fatty food, because you need nutrients to fight the psychosis.
• Intensive sports — I advise against these, as they can increase stress.
• Faith and church. Faith actually fuels the psychosis — signs become signals from God, situations are ‘God-sent’. It is better to go to a small chapel instead of a large church, where there is a lot of music, text and people, all of which trigger things.
• Busy places.
• Dating and approaching people — rejection will make you gloomy. That feeds the voices.
• Humiliating occasions, such as a presentation to a large class or a public lecture. People can make you feel inadequate.
Other methods
• Listening to music, chewing gum, a sweet, doing a puzzle, word puzzles.
• Eating comfort food such as a hotchpotch or a nice soup — this brings calm.
• Calm music such as lounge or meditation music.
• With some caution, one can try surrounding oneself with friends and family. On one hand this helps, as your voices are overpowered by the voices of trusted friends, and it also offers safety and therefore calms you. On the other hand, it can also stir up many emotions and increase stimuli, causing you to be full of energy and emotion which then causes voices. So you must assess this depending on the type of friends.
Love and warmth (family and friends)
What was truly a breakthrough for me is the luxury of love. Call someone who loves you. Hearing: “I love you” can truly make a difference. I was once told by a priest that he loved me as a person, and that Jesus does too — the voices that day disappeared for 6 hours like snow in the sun.
Furthermore, the idea that the power of the voices (like bullies) is minuscule compared to the authority of Jesus broke all the icicles and let them melt. Jesus does not govern them. You may of course also take another authority — for example, your doctor, psychiatrist or father.
You can also call the Listening Line: 088 0767 000
A voice that shows empathy creates a counterbalance to the harsh voices. The warmth that one shares can produce endorphins that calm you down again.
• Walking companions.
• Your psychologists also help with the empathetic part.
Social worker
Marlou taught me that you need to tackle your activities. Stressful situations cause your mental state to become unbalanced.
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The social worker helps you to weigh things up, simplify and prioritise. Together you then get to work to resolve the chaos.
She ensures you get organisation in your life.
Exceptional situations (code red)
In crisis
As soon as the psychosis takes extreme forms, I would say: first speak to a psychologist, and then go on holiday for at least two days. Avoid the crowds. Minimise the stimuli. A hotel where breakfast is already prepared, cleaning is done etc. is ideal as it takes care of you. You can also sleep well there, which is a major contributing factor.
An alternative is to be admitted to a hospital, where you can also switch off for 1 week, or spend a few days at a trusted family member with a large home. It is simply very important to minimise stimuli and rest. The overactive brain needs to cool down.
Outside of crisis
Love, friendships and socialising are strong counter-sounds for auditory hallucinations. This is because (in my view) being alone causes the body to speak against the brain out of loneliness. The voices are overpowered by other familiar voices. Moreover, friends bring happiness, which puts you in a better state and makes you less gloomy.
A crisis plan helps put all of this into a schedule so that you can start working on it in time.
Surrender to something greater
Psychosis often occurs when one is mentally stuck in a corner. One lacks the energy to push through due to fatigue, and is stuck at a certain point or problem.
Personally, humility has sometimes worked for me — that means surrendering and kneeling, as this causes you to come out of that peak. This can happen because God helps or because you let go of the problem. I then pray to Jesus, but you don’t necessarily have to do this.
Others would say: let go of what you cannot control and trust that it will work out.
In other words: have faith.
Most powerful lesson
Believe in yourself. Belief in yourself causes you to no longer listen to external voices, but only to your own inner voice. This allows you — even when it seems difficult — to distinguish the voices.
Fallacies
An argument that appears valid but is not. Synonym: false argument.
1. The 13 classical types (Aristotle)
Language-dependent:
• Equivocation
• Ambiguity
• Composition / division
• Accent or punctuation
• Figure of speech
Non-language-dependent:
• Accident — accidental property confused with essential
• Hasty generalisation — from a few cases to a general rule
• Irrelevance — argument does not prove what it needs to
• Circular reasoning (begging the question) — conclusion as premise
• Post hoc — after this, therefore because of this (false causal relationship)
• Affirming the consequent — reversed if-then reasoning
• Many questions — hidden assumption in the question
• Misconception of refutation — presenting an irrelevant argument
2. Arguments “Ad…” (Locke et al.)
All “Ad…” arguments are diversionary manoeuvres — they shift the burden of proof away from the content. Only ad judicium is legitimate.
Ad hominem — attack on the person
Not the content, but the motives, background or character of the speaker are attacked.
“What do you know about it, you have no diploma.”
Ad verecundiam — false appeal to authority
An authority is cited as evidence, while authority is not an argument.
“Einstein believed in God, therefore God exists.”
Ad ignorantiam — proof via irrefutability
Something is declared true because the opposite cannot be proven.
“You cannot prove that ghosts don’t exist, therefore they exist.”
Ad populum — appeal to the masses
The opinion of many is used as evidence.
“Billions of people believe it, so it must be true.”
Ad misericordiam — appeal to pity
Emotion diverts attention away from the real arguments.
“Give me a pass, because I worked so hard.”
Ad baculum — appeal to force
Physical or social threat replaces the argument.
“Vote for it, or else…”
Ad judicium — the only legitimate argument
The argument that deals with the matter itself. It asks: what are the facts, what are the premises, what follows logically? This is the standard against which all others fall short. Whoever stays with the content while the other diverts — uses ad judicium.
3. Bacon’s four Idols
Four types of errors, prejudices and fallacies — from Novum Organum (1620).
• Tribe — basic human tendencies: generalising, wishful thinking. Unavoidable, but becoming aware helps.
• Cave — personal prejudices from upbringing and beliefs. Treating one’s own reality as universal.
• Market-Place — confusion of language. Words with double meanings, overly vague terms, jargon that conceals the exact opposite.
• Theatre — blind authority of traditions and philosophical systems. Grand schemes without empirical evidence.
4. Modern fallacies
The classical list is not complete. The modern list is much longer. No list is ever closed — that was also Hamblin’s central conclusion.
Cognitive / reasoning errors:
• Straw man — attacking a distorted version of someone’s argument
• False dichotomy — pretending there are only two options
• Slippery slope — assuming an unproven chain reaction
• Confirmation bias — only looking for evidence that confirms your view
• Post hoc — after this, therefore because of this (also classical, but often treated separately)
Linguistic:
• Equivocation — word used with shifting meaning
• Ambiguity — deliberately exploiting unclear sentence structure
Social / psychological:
• Bandwagon — everyone does it so it must be correct
• Genetic fallacy — the origin of an idea determines its value
• No true Scotsman — adjusting the definition to avoid a counterexample
• Motte and Bailey — defending a strong position via a weaker one
Scientific:
• Cherrypicking — selectively citing evidence
• False equivalence — equating unequal things
• Overgeneralisation — making an absolute rule from too few cases
5. Hamblin’s conclusion
A conclusive theory of fallacies does not yet exist. Context and rules of dialogue are decisive — not just formal logic. Fallacies are moves in a discussion that prevent or hinder the resolution of a dispute.
We are constantly exposed to attempts at persuasion. It is not wise — and not conducive to our survival — to allow ourselves to be persuaded in every case.
If you like to speak to me, you can by adding me on Whatsapp: 0031 647029814
