Help Can severe stress put me into psychosis?

[obei]

Lets just clear something, I never had any issues with psychosis before, only sometimes I would feel like my thoughts werent mine, like someone else is thinking them instead of me, and have had some paranoya.
I am very prone to getting really stressed out and physically feel sick when I am under some kind of stress, usually some issue that I made much bigger in my head, for example socializing.
I am so scared though that I will just crack one day and go nuts because of how my body reacts to stress and now unable I am to function during it.

 

[cupcakesandmilk]

I'll give my experience on this; take it with a pinch of salt.

I did have an episode of paranoia (I believe you know it already, but you know... I was convinced that someone was out there trying to kill me) for, like, almost over a week or so back in 2022. It was genuinely awful and prolly a part of the reason I'm here today, and I do believe it was due to severe stress because I didn't have anything else that could've triggered it (unless I'm a ticking time bomb).

It never happened after that, but I've always felt disconnected from reality ever since, and as weird as it sounds, that episode is what pushed me into self-harming, even though there should be no correlation between SH and paranoia :/.

And I too have that problem of making issues seem much bigger than they really are. I wish you well〜

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I think it'd help to look into something called CPTSD freeze. Recently a girl by the name Natasha Kulviwat made a revolutionary discovery in the brains of people who suffered from suicidal ideations. Here is an except from the article:

The brains of those who died by suicide, which were donated for study by their next of kin, contained higher numbers of inflammatory cytokines.

Brain tissue of people who died by suicide showed differences compared to a control group. Kulviwat cut this tissue with an instrument called a vibratome. Natasha Kulviwat
Cytokines create inflammation as a normal part of your immune system's response to pathogens. But your body can also release them when there is no threat — during chronic stress, for example — and that can cause excessive inflammation.
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Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol give your body energy to either fight or run away from a stressor.

Paranoia, self-harm and avoidant personalities disorders are either a product of stress and/or a response to trauma. Have you ever seen a cockatoo under stress? It will pluck out it's own feathers. A dog that has been neglected or abused (whether emotionally or physically) will hide or become irrationally aggressive. Our brains are more complex but our response to stress is no different. So yes, I do think a lot of stress can cause a mental breakdown or fit of psychosis.

THIS is really interesting! That's what I always say "MH issues" are a result of external factors that "stress" us over a long period of time. If this "stress" becomes permanent or affects us too long there is no way back and chances of healing become less and sometimes almost 0.

I just thought about my own "development" since I made an account here. I was very suicidal back then (lots of negative experience, hopelessness and stress and all that). Things settled on a low level and only the factor that life is not how I would want it to be (my life is still ok on a very low level though) but no more stress and negative experiences made me somehow recover. Currently I'm almost not suicidal, still it's an option but not that I constantly think of doing it.

It'd be interesting to know how my brain chemistry was regulated naturally.

 

[Abandoned Character]

I am so scared though that I will just crack one day and go nuts because of how my body reacts to stress and now unable I am to function during it.

I felt this very same intuition the beginning of my freshman year of college. My life was okay and I was feeling good, but I had a sinking feeling that my anxiety will lead to bad things.

5 years later, things happened in my life that resulted in experiencing symptoms of psychosis. I became convinced that a form of superintelligence was trying to make contact and I had to do certain things to maintain order. I am much better now, but what I am trying to say is that my intuition was right. Perhaps it is similar to you, perhaps it is not. For myself, I knew early on that I was sensitive to the world and its forces so I intentionally took some time to study mindfulness and other coping mechanisms. Personally, my experience with meditation and therapy (and psychedelics, partly...) helps me immensely with processing the difficult life situations induced by my own anxiety.

Good luck to you!

 

[ForgottenAgain]

I do think excessive stress can cause that. I'm not a doctor, this is solely based on my own experience. These past 3 months I was very suicidal and for the first time in my life there were moments where I believed objects around me were evil or that my phone could read my mind. These would happen at the end of the day, when I was very tired from lack of sleep. The body was so tired and stressed that it would fall into psychotic episodes - this is what my psychologist told me.

I am a bit better now since I started sleeping better and taking medication. I have borderline personality disorder and was diagnosed 16 years ago and never had these kinds of episodes until now and they appeared after months of working on a stressful project with a lot of pressure. I don't think it is a coincidence, I think stress was too much.

 

[mortuarymary]

It does with me when I'm in a depressive episode with Bipolar.

 

[rozeske]

I don't have an explanation for you but in my case the stress I had to endure in the past couple of years is what shoved my mental health over the edge of the cliff. No one should underestimate stress. I was being told how brave I am for enduring such a stressful situation. Well guess where that landed me?

 

[lachrymost]

I am in extreme stress all the time and I worry about this, as well as other health consequences. It's terrifying because there's nothing else I can do to manage the stress, or the stress about the stress. I'm just forced to see what kind of monster I turn into.

 

[cold_severance]

if its like the same reaction and the same level of stress all the time and you havent cracked already, theres no need to worry i think.