I kind of feel like sharing some more, I hope you all don't mind. I don't feel like I get many chances to talk about this stuff.
There's a link between trauma/ptsd and psychosis, also with psychotic symptoms. Flashbacks can include hallucinations from any of the senses, for example. Dissociative states are also a symptom of psychosis. While a lot of PTSD symptoms can have psychotic features, I think a traumatic situation, or other high stress states, can also cause a psychotic break from reality, sort of as a way to escape the bad stuff that's going on.
My own experience with psychosis began in the last weeks of my time in the abusive relationship that lead to me having PTSD. Things were really bad and escalating. I couldn't handle what was going on.
I felt very trapped, I had lost all hope in so many ways, I didn't think I could get out of that situation, but I also knew for a fact that it was about to get even worse. My mind felt trapped, and when it got "squeezed" by that already dark situation getting even worse, it found a way out by going insane. There was no other way out. Fight, flight, fawn, submit, you name it, nothing I did would prevent me from suffering. It really shocks me what the brain can do.
What I was experiencing during psychosis was mostly based off of reality, but I was interpreting it in a really illogical, delusional way, if that makes any sense. This allowed my mind to warp reality into something that I didn't mind existing in - so I didn't have to exist in a reality where I was crying all the time, where everything was horrible, and where there was no way out.
At one point, I realized that something was going on, and that I was having delusions. The problem was, that didn't stop the delusions from happening, so I would go back and forth on some things, or totally abandon some delusions, and others I had a hard/impossible time realizing were delusions. I knew something was going on but I was really afraid of reaching out for help. I didn't want to wind up locked in a psych ward or something, I didn't want to acknowledge that the psychosis was actually real and that I was having all these totally insane delusions, though I couldn't help but notice that I was going mad.
Then things in the real world got even worse. My abuser woke me up early in the morning, after i had just fallen asleep really. He was really upset with me, I don't even remember why, but it was just all sorts of hateful shit directed at me, he was blaming me for all his problems, he was suicidal, he wanted to kill me, all that stuff. Things escalated to him hitting me. So I was being beat -while- in the middle of a psychotic episode, oh god the things I had to do during that psychotic episode... f*ck. I haven't really thought about that stuff very much until now, kinda makes me shakey to think about it atm.
Anyway, when he hit me, I didn't react at all, I even said "go ahead, hit me" after he began to. I showed no reaction, and honestly I barely even felt his blows even though they were hard. He actually stopped after a series of hits, I think because I wasn't reacting to it at all, like I usually would.
I just remembered there were actually times where he would hit me and my reaction would make him go "ugh, jesus christ cut out the f*ckin beaten housewife act" and similar lines. He mocked me and insulted me for flinching when he would move, and he didn't like that I did that.
After him hitting me and me not reacting, I just went and barricaded myself in another room with my cats and my phone. I was freaking out. After what just happened, my brain was on fire, I was freaking out, thinking he would come beat the shit out of me or kill me or kill himself. He was very suicidal that day and the previous days. I heard all sorts of noises from above. I feel like I'm drawling on so I'm going to speed it up here: he attempted suicide, I convinced him to go to the hospital, we went there, he said all sorts of lies trying to act like he wasn't really trying to kill himself, I couldn't take it being around him anymore (it felt like I was sitting next to a monster, I was terrified of him) and I just walked out, fighting hard not to run.
So because of all of that, I wound up forgetting that I was having delusions and going insane. Afterwards I was also too busy feeling extremely unsafe, knowing he was free, out there, and probably really angry at me and definitely freaking out. All sorts of other stuff. I was shaking so much during the days after all that stuff. Since I forgot about the fact I was going insane, I wound up going way more insane. That's when I think the hallucinations started. Both audio and visual hallucinations, that were 100% realistic. Things got really, really intense. Acute psychosis is really just a huge mindf*ck. I don't even know what I did, but I wound up in restraints in a hospital bed, I was injected with stuff, I had blood drawn, and I was sooooo far gone from reality. I know I was put in a headlock at some point before being restrained, but I remember only flashes of things from that time, before that time, and the time after. The last thing I remember before the headlock was sitting in the hospital bed basically having a panic attack and internally freaking out.
I woke up after sleeping around 12 hours, ate, talked to some lady, and got discharged. I was awake and in the psych ER for a few hours probably, and I have no idea how long I was sleeping in there. The screams from this lady who was in there in another room were scaring the shit out of me. I was happy to leave. They had given me haldol and lorazepam the previous night. No idea how much, but it pretty much initiated the "welcome back to reality" process. Still took me a while to put my head back together after all that stuff though.
It was all really terrifying and I really hope it never happens again, but I know that there's a possibility if things got stressful enough, that I could start going down that road again. Things currently do start to get kind of weird when I get in a really highly charged emotional state, or stressed state.
Sorry for writing so much, lol.
