Embarrassment After Psychosis

Source: Serje Lahoud / Pexels

Embarrassment and shame can be huge factors after one psychotic break or multiple ones. You can do bizarre things, say embarrassing things, or communicate ridiculous-sounding delusions in front of people whose opinions matter to you, even though you do not have control or power over the situation. Based on the delusions and hallucinations you are having, you are literally living in an alternate reality that others are witnessing but can’t perceive and see themselves, so, naturally, they can’t understand you either.

Friends and loved ones may sense you are not yourself and actually be scared of you. Knowing how they felt after the fact can feel devastating and humiliating, leading to self-blame and shame. Another situation is when they don’t know what to believe, where at first, they may believe, too, that the delusions and hallucinations you report are real. Sometimes, it can take people around you a while to understand what is really going on. It’s easy to feel responsible for putting others in this situation, when perhaps you had no choice but to reach out to them for support.

It’s unfortunate that you can be remembered for thinking and doing things that your normal self could have never thought of or created yourself. Sometimes psychotic breaks can involve your worst fears coming true or where your brain concocts a scenario that is scandalous and involves other people in your life in a perilous narrative. Because of this, your psychotic break can involve the real people in your life, where you say and do things with people in real life, based on your delusion and hallucinations, which can jeopardize relationships and hurt people’s feelings. And, of course, that is the last thing you would want, to scare or hurt anyone, where you can lose people in your life.

I myself have experienced embarrassment when others have witnessed psychotic breaks of mine, including what I thought, said, and did. Here is what I have learned through my own battle to put these feelings aside and focus primarily on my recovery and well-being instead. Only then while moving forward on your own path can you make a resolution with others.

Delusions and Hallucinations Are Not Yours to Own

It’s easy to think that if you thought it, or your brain created this delusion and these hallucinations, no matter how messed up or uncomfortable they are, you have to own them as part of who you are and what you really think about. While you might be inclined to think this way, that is 100 percent not the case. While my psychotic breaks did contain some themes of my life and aspects of my personal reality, the logic, conspiracies, and conclusions drawn were not my own at all, and nothing I could have come up with myself.

The way these certain aspects of my life were rewoven together, where a new reality was created out of them, does not reflect my belief system, values, and real-life relationships with people. Just because you are living in some type of alternate reality does not mean that you chose this reality as one you desire, and it does not reflect some wish or line of thinking on your part that drove you to this conspiracy, delusion, or accusations toward others. None of it says anything about you as a person. So, remember that if you still feel humiliation over what happened and who witnessed it, all that really matters is that you first understand that these psychotic delusions are not a reflection of who you are before you worry about what others think.

Just Keep Moving Forward on Your Journey to Recovery to Right Yourself

Even if you have inadvertently embarrassed yourself among people you know, where some people may look at you the same but others don’t, just focus on your own healing and recovery. You have to keep your eyes on your own path ahead of you, and when you start healing and returning to the person you always were, or maybe even a new normal, these people on your journey will notice or hear about it from others. And, ultimately, anyone who truly cares about you, who really knows you, and is worth knowing, is typically much more concerned with your healing and recovering and less concerned with themselves or their experience of it.

You don’t have to necessarily worry about making things right with people who witnessed your psychosis. If they love you and know you, they probably have a firm grasp of who you really are and that you were not acting like yourself. But if they don’t know you as well, all you can do to show them who you really are is to recover, where you are consistently acting like yourself again. By demonstrating who you really are in recovery, it reaffirms to those who witnessed your psychosis that you must have had no control or power over how you acted. In this case, actions speak louder than words. Instead of overthinking what to say to people next or worrying about what you are supposed to say, let your behavior, attentiveness to them, and disposition speak for themselves.

You Should Not Be Embarrassed Over What You Cannot Control

For me, I have come to understand that when it comes to insight and losing it, through anosognosia associated with schizophrenia, I have to let go of what I can’t control. When I lose all control through lack of insight, and this new reality takes over, it is not my fault, and there’s nothing I can do about it. There are plenty of medical conditions that can be deemed embarrassing, and psychotic breaks are one of them.

Psychosis Essential Reads

Spotting Schizophrenia’s Early Signs in Young Adults

The Science of Psychosis

But ultimately, you have to shake the dust off and keep going, where your desire to heal and look to the future is stronger than dwelling in memories of what you are so embarrassed about. Just like any medical condition, it is no reflection on you, and the only true way you can show other people who you really are is to focus on your healing process to demonstrate your recovery.

Living well and recovering is the ultimate way to address embarrassment. It’s the only way forward where you simply live your life, focusing on you, and others witness and recognize the true you.