A healing journey is full of ups and downs, but it leads to self-discovery and gratitude. I would like to share my journey in the hope that it encourages others to keep moving forward.

I first experienced psychosis in 2022, in the midst of Covid. My symptoms were mainly delusions, leading me to suspect internet scammers were following me and that CCTV was targeting me for live streaming on some social media platform. In my childhood, I had wanted to be an actress, and I wonder now if perhaps a part of me always wanted that kind of media attention. 

The delusions became so real that I was avoiding food and drink for fear of being poisoned. That was the turning point, and I was hospitalised in a psychiatric ward in NUH for about 4-5 days, my delusions became more intense, And I believed I was already dead and in hell, which took on the form of a hospital itself. I even rejected medication in the form of pills, thinking the nurses were out to poison me. At one point I had to be restrained by a couple of nurses for an injection. I then continued with oral medication, which worked, so that in a short time I was rid of my delusions.

I and my loved ones were shocked by what had happened, as we previously knew nothing about psychosis. When I was discharged, I took Risperidone every day, together with Lorazepam to aid my sleep and manage anxiety, and, with everyone’s support, focused on recovery. 

The road to recovery, however, long and frustrating. We had to keep adjusting my medication. Risperidone caused me side effects, including insomnia, extreme restlessness (akathisia), and even breastmilk lactation due to hormonal imbalance, and so I was prescribed other medicine to counter the side effects. 

Throughout the recovery phase, I was constantly anxious, fearing another relapse, and having negative judgements about myself. When work started, I felt extreme anxiety, as I feared every new task, even incoming emails.

Eventually I developed depression and had to take more medication, as I was feeling unworthy through constant comparison to other working mothers who could juggle their lives and responsibilities so well. My husband, out of good intentions, had told my manager to keep the reason of my hospitalisation secret, for fear of stigma within office. Nobody in office dared to ask me why I had taken hospitalisation leave for a month. It became a taboo topic, and I felt I had to hide all issues to do with my mental health. 

Through my recovery process, I tried to figure out why this happened to me. I realised that in my childhood I had always kept to myself and never asked for help. When I was 5 years old, when my second sister passed away suddenly in a car accident. Grief hit me after the funeral when I realised my sister was no longer accompanying me on daily routines. I would cry secretly at home as I didn’t want to sadden my mum more. I thus developed a habit of hiding any negative emotions. I guess my sister’s death affected everyone in the family, but we kept to ourselves and did not discuss our pain openly. 

Shortly after this, my dad went into bankruptcy, and my mum had to beg relatives and friends for money to tide us over. We did not receive much help, which led to my mum always telling me to never to ask for help from others, but to depend on myself. There’s a Chinese saying: 求人不如求己, which can be translated as “better to ask of yourself than to ask of others.” This idea was ingrained into me from a young age. My elder sister also had her own set of problems, but due to our age gap, we never spoke much, and she was usually away from home.

My habit of hiding any negative, sad emotions and not asking for help grew as I aged. I always showed a happy-go-lucky front. Life went on well and I made many friends. I even excelled in both studies and in my work career. However, as I kept all issues to myself during stressful moments and refused to ask for help in childcare or work matters, and this led me to ‘explode’ and the onset of psychosis.

With such an understanding of how my psychosis came about, I gradually recovered with the support from my loved ones and stopped medication. Little did I know, however, that I would suffer a relapse about 6 months later.

My relapse was again due to work stress. This time, it happened in the office, where I had delusions that my colleagues were plotting something illegal, and trying to make me the scapegoat for it. I stopped behaving as my usual reserved self, and knocked on my department head’s door, chased away a colleague who was meeting with him, and questioned him loudly about frustrations I had at work. The memory of what happened during my relapse is now quite blurry to me, but I do recall I had a feeling I was being monitored on CCTV again, and shared my delusions in conversations with my closer colleagues, even urging one to call the police should my life be threatened.  

I was soon hospitalised immediately for psychosis again. This time, however, my family and friends were more well informed and prepared.

As I once more begin on the journey of recovery, I want to fully accept my condition by sharing it with everyone, explaining to my colleagues about the reasons for my behaviour. On social media, to explain what happened to me, I came up with a light-hearted analogy:

Just like a computer, our brain works in amazing ways, but it gets overloaded and may ‘hang’ at times. This is normal, as every computer faces different tasks. Yet all it takes is perhaps a $9.99 upgrade to get that new anti-virus software, or some programming code to de-bug and troubleshoot it.

If only we can set aside our own fears and be more accepting of our conditions, by sharing openly with others, we will be surprised how much love others have for us. I didn’t want any more second-guessing, any hidden agenda, but rather just to be open about my mental health and get the required support – not just in clinics but from society as well. I believe mental health stigma is slowly vanishing. In fact, I am the one who has internalized this stigma, and I need to learn to accept my own condition. 

Remember that this, too, shall pass.

Suzanna is now back at work, touched by the additional support from not just family and friends, but from colleagues as well. She aims to brighten the world with small acts of love and kindness. She’s still exploring how to spread mental health awareness to all and hopes to start by sharing more in this platform.

Read more of our Tapestry Stories here.

Image Credit: Gerd Altman on Pixabay