Tales from a Bruised Mind

It was March, 2019. I had been very stressed, due to issues resulting largely from work. I quit that casual job. I actually just walked out and that was it. Enough was enough. i wasn’t going to be treated like dirt any more.

But outside of work, I was also just generally stressed. My life was good, but I was worried about the small things, and this really built up.

In March, things started to creep into my life that I just failed to recognise. My family also failed to recognise my feelings and my actions. They thought I was just a bit worried, is all.

When I got so stressed that I could no longer function like a normal human being, I became delusional. I started hearing things and my visions became all weird. I became paranoid that people were after me and that they were going to kill me and my family. It was very, very intense, but most frighteningly, it felt real to me.

I got so terrified that I called the police. I had no other option at the time.

Before I knew it, I was deteriorating very quickly. I went walk-about and my girlfriend and her Dad had to come get me and pick me up off the road side. It was disastrous.

No one knew what was going on. I had well and truly lost my mind. I had lost control and didn’t really know who I was or what my purpose was. I felt so grandiose that I felt like I was the most important person in Brisbane, or in history. I felt like I was Truman from the Truman Show. It was embarressing, and awful, and soul crushing.

When I was taken to hospital and looked after by the team there, they asked me all sorts of questions: did you take illicit drugs? did you drink too much alcohol? Have you had any problems in the past with substance abuse?

I just said no. Never.

The doctors did blood tests and urine tests to find out whether I was lying or not. Fair enough, they wouldn’t know who to trust.

But after I spent my first-ever time in hospital and in a locked psychiatric ward, the conclusion they came to was that I had a stress-induced psychotic episode.

So, it was stress, but how can that even happen?

It’s something I have still wondered about to this day. Stress obviously has a signifcant impact on our lives, but I had no idea it could do this.

I had been careful about what I ate and drank, and I didn’t smoke weed or snort cocaine. It was frankly baffling.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but my first episode would change my life forever. I didn’t realise it was affect my family life, or my relationships, to such a huge degree.

I truthfully believe I have not been the same since. My brain works differently these days. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but as my brain develops, it’s still trying to get past the traumas of the past and move on with life.

I have always been a stressed kid. I used to stress about my music exams, performing in public, written exams in school. I know that seems fairly typical, but it really had a long-term affect on me.

Anxiety and stress has been very prominent in my life ever since, and likely always will be.

But if you’re reading this, know that you must not give up. You can live a good life even with these things nipping away at you.

Love,

Zak