Journal Entry: Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features

I have psychotic depression. It’s not that I’m suicidal or hearing voices constantly. In fact, I’m happy and have a lot of good in my life. i just struggle sometimes.

It feels like I mainly deal with the “negative symptoms” of schizophrenia. Emotional blunting, severe depression, and derealization/dissociation. Sometimes, when I’m stressed, reality looks two dimensional and feels like I’m inside a dream. Regularly, I cannot sleep and my meds don’t even help that like they used too. So I spend a lot of time driving around at night and write. Yesterday I wrote six pages because of insomnia. Earlier in the day I felt nothing while writing. Just total absence and then that was poured into the story. Then later, at night, I was almost manic and typing faster than I could think.

I had a bad psychotic episode recently that landed me in the hospital and became a disaster because I was out of state. I posted embarrassing things on social media because I had lost my mind and further continued to lose my mind. I almost took a bus home from Colorado to Arizona. But as you can probably guess, that didn’t work at all. My parents had to drive sixteen hours and then come pick me up at a hotel. When I got home, one of my girl best friends hugged me while she sobbed. But I couldn’t help but feel nothing while it happened. This is the isolation and emotional blunting caused by Major Depressive Disorder With Psychotic Features. That’s another name for psychotic depression.

Late at night when I can’t fucking sleep I’ll either write or just play a shit ton of video games. I can’t drive all that long as I have to conserve gas. But believe me, if I had the money all I’d be doing was driving around.

What helps me is just remembering kindness. I’m very active on r/schizophrenia and r/psychosis and try to support everyone. I even like going on r/suicidewatch and helping people. That’s something I’ve done regularly. It just brings me joy and helps me feel something.

Either way, I’m out of the mental hospital. My website’s popping off and I have fans and a few hundred readers. My book is getting published and my publisher likes it. My friends read my stuff and love it. I’ve even had a few girlfriends recently. So, my life ain’t all that bad.