How to move in and out psychosis

I used to be a child who wanted to say a lot. And I had a lot of emotions.
This was not always appreciated. So, at a young age, I taught myself to keep my mouth shut and push my emotions down.
I forgot that I was doing this. I continued with my life, but I started feeling worse and worse. Especially when life became more stressful, the stress that was already inside me became amplified. I felt sad, depressed, anxious, and psychotic, and I received all kinds of diagnoses. We also have autism and ADHD on both sides of my family, so that did not help either.
It took me years to figure out what I had taught myself to do, and that I could also unlearn it.

1) The 20-Year Effect

You can look at it this way: suppose you push down an emotion or keep your mouth shut 30 times a day. After 20 years, you will have done that 219,000 times (!). That is 219,000 moments of additional stress on your body.

Now you go to the doctor. But by the time you arrive at the doctor, you are already 20 years further:

So neither you nor the doctor can easily see what is actually going on. You no longer remember that you taught yourself this behavior, and the doctor sees you at your worst moment.

2) Not always visible

The second problem with this kind of diagnosis is that many psychiatric symptoms only become visible in certain situations.

I have seen in my surroundings that, for example, an eating disorder can become much more intense when the situation becomes more stressful. So when everything is calm and peaceful, things may be going reasonably well. But as soon as the stress level rises — boom — it is back again. Suddenly, you are counting calories again.

Humanity

These two things — how long something has been going on, and the fact that it does not happen all the time — make it difficult to give someone a diagnosis.

Is someone psychotic? Perhaps you are looking at someone who has been carrying 20 years of suffering with them.

Sometimes I worry a little that we dehumanize things in psychiatry, even though we do not mean to. But it is very difficult to see something for what it really is.

How you can practice this

Go into stressful situations. Do a combat sport. This forces you to learn what it feels like to be under stress, and how you can respond differently.

Another important thing is that very often, you do not have to do anything at all. You were already good the way you were, but you temporarily forgot that.

The fact that you taught yourself a certain way of responding is almost never your fault. Often, you had no choice. Maybe your parents made the same mistakes, or maybe they simply were not there for you.

Many more people than we think are already perfect just as they are.