Hey everybody. Today we're gonna talk
about psychosis. More specifically,
Psychotic Depression, what is it, and how
do we treat it?
(music)
First, I want to start by defining what
depression and psychosis are. I have full
videos on both of those topics. If you
want more, I'll link in the description,
you can check that out. But for the sake
of this video, I wanna keep these
definitions short and sweet.
In order to be diagnosed with Major
Depressive Disorder, the symptoms must
persist for two weeks and you have to have
five or more symptoms. But there are two
symptoms I want to address right now that
must be present. And I'm reading from my
DSM. As always, the DSM is not the end-all
be-all, but it's just a way for us to
better understand a diagnosis. And the
first symptom that you have to have is
that you must have depressed mood for most
of the day, nearly every day, for at least
two weeks. Just like I said. The second is
you have markedly diminished interest or
pleasure in activities that you used to
like. What I've called that before is
anhedonia, meaning all the things I used
to love doing, I just don't like anymore.
Now, obviously, there are many more
symptoms to depression, like I said you
have to have five or more, and those are
just two, but I'll link my full video
about Major Depressive Disorder, like I
said, in the description if you want more
information.
But let's move on to Psychosis.
Now, Psychosis isn't something that we can
be diagnosed with directly. Psychosis is
something that happens due to another
mental illness. For example, we can have
psychotic features with our Bipolar
Disorder or Schizophrenia or, like we're
talking about today, our Major Depressive
Disorder. But we can't be diagnosed just
with Psychosis. Does that make sense?
Because I know it can be kind of
confusing. But for the sake of today's
video, I want to talk about the five
different types of Psychosis. The first
being delusions, which are firmly held
beliefs. If you don't remember, you want
more, like I said, I have a full video all
about Psychosis, I'll link in the
description, you can check that out.
The second is hallucinations, and that's
when we see or hear something that isn't
there to anybody but us. And the third
type of Psychosis is disorganized
thinking. And what that really means is
just like it sounds, our thoughts are
disorganized, therefore we can't tell a
real story. It won't have a cohesive
story line. We'll struggle to make full
sentences and to connect them to
others and so therefore can be hard for
people to understand us. And the fourth is
grossly disorganized or abnormal motor
behavior, meaning just the way that we go
about our day and move in our space is a
little bit odd and different. And the
fifth and final type of Psychosis are
negative symptoms. We talk a lot about
positive symptoms. And the difference, why
we call one positive and one negative is
positive is when we add something to our
environment or our experience, meaning
hallucinations or delusions, right? We're
seeing, hearing things that aren't there,
we're adding something. Negative is when
we take it away. For example, if I have
blunted affect, which is one of the most
common negative symptoms of Psychosis,
and that could mean that when I normally
want to express upset or excitement or
anything, I'm not able to. I'm blunted.
It's taken something away. And that would
be an example of a negative symptom. The
reason that I wanted to define Major
Depressive Disorder and Psychosis first,
is because I think it's important that we
understand them on their own before we try
to talk about how they can look together.
I know we talk a lot about Schizophrenia
and how that can look, but the way that
Psychotic Depression differs from other
psychotic disorders is that the delusions
or hallucinations tend to be more focused
on depression symptoms, meaning I may
have delusions or hallucinations about
feeling worthless or hopeless and things
that may tie back in to my depression.
Schizophrenia, on the other hand, their
delusions and hallucinations tend to be a
little bit more bizarre or nonsensical,
meaning I've had clients who feel like
Jesus is talking to them through their TV,
or even through their refrigerator, or
that demons are getting into their home
through their electricity.
The main thing I want
you to hear during this
video is that Psychosis can be a part of a
lot of different mental illnesses and, no,
it doesn't mean you're crazy. What it
means is that your brain is being flooded
with a lot of excess dopamine, which is
what gives us a lot of the positive
symptoms. The delusions and the
hallucinations come out of that. And yes,
it can be focused on different things,
like with depression it'll be more
depression-based thoughts, but it can
still be there and paranoia is very
common.
The good news is, is if we are struggling
with any kind of psychosis, treatment is
available. And it can get better. The
sooner we treat it, they find, the quicker
it goes away and the less likely it is to
come up again. When it comes to Psychotic
Depression, the best treatment is
medication in a hospital. And the only
reason that they say this is because, when
we have depression, we already can feel
really bad, really hopeless, at the end of
our rope. And if we start to feel
psychotic, and worry that other people may
be doing something to harm us, they find
suicide rates go up. And so we want you to
be safe and encourage anybody, if you
start feeling any of these symptoms, talk
to your mental health care provider,
whether it's your therapist, psychiatrist,
regular doctor, loved one, anyone and let
them get you to a hospital so you can get
treated sooner rather than later.
Also, as a side note, this can be a
precursor for Bipolar Disorder and so it's
something that a lot of doctors will want
to watch and assess with you and maybe
take you back to your childhood and teen
years to notice if it actually is
Psychotic Depression or if this is a
symptom of Bipolar Disorder. And that's
why I think it's really important for us
to get proper treatment. Taking yourself
to the hospital can be the best and first
step for you to start feeling better and
more like yourself. And with proper
treatment and proper medication, your
symptoms can go away pretty quickly. They
say for some people, it's just a week.
Others, it can be months. The only
depending factor is how severe it is and
how long you've been having this
Psychosis. And that's why it's so
important that we get help sooner rather
than later. And as another form of
treatment, therapy is honestly not the
best. Talk therapy can't always get us
anywhere because, if we're psychotic,
we may not trust our therapist. We may
think they're out to get us. We aren't
really able to do a lot of behavioral
techniques that may come along with it.
But what they do know helps is some CBT
techniques for those of us who have the
negative symptoms. Remember, when we
maybe are struggling to get out of bed and
we're feeling like we can't emote and
can't express ourselves. There are
behavioral techniques that we can do to
help get that back in line, get us up, get
us out, get us showering so that we start
to maybe feel just a little bit better.
Overall, I hope that you hear in this
video that it can and will get better.
Having Psychosis, even if it's brief,
doesn't make you crazy. Don't worry, it's
very, very common, especially in
conjunction with things like Major
Depressive Disorder or Bipolar Disorder.
There are a lot of different ways that we
can struggle with Psychosis but the
sooner you reach out, the better. Take
yourself to the hospital if you are
feeling that you're a danger to yourself,
if you are depressed and thinking that
you're hearing and seeing things that you
never used to hear and see, talk to
someone, reach out, tell someone, get the
help that you deserve because the sooner
we treat it, the faster the symptoms will
go away. My overall hope for this video is
that you know that you can get better with
proper treatment. So please reach out.
There are professionals available who
truly care. And I know, in my experience,
every client I've had who's ever
experienced Psychosis has felt terrified
and has hated every minute of it. So just
know, the sooner you reach out, the sooner
you'll start feeling like yourself. If
you're new to my channel, click here
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So make sure you turn on those
notifications and I will see you next
time. Bye!
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