When considering mental illness diagnosis practitioners are cautioned to consider that some symptoms are a reflection of cultural spiritual practices. I embraced this perspective in my teenage years until now. I’m a pagan and believe in spiritual occurrences but it’s hard to tell what’s spiritual versus psychosis. So I found myself questioning what to tell my psychiatrist about. The reality hit me when I realized that maybe regular thoughts could be part of Psychosis. For example, I’ve had two spirit guides since I was a child. A male angel and a female entity. The male never gave me a name but he often says things that I experience as a silent internal thought. One day he encouraged me while I was driving that everything would be okay. It hit me that I experienced the thought as inside me but coming from someone else. I realized the key difference between this and the auditory hallucinations I experienced in 2020 was that the thought couldn’t be heard out loud.
Flabbergasted that I had never thought of it before I went to my online schizoaffective help group and asked them if internal thoughts count as psychosis. They told me about internal psychosis. I then told myself I should tell my psychiatrist. If you’re experiencing thoughts that are intrusive or thoughts from another person. Even if you’re not hearing them out loud this can be a sign of psychosis.
With this new understanding I realized I had been experiencing psychosis since childhood. I had intrusive thoughts back then as a small child. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I had my guide start talking to me. Now that I am an adult and on effective medication. I rarely have internal hallucinations. I mostly just have intrusive thoughts I have to reframe or try to curb.
Ultimately if you’re spiritual it’s still wise to tell your psychiatrist what symptoms you’re experiencing so the psychiatrist can determine whether it is psychosis not you. They’re the medical doctor who can determine if you need a medication adjustment or to start new medication.