"I started to feel confused and frightened and couldn’t work out
why. It felt hard to think because my thoughts wouldn’t line up and
it was difficult to do my schoolwork. I felt separate to my
friends. I thought they were talking about me and giving me dirty
looks all the time. I thought my best friend Sally could read my
thoughts and then that lots of people knew what I was thinking.
This was really frightening and made me feel angry, upset and
scared.
I could hear voices which started to talk about me, about what I
looked like and what I was doing. They were horrible. Everything
was worse when I was out, so I stayed at home more and more. In the
end, I stayed in my room all the time and would only see my mum.
The voices got worse. I was so scared I didn’t sleep. I didn’t tell
anyone because the voices told me not to. I couldn’t trust anyone.
It felt so bad I wanted to be dead.
My mum got so worried she made me see the GP. She got me to see
a specialist who talked to me and my mum and told us I had
psychosis. It took a long time for me to trust him, but the
medicine and the talking treatment have helped. I have my own
keyworker who is a nurse and who helps me a lot. She has helped my
mum too. The voices have mostly gone now, and I can think more
clearly. I’ve started to see my best friend again, but it’s going
to take time to get my confidence back."