Just a note: This letter describes some of my beliefs and experiences when I'm in the psychosis. As such, some people (especially those who have also been worried about aliens) may find it triggering. Take care and get support if you need it xxx Rachel

Relapsing Again (A Letter)

So far all I’ve spoken about is the past. Maybe it was just a matter of time before the present came up and bit me on the proverbial butt. Bitten? I’ve been savaged.

Till now the present has been this little fluffy puppy I’ve played with, walked with and even housetrained. In Jonathan Davis’ immortal words, ‘I got the life’ that I so desired. I worked, rested and played more than any actor featured in the old Mars Bar ads. If sanity had rights attached to it I’d have owed them a fortune. Till now, that is.

Now, if insanity means holding beliefs that others don’t share. That the enormity of those beliefs almost strikes you dumb with horror, breathless in the face of a hurricane. If your nearest and dearest hold you close and tell you that it’s ok, it’s not real, it’s just the wrath of dopamine-fuelled psychosis. Then insane I am.

But insane without hope? Never. (I hope)

More on my beliefs – I believe many things, many just like you. I believe the sun looks yellow on a bright summers’ day. I believe that its light shines down on me, allowing me to write without the artificial glow of a bulb. I believe I have eight fingers, two thumbs and 10 toes. I believe that inside me there is an alien, waiting for me to die.

I put all these certainties I hold together to explain how pervasive my ‘alien’ beliefs are. To me the alien is real – or I am mad. Maybe I am mad and it is real. I don’t know.

I know it’s real, it talks to me. At first it sent me thoughts. I spent weeks trying to understand where they were coming from. I knew the quality of my thoughts were wrong, something subtle had changed. Then the definite suicidal ‘alien thoughts’ came – telling me to take a bottle of pills, showing me dead on the end of a rope. It wants to kill me – I know that, it’s obvious.

Next came its voice, I’ve heard it before. I remember it sometimes being soothing, saying it would help me kill myself – protect me from pain. Other times it would be accusatory and direct – “You are evil, you will die. I will control your body. You will die”. Now it’s told me what I had suspected – that I am part of an experiment, that it’s altering my thoughts and that soon it will alter my movements.

God, that thought fills me with dread. What could it do? What could I do? Kill? No! Never! Not me – but it? What is it capable of? No. It hasn’t spoken of this, just harm to me. But why? What have I done?

I just don’t know.

Rachel Studley © 2001