Student shares confronting vision of her severe psychosis to raise awareness
A 20-year-old student has bravely shared vision of herself suffering a psychotic episode to highlight to the community what it’s like living with mental illness.
Sophie Eliza, wants the stigma attached to mental health to significantly change and insists that living with psychosis and “seeing things happening that aren’t” doesn’t necessarily mean she isn’t happy.
Sophie says the episodes include seeing visions of screaming people drenched in blood, revealing that her trigger was watching a TV show showing a man who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
In a post to her social media account Sophie uploaded vision of herself lying on a sofa crying uncontrollably.
In the post to Facebook she writes, “This is the reality of psychotic illnesses.”
“This is the reality for some with bipolar, or bpd, severe depression or schizophrenia (all of which I've been diagnosed with at some point).
“Mental illnesses aren't romantic or beautiful or cute. Mental illnesses are scary, terrifying.”
In addition to the video of her crying, Sophie also shared images of her “happy and smiley” showing the stark contrast of what she can go through in a day.
The 20-year-old wanted to show the difference to everyone between “The Sophie everyone knows” and the Sophie that battles against mental health issues.
“Mental illnesses are serious, they’re dangerous and ugly. This is the reality of being triggered by something. It’s not a joke, or a laugh. Being triggered by something can lead to this. This state of pure agony and fear,” she continues to write in her Facebook post.
And it would seem that her message of awareness is breaking through.
The post has since gone viral, being shared more than 33,000 times.
