I’m not using cocaine now, so writing this means looking back at a version of myself that doesnt always feel real anymore.
But it was real.
When I used cocaine, I usually didnt do it once and stop. I would keep going for days. I wouldnt sleep, barely ate and stopped paying attention to anything except staying high.
Eventually my mind would start turning against me.
It usually began with paranoia. Every sound felt important. A car slowing down outside meant somebody was watching me. A quiet conversation in another room had to be about me.
I would look through windows, check doors and sit completely still trying to hear what was happening. Then came the shadow people.
I would see something move from the corner of my eye. A dark figure crossing the room or standing just far enough away that I couldnt see its face.
When I looked directly, nothing was there.
I knew lack of sleep and cocaine could cause it ... but in that moment, knowing didnt help.
It felt real.
Sometimes I heard people talking like they were standing right beside me. I could hear voices or conversations that werent actually happening.
I would answer them, search for where they were coming from or convince myself somebody was hiding nearby.
Part of me knew something wasnt right ... but I couldnt separate fiction from reality anymore.
That is one of the hardest things to explain about psychosis. When your inside it, you dont know that your mind is lying to you.
Everybody else looks like they are missing something obvious ... while you believe you're the only one who can see what is really happening.
I was scared, sketched out and suspicious of people who were trying to help me. Sometimes I thought they were part of whatever my mind had created.
The more they told me nothing was there ... the less I trusted them.
Then the cocaine would wear off.
I would sleep, eat something and slowly start understanding that the people I heard were never there. The shadows werent real. The danger I spent hours preparing for only existed in my head.
None of it had been real ... but the fear was.
The embarrassment afterward was real too. I would think about the things I said or did and wonder how I ever believed any of it.
Then somehow I would use again ... and put myself back in the exact same place.
Today I’m not using cocaine, and I’m able to look back with a clearer mind. I dont experience psychosis when I’m not using.
That doesnt make what happened easier to remember ... but it reminds me why I cant go back.
Cocaine didnt only damage my body, relationships and trust. It took away my ability to know what was real. Getting sober meant more than stopping the drug ... it meant getting my own mind back.
If you are hearing or seeing things that others dont, feeling intensely paranoid or unable to tell what is real, please seek medical help immediately.
You dont have to try and handle that alone.