Long story. Her most immediate trigger was actually a traumatic experience of childbirth. Postpartum/puerperal psychosis affects mothers in approx 1 in 1000 bir

Long story. Her most immediate trigger was actually a traumatic experience of childbirth. Postpartum/puerperal psychosis affects mothers in approx 1 in 1000 births, or around 1 in 300 where an emergency C section was performed which was the case here; C section is of course pretty routine but in this case was complicated by an ileus. But there were many latent contributing factors to the psychosis as well: adverse reaction to an antibiotic (metronidazole - hallucinations can be a side effect), traumatic childhood, to name just a few. The most acute episode of psychosis happened in hospital and involved some pretty random behaviour accompanied by total loss of response to input. This did not last more than 10 minutes or so, but on return from that state she continued to behave in a way that pretty much resembled someone on a bad LSD trip. This went on for about a week, during which she hardly slept and was never sure whether awake or not, and reported many types of delusional thinking, e.g. that reality was not as it seemed (think inception/matrix/comment in the OP here). Also paranoia that family, friends or strangers were staring or wanted to harm her or her child. Also occasional thoughts of self harm as a means of escape from this awful state of being. This was all pretty much solved by Olanzapine which she still takes 1.5 years later although dosage is now tapering down to almost nothing. Also CBT. At some point the diagnosis was augmented by one of "O-only OCD" resulting in a second prescription for Sertraline. But the condition is very much under control; she is back to work part time, in a role that includes responsibility for children; her co workers know the score and are alert to possible issues but there haven't been any that she couldn't manage herself. Occasionally various thoughts disturb her but she has learned to handle them appropriately. Mental health issues are often exacerbated by stigma, and this is in part because people (for understandable reasons) don't rush to share their experiences with others, which is why I've taken the time to write this post. I would recommend anyone to familiarize themselves with the material published by Mind and others, partly because it's interesting, partly because spotting the signs - and understanding the differences between e.g. psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar, OCD, etc (even if the science behind them is far from well understood) - might help someone you know one day. https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-.. https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-.... Edit: interesting addendum, the matrix/inception fear had been there long before the psychosis. I remember years ago telling her I had lost The Game ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game) ) which she hadn't encountered before. I explained that "the object of the game is not to remember the game" ... she took it to mean we were all in some sort of simulation and got kinda scared even then.