u/DumplingGremlin

Hello. I'm 20 and trying to understand experiences I had for most of my life. I'm not looking for a diagnosis, just possibilities I can research and discuss with my therapist.

For years, my working assumption was that I had some form of psychosis, possibly related to autism. However, the symptoms have mostly disappeared over the last several months, around the same time I distanced myself from my parents and eventually became estranged.

The symptoms seem to have started very young. At the latest, I was 4 years old and crying about a "blue boy" that nobody else could see. Over the years I experienced visual, auditory, and tactile hallucinations (usually not all at once), as well as paranoia, grandiose and persecutory delusions, derealization, depersonalization, dissociation, and occasional episodes where my thinking and speech were noticeably affected. Sometimes I believed I was an immortal but powerless being who had lived forever. Other times it was as mild as a brief hallucination. The symptoms were usually made worse by isolation, fear, stress, caffeine, and certain kinds of music. During some episodes I felt drawn toward the woods for reasons I couldn't explain. I also sometimes felt unreal, like I was in a video game, or like I was dissolving into my surroundings. Colors could appear unusually saturated or blurred.

My therapist recently suggested that my family environment may have played a larger role than I realized. Looking back, I spent much of my childhood frightened, isolated, and under significant stress.

So reddit, what kinds of conditions or experiences can produce psychotic symptoms from early childhood that later improve or disappear? Have any of you had experiences that looked like psychosis but were ultimately explained by something else?

Hello. I'm a 20-year-old who's been estranged with my parents for a month now. Dealing with the usual. I was parentified and infantilized emotionally, basically act like an adult and don't burden us with your autistic needs, but you don't get to make your own decisions if we don't agree with them. If you make decisions we don't agree with, you're mean, dramatic, cruel, delusional, ruminating, avoidant, blah blah blah. My mom has continued sending emails and messages for the past month despite being asked to stop. I've documented dozens of messages, and she's also contacted other people in my life.

Luckily, I've been living with my partner and his family, and outside of health insurance and the phone plan that should be fixed months from now, I'm independent. It's just been hard not seeing my cat, who I love very much. She's still alive and well so far. No, unfortunately I can't do anything to see my cat without it not being in her best interest. I'll be honest, I've been lonely. I made a new friend who I can see, but it was made only weeks ago, and he's not close enough that I can fully talk about the situation. I guess I wanted to come here to vent and to be less alone.

I'm not really looking for advice about reconnecting. I mostly wanted to vent and hear from other people who've gone through estrangement, especially in the first few months.