Living Through the Fog of a Psychotic Break

February 17, 2017 / Christine Deneweth

(Content Warning: suicidality)

A psychotic break can be a hard experience to understand – and the stigma around psychosis can make it even more difficult.

Here’s a comic to help demystify this experience, with one account of what it’s like to go through a psychotic break.

If you or someone you know is struggling with psychosis, we hope this helps remind you that healing and help can be possible.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

Panel 1

Title Card: Into the Fog of a Psychotic Break

Panel 2

(Crass, who has curly hair, glasses, and a green shirt, smiles and talks.)

Text: I’m Crass, and I lived through a psychotic break.

Panel 3

(Crass talking.)

Text: This is what it’s like to have schizophrenia, live through a psychotic break, and eventually heal.

Panel 4

(A wide-eyed Crass looks upset.)

Text: One day, I lost any kind of clarity. I had always known who I was and who other people in my life were. But it was all gone one day.

Panel 5

(Evil Crass behind a scared Crass.)

Text: Let’s start with me. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Were there more than one of me?

Panel 6

(Image of someone holding puppet strings.)

Text: I tried to be aware of every single action of mine. I tried to observe myself from outside of my own body. I asked everyone if it seemed like someone else was running the show.

Panel 7

(Crass looking scared talking to someone.)

Text: I was hyperaware of speaking to others. I looked for codes hidden in body language and inflection. They all knew something I didn’t.

Panel 8

(Two demons wearing pictures of Crass’ friends on their foreheads laugh and talk.)

Text: They were all in on something. I knew they were reporting my behavior.

Panel 9

(Close-up on an evil fanged mouth laughing.)

Text: They would wait for me to mess up. Trip on my words, laugh at the wrong things—oh, and whenever they laughed, I knew it was at me.

Panel 10

(Crass stuck in a TV.)

Text: I finally figured out what I thought was the truth. My life was a big recorded experiment everyone was in on to see if I could find out how mentally ill I really was.

Panel 11

(A clipboard.)

Text: People were just steering me. Everyone already knew what I was going to do. Cars would move in unison. People with clipboards were everywhere. It was all just to steer me.

Panel 12

(Crass in fetal position while demons laugh behind her.)

Text: This went on for three months.

Panel 13

(Crass looking to a door with light pouring out and a demon coming out of her back.)

Text: It came down to two things: kill myself or get help.

Panel 14

(Crass looking surprised in class.)

Text: My friends urged me to get help, and I found myself back at college somehow, medicated and regularly going to therapy, apparently.

Panel 15

(Crass writing on iPad.)

Text: After messing around in two different clinics, I have my diagnosis and medications down. And I’m still here to make these comics for you.

Panel 16

(Crass talking.)

Text: I’m lucky my friends took my psychotic break seriously. Psychosis isn’t something to be taken lightly or joked about.

Panel 17

(Crass talking.)

Text: If you or someone you know is struggling with psychosis, don’t wait to get help. I wish I had gotten help sooner.

Panel 18

(Crass talking.)

Text: Really, let’s end the stigma behind it and make it safe to talk about so everyone can get the help they deserve.

To learn more about this topic, check out:

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Christine Deneweth is a Contributing Comic Artist for Everyday Feminism. A queer cartoonist and artist, Christine lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She is a cartoonist for Eastern Michigan University’s newspaper, The Eastern Echo. She writes children’s books about mental disability and has a comic strip that has been published for five years. Comics can be found on her Facebook page, and art can be found on her Instagram @crassaster. Check out her comics here.