stormdog | And We Have a Friend in the Hospital with Psychosis

I think I also haven't mentioned that one half of the couple we stayed with after the fire is in the hospital as a mental illness inpatient as of a week ago? Maybe two? What is time anymore? Said person uses they/them pronouns, so I'll do my best to distinguish between the person I'm talking about and the couple as a whole.

I've never been close to anyone with that level of mental illness before, and with Miriam and I already dealing with our own anxiety/depression/trauma, it's honestly kind of alarming to be reminded of how fragile our brains can be. They have been dealing with a combination of CPTSD, chronic pain (which they were self-medicating with a large amount of cannabis), and a recent miscarriage that they blame on having caught Covid. Meanwhile, their partner works at a hotel as a desk manager and is being pressured to not mask at work anymore, so what with them feeling like Covid killed the child they were carrying, that's causing a lot of friction.

They asked us over to their house one afternoon, after they and their partner had a verbal fight that ended in him staying in a hotel and talking about moving back to Ontario. We, and a couple online friends, kept them company as they panicked and cried and talked in ways that were sometimes difficult to follow about everything that was going on. They said that their therapist had suggested they be admitted to the hospital, and given how they were feeling and behaving, we and their friends encouraged them to do so.

So they tried to check themself in, were refused, and then walked home from the hospital at like 2 in the morning because they didn't know what else to do I guess. Miriam and I were awake, staying up late in to the night in case we were needed, but they weren't functioning well enough to contact us. Miriam and I kind of ended up communicating with a few of their family by phone or Discord that night too because we were local and knew what was going on. Their mother flew in from Ontario to help, and their partner came back from the hotel, and in a few days they went back to the hospital and did get checked in that time.

Their partner has been giving us updates and told us that their diagnosis is "full psychosis" and that he should expect them to be in the hospital or facilities for "a long time."

I'm not clear on exactly what full psychosis means and am keeping in mind that this is being filtered through a non-medical third-party (their partner) who isn't always the best at communicating. I'm also not clear on how long a "long time" is. Months? Years?

We were able to go in to visit them a few days ago, and they seemed mostly coherent, though they also expressed they were having trouble with thinking that other people they know are in the ward with them, though they know they aren't really there. Their partner says they have good days and bad days and we were there on a better day. It does seem like things are improving though, as they have been given the ability to go out to do things with their partner during the day for a few hours sometimes, and the two of them were able to take their dog to the dog park and have a nice time.

So I think that whole thing has been weighing on me too. It's a little hard to tell whether and how much because there's SO FUCKING MUCH going on right now.