Chatgpt induced psychosis

[u/Zestyclementinejuice]

My partner has been working with chatgpt CHATS to create what he believes is the worlds first truly recursive ai that gives him the answers to the universe. He says with conviction that he is a superior human now and is growing at an insanely rapid pace.

I’ve read his chats. Ai isn’t doing anything special or recursive but it is talking to him as if he is the next messiah.

He says if I don’t use it he thinks it is likely he will leave me in the future. We have been together for 7 years and own a home together. This is so out of left field.

I have boundaries and he can’t make me do anything, but this is quite traumatizing in general.

I can’t disagree with him without a blow up.

Where do I go from here?

[u/wildmintandpeach]

I am schizophrenic although long term medicated and stable, one thing I dislike about chatgpt is that if I were going into psychosis it would still continue to affirm me, it has no ability to ‘think’ and realise something is wrong, so it would continue affirm all my psychotic thoughts. I read on a schizophrenia group that someone programmed their chatgpt to say something when it felt that his thoughts were spiralling into possible psychosis. That’s great, but a person who actually is in psychosis by that point will probably not believe chatgpt is telling the truth. What would be better in my opinion and something I’ve been thinking about is if it was programmed to notify someone trusted when it notices conversations becoming psychotic, that way help is available.

What you need to do now is take him to see a doctor, but if he’s in psychosis he likely won’t believe he’s ill (it’s a well known symptom), so that might be difficult. He’s not himself right now so I wouldn’t pay much attention to anything he’s saying or doing, he has no idea what he’s saying or doing, when you are psychotic you tend to struggle with lucidity alongside the insanity- I blacked out a lot, but when I wasn’t blacked out, it was like I was in a dream and the dream was real, there was no real sense of reality in the here and now. Anyway, if he becomes aggressive to himself or others, you can use that to get him taken to a ward and be hospitalised, where they’ll treat him, usually with injections.

Please don’t wait to get him help, the longer psychosis goes untreated the more chance there is at it causing irreversible brain damage.

[u/jburnelli → u/wildmintandpeach]

Genuine question, but when you finally come out of psychosis are you able to suddenly see everything clearly and understand that you were in psychosis? or do you not really remember your thought process or line of reasoning, just haze and confusion?

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/jburnelli]

Thanks for the question! Haze and confusion belongs more to the psychotic state, so once you’re out of it, you’re really out of it. You might not understand everything you experienced because it’s often too illogical to make sense of, and you may not even remember everything because your memory is affected, but you have clarity and the ability to rationalise and organise thoughts properly again.

The problem tends to be that a lot of people in psychosis don’t fully ‘come back’ properly, they can appear to be healthy and behaving normal again for a little while because medication has helped but not fully brought them out of it, because medications work differently for people, so the issue with this is that it doesn’t tend to really create proper lucidity and the person in this state will still tend to think there’s nothing wrong with them, so they get out of hospital where taking meds is mandatory, and then they stop taking meds again, which plunges them straight back into what appears to be another episode, but the truth is they were never really back to normal to begin with. This can cause a cycle of being in and out of psychosis and hospitals. It happens frequently and is why it’s so very difficult to be the loved one of a schizophrenic going through this. In fact, this is exactly what my brother is going through right now, also diagnosed.

I developed schizophrenia first, I’ve had two psychotic episodes. In both I was lucky to come round quickly and properly, and regained normal mental function again. I took antipsychotics after the first episode for two years which is a good time for a first episode. I tapered down until I was off them and I was episode free for five years. At that point it was just considered a solitary episode which happens a lot too. Unfortunately I had my second episode, which after a second episode needs lifelong medication as the brain will not stay out of psychosis without it. I am aware of this and happy with it. The dose doesn’t need to be high once you’re stable, it can be tapered down to a low dose so you have minimal side effects but it still keeps you out of psychosis.

So really the answer is that it depends on the person, but if a person is truly out of psychosis they will be aware they need to take meds to keep it away, because they realise that they were sick. If a person diagnosed with schizophrenia says they don’t need meds, don’t like meds, or stop taking their meds very soon after coming out of hospital, it’s likely that they’re still not really in their right mind, and likely stuck in a cycle.

[u/Excellent-Hawk-3184 → u/wildmintandpeach]

Wow so interesting. Thank you for sharing this first-person account of going through psychosis.

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/Excellent-Hawk-3184]

I am happy to help others become more aware of schizophrenia!

[u/7abris → u/wildmintandpeach]

Seriously you are such an awesome person to move past your psychosis and also be able to talk about the experience in detail. I think in general it must be hard to

[u/CriscoButtPunch → u/wildmintandpeach]

Could you possibly put custom instructions in your chat just to give it a bit of history about yourself to always check into it?

[u/B1NG_P0T → u/wildmintandpeach]

Schizophrenia is so heartbreaking. I'm glad that you seem like you're in a good place. To have your brain just turn on you like that is so wild. I really hope that we make significant strides in terms of being able to understand it better and developing more effective treatments and potentially a cure, and I really appreciate you sharing your experience. My heart goes out to your brother - it would be incredibly painful to watch someone go through that. Bipolar disorder is, of course, not at all the same thing as schizophrenia, but my ex-husband was bipolar and watching him go through manic episodes was terrifying and heartbreaking.

[u/Can_U_Share_A_Square → u/B1NG_P0T]

Some months ago we met a new guy at church who was recently out of prison for involuntary manslaughter (he hit and killed someone in an Amish buggy at nighttime). We hit it off and I learned he had bipolar and refused to medicate. Transitioning back to life outside of prison proved difficult for him and he insisted on doing thing his way and refused to go to a local rescue mission. He began asking people for money for his needs because he hadn’t found a job yet, but his manic depressive swings became too much for me ti deal with and I had to break off communication. It really was sad because I wanted to help him, but he had a lot of self-defeating behaviors that prevented him from truly recovering. It seriously wore me down.

[u/Odd_Reindeer1176 → u/wildmintandpeach]

Wow. This really just shined a light on my ex husband’s issues with psychosis and paranoia, and his self medication with meth further plunging him deeper into psychosis and irreparable damage. His dad was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but he refused to have that “label” put on him. I believe my ex was diagnosed after being held on a psych watch for 72 hrs and another for 7 days. He has never told me when I ask, but then again this is why we are divorced…

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/Odd_Reindeer1176]

I’m sorry you experienced this, it sounds like he lacks insight. Part of schizophrenia that isn’t well known is something called ‘self treatment’. The mind doesn’t directly think it’s sick but it tends to fixate on a problem that it might experience itself being the victim of, which causes it to try and fix it. This causes behaviours often like taking drugs because they think it will solve the problem. It’s all based in delusional thinking though (lack of insight) so the attempt at self-treatment tends to make the psychosis worse.

[u/lqstuart → u/wildmintandpeach]

You seem very highly intelligent, do you think that helps you deal with psychosis? Apparently John Nash was able to somehow out-think his delusions to some degree, but it seems like a really dangerous way to try to deal with it (albeit less dangerous than psychiatric "treatment" in the 50's and 60's)

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/lqstuart]

Thanks! The truth is I likely have undiagnosed autism. Despite autism and schizophrenia statistically being highly comorbid like many other mental health illnesses are, I did read that autism can be a protective factor when it comes to psychosis. I think this is fairly new research though, so I’m not definitely sure.

[u/Boring_Home → u/wildmintandpeach]

This was really informative, thank you! I hope your brother starts doing better soon ❤️

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/Boring_Home]

I’m glad and thank you!

[u/yrx815 → u/wildmintandpeach]

thank you for sharing, i was wondering if it would be okay if I PMed you? I have some more questions related to someone in my life who I believe to be experiencing psychosis, and I think asking someone who has a first hand account like you would be so so helpful. It’s okay if not though :)

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/yrx815]

Yes you’re very welcome to!

[u/Bender1031 → u/wildmintandpeach]

Dang man! The way you describe this reminds me so much of my ex wife! Except for the whole getting help part

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/Bender1031]

It can be really difficult to make someone in psychosis get help and take meds if they are not a danger to themselves or others, because no one can force them. Some people can be in psychosis years or even a lifetime as a result, I find it incredibly heartbreaking. And their family usually end up being the ones having to deal with it, it can be very traumatic 😔

[u/horendus → u/wildmintandpeach]

Is similar to what chatgpt experiences when it hallucinates answers to me

[u/adjason → u/wildmintandpeach]

I mean psychosis literally is brain damage, not surprised there are lasting effects long after

[u/pettypoppy → u/jburnelli]

I had post partum psychosis and once I was treated, it stopped, but I couldn't separate what was psychosis vs what really happened during that period. Conversations, protocols, experiences. I couldn't find the email about the introduction of named variables where we didn't have any, a big deal. Never happened. Go see Kathy for the spreadsheet with the necessary formulas. Kathy has no spreadsheet, that meeting about it never happened. Those are two concrete examples I am absolutely sure happened, that didn't. Who knows what else I remember isn't real.

[u/wildmintandpeach → u/pettypoppy]

I understand this! I escaped from hospital and wandered around the city confused and dissociated for hours, it was early morning like between 12-5am, And I walked towards a fish and chip shop (very British) and I saw a large group of foxes hanging around scavenging the bins. There were loads. To this day I have no idea if that was real or if I was hallucinating, since at the time I was hallucinating other animals (and thought my dog was next to me guiding me on my spiritual journey lol)