Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words - Episode 1: Chantal
Editor's Note
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity, readability, and flow. Repetitions, filler words, and transcription artefacts have been removed while preserving the speaker's intended meaning and perspective. Based on an interview conducted for Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words.
Introduction
In the first episode of Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words, I speak with Chantal, an independent researcher and mental health advocate whose experiences led her from cannabis-related difficulties and psychiatric diagnosis into a deep exploration of psychosis, recovery, and the limits of current psychiatric frameworks.
Our conversation explores the gradual emergence of unusual experiences, the relationship between addiction and psychosis, the challenges of receiving a schizophrenia diagnosis, and the search for recovery beyond conventional explanations. We also discuss how language shapes our understanding of mental distress, the tensions between different perspectives on psychosis, and why Chantal believes curiosity and critical thinking remain important throughout recovery.
Key Themes
Psychosis and identity
Cannabis use and mental health
Recovery and abstinence
Psychiatric diagnosis
Independent research
The meaning of psychosis
Lived experience and expertise
Selected Quotes
"I thought I was exempt from psychosis until it became part of my own experience."
"It wasn't until I achieved complete abstinence that I felt I had enough cognitive capacity to answer the questions I'd been asking for years."
"I've stopped trying to answer the question of what psychosis is. It's like asking what truth is, or what morality is."
Transcript
Introducing Chantal
Dr Oli: Welcome to the first episode of Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words. This series explores people's experiences of psychosis in their own words. Today I'm joined by Chantal. How would you like to introduce yourself?
Chantal: I think of myself as an independent researcher. I currently volunteer at the University of Washington SPIRIT Center and spend a lot of time engaging with researchers whose work interests me.
My path has been unconventional. I don't have a traditional academic career, but I often reach out to researchers, provide feedback, and share perspectives based on my own experiences. One thing I've noticed is that many research groups working on related topics don't even know about each other's existence. Research moves so quickly that entire communities can end up working in parallel without meaningful communication.
A lot of what I do involves identifying perspectives that may be missing from research conversations and helping connect people who otherwise might never speak to one another.
Where Did Your Story With Psychosis Begin?
Dr Oli: Where does your story with psychosis begin?
Chantal: Looking back, the word psychosis wasn't really part of my vocabulary until around 2012.
That was when I first started experimenting with psychedelics and cannabis. At the time, I was struggling with obsessive thinking, body image concerns, and a range of difficult mental states. Psychedelics seemed like a way to escape some of that.
As soon as you enter those communities, you hear stories about people who have "gone psychotic." It becomes this almost mythical possibility. I didn't really understand what psychosis meant, and I assumed it happened to other people—people who were somehow "predisposed."
I thought I was exempt.
That changed quite quickly.
After I started using cannabis more regularly, I began noticing subtle changes. My thinking felt fragmented. I struggled to connect thoughts together. Sometimes it felt as though another voice or presence was beginning to emerge in my mind—something distinct from the intrusive thoughts I was already familiar with.
For the first time, I began wondering whether this was what people meant by psychosis.
Over time those experiences intensified. By 2014 I was using cannabis every day, eventually throughout most of the day. Within months I was experiencing severe cognitive difficulties. I couldn't hold information in mind. I couldn't retrieve memories effectively. I struggled to learn new things or maintain coherent trains of thought.
I also began hearing occasional voices and seeing shadows.
The voices that appeared were often hostile or violent, which made the experience increasingly frightening.
Alongside these changes, I developed a significant dependence on cannabis. Many people don't believe cannabis withdrawal exists, but my experience was very real. I experienced sweating, shaking, agitation, and intense cravings. It wasn't unlike what people describe with other forms of substance withdrawal.
By 2016, psychosis had become something I thought about constantly.
I never experienced what people might call a dramatic psychotic break, but I was dealing with persistent fragmentation of thought, cognitive impairment, intrusive mental activity, and occasional voices.
In 2017 I received a diagnosis within the schizophrenia spectrum and was eventually prescribed risperidone.
Although I disagreed with many aspects of the psychiatric framework being applied to me, I accepted treatment and remained on a low dose of medication for approximately two years.
Recovery, Abstinence, and Rebuilding Cognition
Dr Oli: What happened after your diagnosis?
Chantal: My main question became simple: if this is psychosis, schizophrenia, or whatever name is being used, how do I improve?
The answer I repeatedly heard was that I needed to stop using cannabis.
At first I reduced my use, moving from daily use to weekly use and eventually to monthly use. What I found, however, was that once the disorganisation had become established, occasional use wasn't enough to allow my mind to recover. The process seemed to continue regardless.
Eventually I came to believe that complete abstinence was necessary.
Over the following years I gradually accepted that although I had many criticisms of psychiatric explanations, I wasn't in a position to answer the questions I was asking. My thinking simply wasn't clear enough.
It was only after achieving sustained abstinence from cannabis and alcohol that I felt my cognitive abilities begin to return.
I've now been abstinent from cannabis for two years and alcohol for almost two years. For the first time, I feel capable of writing precise critiques and engaging meaningfully with questions that had frustrated me for years.
The medication reduced some of the background mental noise, but I never experienced it as something that improved my thinking. Later I also underwent transcranial magnetic stimulation for obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Some aspects helped, but it also seemed to increase irritability and restlessness.
Around 2020 I became increasingly interested in why better treatments for psychosis didn't seem to exist and began reading more widely, exploring both conventional and unconventional approaches.
One of the first things that caught my attention was research into sulforaphane, a compound derived from broccoli sprouts. I became interested in whether alternative biological approaches might offer something different from the medications I had been prescribed.
My frustration with medication wasn't simply about side effects, although those were significant. It was also about the feeling that reducing symptoms wasn't the same thing as restoring function.
The medication reduced the noise, but I didn't experience it as restoring the cognitive abilities I felt I had lost.
As I explored different approaches, I became increasingly interested in broader questions about how psychosis is understood and researched. Why were there not better treatments? Why did so many people with apparently different experiences receive the same diagnosis and the same treatment pathway?
Those questions gradually became central to my work and interests.
By 2022 I was struggling with severe fatigue that eventually led me to explore chronic fatigue syndrome frameworks and mind-body approaches to health.
The fatigue often followed periods of overstimulation. Whether through social interaction, stress, or other demands, I would find myself crashing into periods of profound exhaustion.
Working with supportive people, exploring mind-body approaches, improving my lifestyle, maintaining abstinence, and giving my nervous system opportunities to recover gradually helped me move towards better health.
Today, even clinicians seem uncertain about how to describe my experiences. The label feels less important than it once did.
One thing that gives me hope is that I think about psychosis less than I used to. For years it dominated my thinking. Now it occupies less space in my life.
That's one of the clearest signs of recovery I can point to.
What Is Psychosis To You?
Dr Oli: Earlier you touched on this already, but I'd still like to ask directly: what is psychosis to you?
Chantal: That's a difficult question.
In many ways I've stopped trying to answer it.
To me, asking "What is psychosis?" feels similar to asking "What is truth?" or "What is morality?" It's a much larger question than people often acknowledge.
One reason I struggle with existing definitions is that they group together experiences that may be fundamentally different. Reality distortion, unusual beliefs, voices, cognitive fragmentation, paranoia, and other phenomena are often placed under a single umbrella.
I'm not convinced that's always helpful.
I think there are important differences between these experiences, and I'm not sure current frameworks adequately account for them. When people speak about psychosis as though it's a single, clearly defined thing, I find myself becoming sceptical.
The experiences that get grouped together under the label can be remarkably diverse, and I don't think we've done enough work to understand those differences.
What Do People Get Wrong About Psychosis?
Dr Oli: What do people get wrong about psychosis?
Chantal: One issue is the relationship between categories and language.
People create definitions, those definitions shape how experiences are understood, and eventually people begin interpreting themselves through those definitions. The process can become self-reinforcing.
I'm not suggesting people consciously perform symptoms. Rather, I think language influences what people notice, how they describe it, and how others respond.
Another issue is the distinction often made between psychosis as a symptom and schizophrenia as a disorder. I've never found explanations of that distinction particularly satisfying.
People often speak as though the distinction is obvious, but when you press for a deeper explanation, the answers can become surprisingly vague.
More broadly, I think discussions about psychosis often become polarised.
On one side there are perspectives that frame psychosis primarily as a gift, spiritual awakening, or source of insight. On the other side are perspectives that frame it almost entirely as pathology and illness.
Neither position fully captures reality.
Some experiences may contain meaning, insight, or personal significance. Others can be frightening, disruptive, and destructive. I don't think we gain much by pretending either side doesn't exist.
I also think there is insufficient dialogue between different communities—clinicians, researchers, people with lived experience, peer support groups, and recovery communities.
Each group often sees only part of the picture.
Clinicians may encounter people during periods of acute crisis and understandably develop a particular perspective. Peer-support communities may encounter people who are further along in recovery and develop a different perspective.
Neither perspective is necessarily wrong, but they often don't speak to one another.
Another question that interests me concerns the relationship between cannabis and schizophrenia diagnoses.
How many people receive long-term psychiatric diagnoses before sufficient time has passed for the effects of chronic cannabis use to fully resolve?
I don't know the answer, but I think it's an important question.
My own experience felt less like a sudden psychotic break and more like being held in a prolonged prodromal state. That experience shaped many of the questions I continue to explore today.
I also wonder whether we underestimate the complexity of recovery for people who are navigating both psychosis-like experiences and substance dependence simultaneously. Those challenges can become deeply intertwined.
What Does Recovery Mean To You?
Dr Oli: What does recovery mean to you?
Chantal: Recovery isn't about finding the perfect explanation.
For me it has been about rebuilding capacity.
It's about being able to think clearly, maintain attention, connect ideas, engage with other people, and participate meaningfully in life again.
Recovery also means moving beyond the label itself.
There was a period when psychosis and schizophrenia dominated my thinking. Every experience seemed to be filtered through those concepts.
Today they're still topics I care about, but they no longer define everything.
That's a form of recovery in itself.
I don't feel the same need to constantly ask whether I'm schizophrenic, psychotic, recovered, unrecovered, or any of the other categories that once occupied so much space in my mind.
The questions haven't disappeared entirely, but they've become less central.
That feels healthy to me.
What Advice Would You Give To Others?
Dr Oli: What advice do you have for others about psychosis?
Chantal: That's a difficult question because I can only speak from my own experience.
My instinct is to say: think for yourself.
If something about the way your experiences are being described doesn't make sense to you, that doesn't automatically mean you're irrational, stupid, or incapable of understanding your own life.
That doesn't mean rejecting help. It doesn't mean assuming professionals are wrong.
It simply means remaining curious.
Ask questions. Read widely. Stay engaged with your own experience.
I think there's value in being willing to examine assumptions—your own assumptions as well as everyone else's.
At the same time, I recognise the limits of my perspective. I've never worked in a psychosis service or treatment programme. Everything I'm saying comes from my own journey.
So I offer it with humility.
I can only speak about what helped me and the questions that emerged from my own experiences.
Final Reflections
Dr Oli: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to add?
Chantal: The final thing I'd say is that researchers are often far more approachable than people imagine.
There are many researchers doing excellent work whose papers are rarely read. If you genuinely engage with their ideas and ask thoughtful questions, many of them will respond.
That's how I got started.
A lot of the opportunities I've had came from simply reading someone's work, becoming interested, and sending an email.
Not everyone replies, of course, but many do.
If you're reading an article and something doesn't make sense, don't be afraid to contact the author. Ask your questions. Share your ideas.
You might be surprised by the conversation that follows.
Curiosity has been one of the most important things in my own journey, and I think it remains important regardless of whether you're a patient, a researcher, a clinician, or simply someone trying to understand their own experiences.
Dr Oli: I really appreciate that. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for taking part.
Chantal: Thank you.
About Side Quest Stories
Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words is a series of conversations exploring lived experiences of psychosis, recovery, meaning, and mental health in participants' own words.
The series brings together diverse perspectives on psychosis, creating space for reflection, dialogue, and understanding beyond simple explanations or single narratives.
Explore more episodes in the series as they are published.
