Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words - Episode 3: Irnes
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 third episode of Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words, I speak with Irnes, a former refugee from the Bosnian War, mental health clinician, advocate, athlete, and filmmaker.
Irnes reflects on a life shaped by displacement, trauma, migration, and resilience. He traces his understanding of psychosis back not to his first episode as a university student, but to the early experiences of war, exile, and survival that shaped his nervous system long before he ever encountered mental health services.
Our conversation explores trauma, recovery, identity, community, meaning-making, and the importance of understanding psychosis within the broader context of a person's life story.
Key Themes
Trauma and displacement
Refugee experiences
Psychosis and meaning
Recovery and self-awareness
Community and belonging
Family support
Critiques of psychiatric systems
Purpose and advocacy
Selected Quotes
"I used to think my story began with psychosis. Now I think it began with war."
"Psychosis felt less like a disease and more like a meaningful response to overwhelming experiences."
"Wellness happens in the community. It does not happen in confinement."
Transcript
Introducing Irnes
Dr Oli: Welcome to Episode Three of Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words, a podcast where I ask every guest the same questions and don't intervene. Not because I agree with everything said, but because the aim is to understand how different people make sense of their experiences in their own terms. My role is to hold the conversation, not resolve or evaluate it.
How would you like to introduce yourself?
Irnes: My name is Irnes Zulkovic. I'm a former refugee from the Bosnian War. I'm married, I have two daughters, and I spend a lot of my life balancing family, work, and community.
I'm an athlete. I love basketball, pickleball, and almost any sport. I'm also a mental health clinician and an IT coordinator for a program where I was once a patient myself.
I'm the executive producer of a documentary called Resist, which tells my personal story of trauma, psychosis, police violence, and recovery.
Today, much of my work focuses on helping people understand psychosis through a trauma-informed and human-centred lens. I spend a lot of time advocating for approaches that challenge systems and practices that can sometimes cause more harm than good.
Where Did Your Story With Psychosis Begin?
Dr Oli: Where does your story with psychosis begin?
Irnes: For a long time, I thought my story began in my early twenties when I experienced my first psychotic episode as a university student.
Looking back now, I think it began much earlier.
I think it began with war.
In 1992, when I was four years old, my family fled the war in the former Yugoslavia. We escaped a genocide and spent years living with fear, displacement, uncertainty, and survival.
When I reflect on those early years, I think I developed a hypervigilant nervous system long before I ever experienced psychosis.
As a child, I didn't understand why we were leaving our home, why we were unwanted, or why everything familiar was disappearing. Those experiences shaped the way I understood reality.
I remember travelling to Germany and seeing people crying, vomiting, and grieving on the bus as they left their homes behind.
I remember standing with my mother at public telephone booths while she called relatives to find out who was alive, who had died, and whose homes had been destroyed.
I remember living in refugee accommodation surrounded by fences and barbed wire, feeling as though we were outsiders who didn't belong.
Those experiences stayed with me.
In Germany, I quickly learned the language and became a translator for my family. I found myself helping adults navigate systems I barely understood myself.
Eventually, we received notice that we had to leave Germany because we didn't have citizenship. Returning to Bosnia wasn't a realistic option, and so our family eventually moved to Canada with little more than a few suitcases.
Growing up in Canada, I developed a strong desire to be the perfect immigrant.
I worked hard in school. I became highly achievement-oriented. I was heavily involved in sports, captain of multiple teams, academically successful, and constantly striving.
Looking back, I think much of that was driven by fear.
I felt that making mistakes might somehow threaten the security we had finally found.
Over time, the pressure continued to build.
By the time I reached university, I was carrying trauma, responsibility, perfectionism, and increasing stress.
In my fourth year, I became overwhelmed.
I was accumulating debt. I was uncertain about my future. I was sleeping less and less. I began withdrawing socially and spending long periods wandering the city alone.
Eventually, I experienced my first psychotic episode.
During that episode, I lost touch with reality. Police became involved, and I was violently restrained during the incident. That event was later shared publicly online.
What followed was not only psychosis, but also significant trauma.
I was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric unit, and when I eventually left hospital, an entirely new chapter of my life began.
What Is Psychosis To You?
Dr Oli: What is psychosis to you?
Irnes: I can only answer that from my own experience.
For me, psychosis did not feel like a disease or a brain disorder.
It felt more like the culmination of prolonged stress, trauma, and a nervous system that had been operating in survival mode for many years.
Psychosis felt like a meaningful response to experiences that had never been fully processed or understood.
It felt as though my mind was trying to create language for things that ordinary words had never been able to capture.
When I think about psychosis, I think about fear, injustice, displacement, oppression, trauma, and the impact of living within systems that place enormous strain on people.
My thoughts became fragmented because many parts of my life had been fragmented.
Psychosis felt symbolic.
It felt like my mind was communicating something important through a language that didn't always make sense on the surface.
That's why I believe understanding psychosis requires understanding the person's history, environment, relationships, and experiences.
If we strip away the social and psychological context, we risk missing the point entirely.
For me, psychosis is inseparable from trauma, history, and environment.
What Does Recovery Mean To You?
Dr Oli: What does recovery mean to you?
Irnes: Sometimes it's easier to understand recovery by first understanding what recovery isn't.
Recovery wasn't sitting on the couch, taking medication, and waiting for life to happen.
Recovery wasn't withdrawing from people.
Recovery wasn't giving up the things I loved.
What I gradually learned was that recovery involves becoming aware of your mind, your body, and your environment.
It's about paying attention.
It's about getting good sleep, exercising, socialising, and learning how to feel safe in your own body again.
It's about taking ownership of your health rather than handing responsibility entirely to someone else.
Recovery also means learning how to experience difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them.
Most importantly, recovery is ongoing.
It's not something that happens once and then ends.
Like physical health, mental health requires daily practice.
I often compare it to brushing your teeth.
If you brush your teeth consistently, the benefits accumulate over time. If you neglect them for years, problems emerge.
Recovery works the same way.
It requires regular attention and care.
What Does Being Well Mean To You?
Dr Oli: What does being well mean to you?
Irnes: Being well means living a purposeful life.
It means having structure, responsibilities, relationships, and meaningful work.
Today, a big part of my wellbeing comes from the fact that I love the work I do. I once received support from the mental health system, and now I have the opportunity to help shape it.
That gives my work meaning.
Sports are another important part of my wellbeing.
After spending the day having serious conversations, I often need spaces where I can simply play, laugh, compete, and be present.
Those ordinary moments matter.
When people talk about recovery, they sometimes imagine dramatic transformations.
But much of recovery is actually found in everyday life.
It's friendships.
It's routine.
It's purpose.
It's identifying relationships or habits that are helping you grow and letting go of those that are holding you back.
Wellness isn't perfection.
It's the ongoing process of building a life that supports your health.
What Do People Get Wrong About Psychosis?
Dr Oli: What do people get wrong about psychosis?
Irnes: Before answering that, I think it's important to acknowledge what we're getting right.
Access to care has improved. Early intervention services have expanded. Many people now have access to multidisciplinary support teams, including psychiatrists, social workers, counsellors, employment specialists, and recreational supports.
Those are important developments.
Where I think we continue to struggle is with long-term recovery.
I believe wellness happens in communities, not institutions.
Hospitals can play an important role during crises, but lasting recovery emerges through relationships, family, meaningful activity, and community participation.
I also think the word psychosis itself can be deeply stigmatizing.
Sometimes I wonder whether what we call psychosis might be better understood as a type of nervous-system breakdown occurring in response to overwhelming circumstances.
I think we often overemphasise genetics and underemphasise trauma, social conditions, instability, and adversity.
Psychosis is as much social as it is clinical.
Another concern I have is how insight is often defined.
Too often, insight becomes equated with agreeing with clinicians.
If someone questions a diagnosis or disagrees with a framework, that disagreement is sometimes interpreted as denial or lack of insight.
But genuine insight can emerge in many different ways.
For me, insight emerged through family, community, relationships, and real-life experiences.
Some of my most important moments of recovery occurred when I left the hospital temporarily and spent time with people who knew me and cared about me.
Those experiences helped me reconnect with reality.
I also think we sometimes overlook the meaning behind symptoms.
When I look back at some of my experiences during psychosis, they weren't random.
They reflected fears, conflicts, values, and struggles that I needed to understand.
The surface behaviour may have appeared bizarre, but underneath it there was meaning.
I believe we need to spend more time exploring that meaning and less time reducing people to symptoms and checklists.
Ultimately, I think psychosis is relational.
It's connected to trauma, community, identity, and lived experience.
When we ignore those dimensions, we contribute to stigma rather than reducing it.
What Advice Would You Give To Others?
Dr Oli: What advice do you have for others about psychosis?
Irnes: The first thing I'd say is that you're not broken.
Whatever you're experiencing makes sense within the context of your life, even if that meaning isn't immediately obvious.
Take time to understand yourself.
Look at your experiences, your symptoms, your history, and the challenges you've faced.
Ask how they're connected.
Be honest with yourself.
Take responsibility for your health.
Take risks.
Say yes to opportunities.
Connect with people.
Build a life beyond treatment.
Recovery isn't simply about medication or appointments.
It's about participation.
It's about engaging with life.
The more open and honest you can be—with yourself and with the people supporting you—the better your chances of finding a path forward.
Most importantly, don't assume your future has already been decided.
Psychosis does not automatically mean a life of permanent disability.
There is always the possibility of growth, understanding, and recovery.
Final Reflections
Dr Oli: That's a great place to leave it. That was the last question. Thank you so much.
Irnes: No problem. Thank you, Oli.
Dr Oli: I'll stop the recording and have a quick chat with you afterwards, but thank you so much for being here.
Irnes: 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.
