Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words - Episode 5: Ilyas
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 fifth episode of Side Quest Stories: Psychosis in Their Own Words, I speak with Ilyas, a social worker from Ontario, Canada, who brings both professional and lived experience perspectives to the conversation.
Ilyas reflects on the gradual emergence of psychosis during adolescence, the role of cannabis use, the development of voice-hearing experiences, and the long journey of rebuilding a life after becoming unwell. Throughout the interview, he explores the concepts of shared reality, recovery, meaning, and wellbeing, drawing on both his personal experiences and his work supporting others experiencing psychosis.
Our conversation examines the complexity of psychosis, the limitations of public understanding, and the importance of compassion, community, and purpose in recovery.
Key Themes
Voice hearing
Cannabis and psychosis
Shared reality
Recovery and meaning
Social work and lived experience
Community and support
Stigma and misconceptions
Building a life worth living
Selected Quotes
"For me, psychosis is a disconnection from our shared reality."
"Recovery is a nonlinear journey towards building the life you feel is worth living."
"You don't have control over the past, but you do have some control over the present and therefore some influence over the future."
Transcript
Introducing Ilyas
Dr Oli: Welcome to Episode Five 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 that's 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?
Ilyas: Thank you.
I'm Ilyas. I'm from Ontario, Canada. I work in mental health as a social worker, and I've also experienced psychosis myself.
I've been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, so I occupy a somewhat unusual position where I have both professional and lived experience perspectives on these issues.
Where Did Your Story With Psychosis Begin?
Dr Oli: Where does your story with psychosis begin?
Ilyas: It's difficult to identify a precise beginning because psychosis can be remarkably gradual.
For me, the prodromal phase probably began much earlier than I realised at the time.
Looking back, I can see signs emerging during high school, particularly when I was around sixteen to eighteen years old.
Cannabis played a significant role in my story.
Initially, unusual thoughts appeared primarily when I was intoxicated. I would have strange ideas or unusual interpretations of events, but when I sobered up I could dismiss them fairly easily.
At first, they felt temporary.
Over time, however, those experiences became harder to shake.
By the time I was nineteen or twenty, the experiences had intensified significantly.
I had moved away from home to attend university. I was in a new city, surrounded by new people, new pressures, and new experiences.
Eventually, my mental health and substance use collided.
What followed was a period where I began hearing a voice.
At first, it was present in the background of my life, commenting on things and influencing my thinking. Over time it became more demanding and more threatening.
The voice would instruct me to do specific things. Sometimes it would tell me that I needed to travel to a particular location before a certain time or terrible things would happen to people I loved.
I became convinced that if I failed to follow these instructions, my family would be harmed.
As a result, I spent long periods travelling around the city trying to satisfy the demands of the voice.
If I failed to arrive somewhere in time, I would plead with it.
Sometimes it seemed to negotiate with me, offering new instructions or new deadlines.
My entire life became organised around trying to respond to its demands.
Looking back, the easiest way to describe the voice is that it felt omniscient, omnipresent, and immensely powerful.
Gradually, it took over my internal world.
What had once been a passing experience became the foundation of how I understood reality.
That was the most frightening part.
It wasn't simply hearing a voice.
It was the way it slowly reshaped my understanding of the world until it felt unquestionably real.
What Is Psychosis To You?
Dr Oli: What is psychosis to you?
Ilyas: There are many ways to answer that question.
Professionally, I can talk about positive symptoms, negative symptoms, cognitive difficulties, emotional changes, and social withdrawal.
Those definitions have value.
But personally, I think of psychosis differently.
For me, psychosis is a disconnection from shared reality.
The idea of shared reality has become incredibly important in my life.
Reality itself is a surprisingly difficult thing to define.
Philosophers have debated it for centuries.
What I eventually came to appreciate is that much of reality is negotiated collectively.
We agree that certain things are happening. We share experiences. We compare perspectives. We validate one another's observations.
Psychosis disrupts that process.
The person begins living within a reality that becomes increasingly disconnected from the reality being shared by the people around them.
That doesn't mean their experiences aren't real to them.
They absolutely are.
The voice I heard was real to me.
The fears I experienced were real to me.
The consequences felt real to me.
The challenge is that those experiences gradually become separated from what other people can observe and verify.
For me, recovery involved reconnecting with shared reality through trusted relationships, community, and support.
The antidote to psychosis wasn't simply being told I was wrong.
It was having people help me reconnect with a reality that existed beyond my own isolated experience.
What Does Recovery Mean To You?
Dr Oli: What does recovery mean to you?
Ilyas: I often describe recovery as:
A nonlinear journey towards building a life you feel is worth living.
Every part of that definition matters.
The word nonlinear is especially important because most people don't recover in a straight line.
They improve, struggle, learn, relapse, grow, and continue moving forward.
That was certainly true in my case.
Recovery wasn't a single event.
It was a long process of trial and error.
It involved figuring out what mattered to me and what kind of life I wanted to build.
Once I had some sense of direction, I could begin making decisions that moved me towards that life.
Values became important.
Relationships became important.
Goals became important.
Meaning became important.
Recovery eventually became about much more than symptom management.
It became about creating a future.
As far as I know, I only get one opportunity to live this particular life.
That perspective motivates me.
I want to use the time I have well.
I want to do meaningful things.
I want to contribute something.
I often joke that my goal is simply to do as much interesting and worthwhile stuff as possible.
There's humour in that idea, but there's also truth.
Recovery is ultimately about creating a life that feels worth inhabiting.
What Does Being Well Mean To You?
Dr Oli: What does being well mean to you?
Ilyas: Wellness is more than the absence of illness.
The World Health Organization has often described health in those terms, and I think there's a lot of wisdom in that.
It's not enough simply to remove suffering.
Something meaningful needs to take its place.
One thing I've noticed is that many people are left with a large empty space after recovery.
When symptoms begin to fade, a question emerges:
What now?
What fills the space that illness once occupied?
I think that's particularly important for people who hear voices.
I've spoken with people whose voices were among the most consistent presences in their lives.
Even when those experiences were distressing, they were still relationships of a sort.
Removing them without replacing them with connection, meaning, purpose, or community can leave people profoundly lonely.
For me, wellness is about what occupies the space that illness once consumed.
It's about relationships.
Purpose.
Meaning.
Community.
Agency.
The ability to make choices.
The ability to pursue things that matter.
If I have room in my life to do things that are meaningful and fulfilling, that's wellness.
What Do People Get Wrong About Psychosis?
Dr Oli: What do people get wrong about psychosis?
Ilyas: Quite a lot, unfortunately.
One of the biggest problems is that most people's understanding of psychosis comes from seeing someone on the worst day of their life.
They see a crisis.
They see distress.
They see behaviour that makes headlines.
What they don't see is everything that comes afterward.
They don't see recovery.
They don't see people returning to school, raising families, building careers, contributing to their communities, or living meaningful lives.
Those stories are far less visible.
Before my own experience, I had very little understanding of psychosis.
Now I realise how incomplete that understanding was.
Another misconception is that psychosis is always obvious to the person experiencing it.
Sometimes there are moments of doubt or insight.
But often the experiences feel entirely real.
The voice I heard felt real.
The fears felt real.
The instructions felt real.
That's what makes psychosis so difficult to navigate.
I also think people underestimate how diverse psychosis can be.
There isn't a single psychosis story.
Some people experience a brief episode and recover quickly.
Others face longer and more complicated journeys.
Some require ongoing support.
Others return to previous activities relatively quickly.
There isn't one path.
There isn't one outcome.
Perhaps the biggest misconception of all is that psychosis is a life sentence.
Many people assume that experiencing psychosis means the end of a meaningful future.
I don't believe that's true.
It may be the end of the life you expected.
But it can also be the beginning of a life you never anticipated.
There are countless stories of recovery, growth, adaptation, and meaning-making that rarely receive attention.
Those stories matter.
What Advice Would You Give To Others?
Dr Oli: What advice do you have for others about psychosis?
Ilyas: I often think about what I would tell my younger self.
Part of me wishes I had understood psychosis earlier.
Perhaps I would have recognised some warning signs.
Perhaps I would have sought help sooner.
But I also think it's important to recognise that psychosis is complicated.
People often carry a great deal of guilt after becoming unwell.
They replay decisions and wonder what they should have done differently.
They blame themselves for using substances, ignoring symptoms, or resisting treatment.
The reality is usually far more complicated than that.
There are risk factors, certainly.
Cannabis use can increase risk.
Stress can increase risk.
Many different factors can contribute.
But no one has perfect foresight.
No one knows exactly how their future will unfold.
So my advice is to approach yourself with compassion.
You cannot change the past.
What you can influence is the present.
And through the present, you can influence parts of the future.
Recovery is difficult.
It's one of the hardest things I've ever done.
It's not something most people accomplish alone.
I've been supported by family, friends, clinicians, colleagues, mentors, and countless others.
Recovery is often a collective achievement.
So if you're struggling, focus on what you can do today.
Ask what small step moves you closer to the life you want.
Keep moving towards meaning.
Keep moving towards connection.
Keep moving towards a life that feels worth living.
Because that future is possible.
Final Reflections
Dr Oli: That's a lovely way to end the episode. Thank you so much. That was awesome. Really interesting. I really enjoyed it.
Ilyas: Thank you.
Dr Oli: I'll stop the recording and we'll have a little chat about uploading the episode.
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.
