My paternal grandmother was diagnosed schizophrenic and spent her whole life in and out of mental hospitals until she passed from a heart attack in 1975. Now, due to the amount of our family that has been diagnosed bipolar, it is suspected she was bipolar with psychotic features but we will never know for sure. 7 of her 10 grandchildren are diagnosed bipolar but none of us have had psychosis. That does not stop me from a latent but persistent fear that I will have a psychotic break. I am 34 and it’s never happened but it’s always a quiet fear of mine. Terrifying to think my brain could go awry like that and I might not know that’s what’s happening. 

Anyway, my mom and I were watching a ghost show.  I said, “You know. A ghost could really fuck with me because if I started seeing stuff or hearing disembodied voices, my first thought would be that I was finally having a psychotic break. So either it would be messing with me and cracking up or it’d get really irritated I was laughing and ignoring it assuming it’s a hallucination.” My mom is like, “Yeah. Imagine thinking, ‘Oh thank god! It’s just a ghost!’” 🤣

I only know how to deal with this shit by joking. 🤷‍♀️