Psychosis can affect any person at any point in their life.  Some people with bipolar affective disorder may never experience psychosis, for others, psychotic symptoms maybe part of a severe episode of depression or mania.

People affected by psychosis may experience some of the following:

Hallucinations can be auditory (such as hearing voices), olfactory (smelling things other people can't smell), visual (seeing images other people can't see), they may also affect other senses, such as taste and touch.

A delusion is a fixed false belief that something is true and real despite evidence to the contrary.  The DSM-IV makes the point that the belief is not one that is ordinarily accepted in a persons culture or sub culture, such as being part of religion or faith.  Some examples of delusional beliefs are paranoia, believing people are plotting against you, or feelings of persecution, believing certain world events have special significance to you.

For people with bipolar disorder, psychotic symptoms tend to be mood-congruent, this means that the hallucinations or delusions 'fit' with the characteristic of depression or mania.  A person who is depressed may have delusions associated guilt and blame, believing they are responsible for crimes or even world disasters or hallucinations may take the form of smelling rotting flesh for example.  During a manic episode a person may have a highly exaggerated sense of worth and power, they may believe for example that they have powers to talk to the gods. These are known as delusions of grandeur.

"I was studying at uni and was suffering from a period of depression. I became very suicidal, couldn't sleep and was becoming disorientated. I was prescribed anti-depressants (before I was diagnosed bipolar) and I remember reading the tablet information and laughing at the same line over and over again. The day before, I emptied the entire contents of my room onto the landing and told the other students 'you are all mad not me' and wanted everything to be minimalist and pure, I took all the labels off my clothes and walked around bare foot.
After I had taken the anti-depressant, I remember my head felt like it was split into two halves and I got what felt like several electric shocks in my head .
It was the early hours of the morning and I left my student house and began to walk down the dual carriage way. I stood in the middle of it and believed I was in a movie set; nothing could harm me and I was the star character of the movie. A car narrowly avoided me. I stood in front of the traffic lights and believed they were telling me where to go. I picked the morning delivery of papers up from outside a newsagents as I believed everything in the world was mine and that there would be a hidden message in there for me. A lorry driver stopped and, I got in, believing he would do me no harm, unfortunately this wasn't the case, he dropped me in the middle of a shopping complex and disappeared. I then took most of my clothes off.
I remember then, the police arriving and I got mud on the car (I was filthy for some reason) and believed I had to clean it and I remember apologising to them, I then remember being in the police station. Then I was taken to the psych hospital and I thought the nurse was my mum, I refused to take any meds but they must have got some in me some how. It took me several weeks to know where I was and what had happened to me. I was hospitalised for 3 months."-Claudia, UK

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