Grumpy Potato

• Keep a steady flow of contact. Don't expect them to initiate conversations or hangouts. Social withdrawal is a common symptom, and it is probably a lot more difficult for them to keep in contact. Just reach out as often as you feel comfortable. It can be as simple as sending them a meme, or asking what they've been up to lately.

• Take notice of how they are acting. If it's normal for them to talk during a hangout, but this time they are mostly silent, take that as an indicator that something is off. If they normally love drawing, ask them what they've been drawing lately to make sure they are still taking part in activities they enjoy. They might not tell you outright that they are declining mentally, so try and gage their behavior and compare it to their normal.

• Make sure that they have other people to support them. Ask if they've talked to their family, friends, or therapist lately. Isolation exacerbates psychotic symptoms, so check in to see if they are being social or connecting with people. It's also important for them to have a safe person to turn to in case their mental state gets worse.

• If you are aware of what treatment methods are effective for them, make sure they are still utilizing them. If you feel comfortable, ask them if they are still taking their medications, going to therapy, journaling or whatever else they are using for treatment.

• If they share that they are struggling with getting basic tasks for living done, offer to help. You can text them reminders and encourage them to do things like brush their teeth. You can offer to go grocery shopping with them. You can come over to help clean or even just stay on the phone with them while they clean.

• If they share that they are struggling mentally, take the time to listen without judgment. Don't give reality checks unless you are explicitly asked to. Just be a safe space for them to open up about their experiences and how it affects them. Try not to look shocked or treat them like they are "acting crazy". Just be as neutral as possible and sympathetic to their struggles so they can feel safe to tell you these things now and in the future. You don't need to find solutions right away, you can just be there to listen, that is a huge help on its own.

Whether that was that they have psychotic features as a part of their bipolar disorder, depression or PTSD. Or that they have seen a shadow of a person out of the corner of their eye, or a delusion that some entity is after them. Even if it was just a single instance of hearing a voice that wasn't real that stuck with them.

It seems like when I break the barrier of stigma and silence, people feel comfortable enough to share their own experiences and I love that.

Psychotic experiences are extremely common. Anecdotally, it seems that everyone has had at least one hallucination, delusion or instance of paranoia in their life. And I wish everyone was able to talk about these experiences, and how they've affected them without fear of shame or panic from the people around them. This is a normal thing that brains do for whatever reason. It shouldn't be seen as bad unless it negatively affects someone, and then you should listen with care and see if the person needs help in any way.

That's why acceptance for those of us with disorders like schizophrenia is so important. If you can hear a schizophrenic person out, and not treat us like we are dangerous or scary. See as equal human beings that happen to have these experiences. Only then will the pathway for everyone to share their experiences with psychosis be open and normalized.

All the different times I’ve tried to open up about it and being shut down or made fun of has created a command hallucination that tells me to stop talking when I open up too much about it.

I think part of it might be that I am med resistant so they are also invasive about that. I have to justify to people why my doctors and I made the decision to stop medication, and no matter what I say about it they don’t view it as valid and tell me to take a medication I’ve already tried because they heard it works well, or get ECT. Not just from people without schizophrenia but those with it as well in support spaces.

SO GLAD SOMONE FORMULATED WORDS FOR THIS THOUGHT

COZ I'VE FELT THIS WAY FOR SO LONG BUT DIDN'T HAVE THE WORDS TO EXPLAIN

FIRST:

The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:

It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).

Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).

Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:

No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).

The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.

Bonus:

Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)

Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)

Well played Merriam-Webster.

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