I guess this a follow-up question to my NPD question
my MC has psychosis and suffers from hearing voices, delusions, and hallucinations, and he's unknowing the centerpiece of some conspiracy about a prophecy of a ghost going to destroy the world and he wants to find the truth and embodies hope,
I don't want it to seem gimmicky,
in his past, he suffers hearing voices and after his cousin killed his aunt in self-defense Long story and after that, he has delusions that his aunt is coming for him, and he ended taking too many anti-psychosis pills just to make the delusions stop and now he's got clean and he wants to just be a normal boy,
I want to be realistic, I know that having a character angst about their mental illness is a cliche
I don't know a huge amount about psychosis but a book I would strongly recommend both for quality and for example is Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman. It's a book about a schizophrenic teen boy based on the author's experiences with his schizophrenic son and it's a wonderful and accurate (I believe) depiction of psychosis.
So the thing about psychosis is that the person isn't usually aware of their behavior (not to say that aren't aware of their condition they obviously are). So when they're having a breakdown they don't really recognize how they're acting, at least not to the fullest extent.
It's also common for them to experience almost bipolar like symptoms (episodes of depression and mania) and possibly self harm, self-isolation, suicidal and intrusive thoughts, and often disassociation.
They'll usually be very easily agitated and can sometimes get aggressive. Really bad nightmares also.
I've personally known two people who suffered from some kind of psychosis, so i looked up the symptoms and just listed here the ones i was actually able to observe. The internet is of course your friend so I'm sure that you could find more information. I hope i was helpful !
