I went through a paranoid psychotic episode once.  It reverberated for about 6 weeks inside my skull until subsiding.

The things that pulled me out of it were what I consider touchstones. I was not perceiving reality correctly; my eyes and brain were not working together but fighting each other trying to send me mixed messages out of fear.  Confusion.

So I never knew what to believe, my senses and perceptions, or the recollection of the things I had done.

I realized my memory had been fabricating stories to support a narrative that was untrue.

And to some extent, all of our brains do that. However, mine was especially bad. I was out of work for a month and worried sick.

By talking and listening to other people, I was able to confirm my actions, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and figure out slowly which things were true and real and which things were just that IV drip of fear, causing my deeper nervous system to go haywire and give me false images.

For example, I saw the headlines on my computer shifting in front of my eyes. I heard sounds of motor bikes driving by so loud that I could not focus. I saw what I thought was an explosion that was the start of WWIII.

All false. But at the time it was so real.

Surreal.

Surreal.

Wake up.

Wake up.

This is a dream.

Dev, circa January 2022

I have to thank the people around me who were there for me and supplied me with good reliable data again that got me back on my feet and trusting my senses again.