David Harewood MBE
David Harewood MBE is an actor, director, author and activist. David has become a driving force for systematic and cultural change. From his documentary ‘David Harewood: Psychosis ...
Select an answer to get started
Who are you?
Hi, I'm David Haywood and I'm an actor, and I'm here to talk about my experiences with psychosis.
What caused your psychosis ?
My psychosis was caused by a factor of different things, suppressed things that I had in my youth, a loss of identity. I would say I consumed a fair amount of marijuana. I was under a lot of stress. So it's a combination of different factors that altogether undermined me and created, led to me losing my mind, which apparently is called psychosis.
What did it feel like to have psychosis ?
Having psychosis is a very, very bizarre condition. I would say initially it was quite good fun because your brain is rushing and you have a lot of dopamine rushing through your brain, and dopamine is a drug that is naturally created in the body, but if there's too much dopamine, you get natural highs. So I was having lots of natural highs where I was initially quite manic, staying awake, had lots of ideas, lots of chatting, and it does initially feel fun, but that is very quickly followed by the downside, which was a loss of consciousness hours, lost hours where you don't remember anything, and then finally losing control when you are hearing voices suffering, delusions, and really not knowing what is real and what isn't.