I see you

What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results

- Jenny Kleeman

IN THE SUMMER OF 2019, WHEN JOE WAS 21, he went on a university rugby tour of California. One night, one of his teammates bought some cannabis edibles to share, and Joe ate some. For the next 12 hours, he believed he was in hell. He was on fire; his body was suffused with pain. His ears were filled first with incoherent screaming and then with sinister whispering. Joe’s friends thought their teammate’s bad trip was funny, even as they wrestled him away from the windows when he tried to jump from the seventh floor of their hotel.

When he woke up the next morning, Joe was still in hell. A devilish, humanoid form lurking in the periphery of his vision was telling him he had died the previous night. A chorus of other voices joined in, wailing in agony. They were entirely real to him, even though he knew they couldn’t be. He had a rugby match to play, and 10 minutes in, he couldn’t see or feel his hands; he couldn’t move. His teammates laughed as he came off the pitch. Poor old Joe.

The voices came back to the UK with him. “You’re not real,” they told him incessantly. “You’re already dead, so it doesn’t matter if you end it all again.” He saw blurred, demonic faces smirking at him, sometimes at the edge of his eye line, sometimes up against his face, too close to be in focus.

His parents knew he had struggled with depression and anxiety before, but Joe didn’t want to tell anyone about the voices. He drank heavily, every blackout providing temporary respite. He would walk for hours, playing music on his headphones, desperate to drown out the voices. At other times Joe would tell the voices to fuck off, shut up, leave him alone. He would find himself saying these things out loud, in public. Seeing himself reflected in the fearful eyes of those he walked past, he was terrified that he would never find a way to be normal among them again.