EARLY intervention is often the key to working through problems with psychosis.
Financial problems, rising living costs and stress can all be causes of the condition, but with help people can recover.
In Notts, around 90 people a year seek help for a problem which can vary from severe depression to schizophrenia.
For one Nottingham man his condition nearly killed him and his experience demonstrates the need to respond quickly as the illness develops.
The father-of-four, who has asked to remain anonymous, developed a form of psychosis when he was living in Essex.
Before he sought medical help the 35-year-old, who now lives in Top Valley, attacked himself with a hammer, threatened to burn down his brother's home and hung himself – only to be found and cut down by his partner of five years.
"I'm quite ashamed of some of the stuff I've done – they're definitely not my best moments," he said.
Kevin Somerton is a nurse at NHS Notts Healthcare's Early Intervention in Psychosis team.
He said: "We look to respond quickly to people when they present to us.
"The first point is to get an understanding of what's going on and to help them. "We do want people to come to us early – to get help early for a better outcome."
But the stigma of psychosis, coupled with fear, can often lead people to attempt to continue their lives without help. Mr Somerton said: "There are going to be people who for one reason or another don't come to attention."
The symptoms of psychosis can be wide-ranging and scary.
Mr Somerton said: "It's a frightening and terrifying thing to experience, to have all your perceptions changed."
The Early Intervention in Psychosis team in Notts offers a range of practical and emotional support as well as treatment, and works with people to give them goals in life, helping them back to work or education.
The Top Valley resident, who spoke to the Post, said the first signs of his psychosis appeared when he was heavily drinking and he began to hear voices.
"I laughed about it at first, I couldn't work out where they were coming from. Sometimes it would feel as though the voice was inside my head and other times it was as if someone was sat opposite me."
In an effort to change his lifestyle he and his partner moved to Nottingham.
His condition developed and so did his drinking problem, and a year after the move he slipped into a coma and suffered from chronic pancreatitis as result of his alcohol consumption.
"When I realised what was happening I just lay on the floor and started screaming," said his partner.
"We phoned an ambulance straight away."
On arrival at hospital she was told that his major organs were shutting down and, after several emergency operations, he was kept in hospital on the brink of death for three months.
But today the man, who was sexually abused when he was in the armed forces, sits at his kitchen table having given up alcohol for good.
"I feel calmer, and I believe a big part of that is because the support I've had from the psychosis team."
Although his condition has never been officially defined in a diagnosis, since moving to Nottingham he and his partner have enlisted the help of the earl intervention team at NHS Notts Healthcare.
The team visits him at his home once a week to offer psychological support, talk through any issues offer encouragement and even offer some physiotherapy to help the scars of his operations heal.
"I couldn't have done it without them, I really feel I've turned a corner and I owe so much to them."
This year he is scheduled to have a further operations to reconstruct his abdominal wall which was left badly damaged by the pancreatitis.
"I'm optimistic about the future, I want to get these operations out the way and get on with my life," he said.
