The p-factor is the dark matter of psychiatry: an invisible, unifying force that might lie behind a multitude of mental disorders.
The voices told him that he was God, and Oliver believed them. Only 17 years old, he was special, chosen, a higher being whose wisdom and intelligence were beyond compare. Psychiatrists, however, labelled these voices as auditory hallucinations, his first psychotic episode.
A diagnosis of schizophrenia soon followed. For the next five years, Oliver would spend weeks in mental institutions and hospitals in northern England where he lived. When he was deemed too aggressive for one facility, he was injected with sedatives, bundled into the back of a van and driven to a higher-security institution.
The drugs made the voices distant. Oliver felt subdued and heavy as he fell back to Earth.
Read more courtesy of Alex Riley and Aeon.co
