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Londoner Tommy Graves was overworked while planning a charity fundraising event, and didn't sleep for eight days
He experienced a "manic episode with psychosis caused by stress and sleep deprivation," thinking he was starring in a reality show
He now works as a sleep coach to help others avoid the same level of burnout
A London man struggled with amanic episodeandpsychosis, triggered by a bout of insomnia that lasted a week and made him think "I was in a television studio" with his life broadcast to millions.
The insomnia began when Tommy Graves, now 32, was helping to plan a charity fundraising event in March 2021. "I just got really excited about it and worked tirelessly on it. The more I worked on it, the more stressed I became, the more ideas came into my head and the harder I found it to sleep," he said, perDaily Mail.
"I couldn't get to sleep at all ... my brain wouldn't switch off, he continued. "As the days went on, the ideas got more and more extreme, elaborate, some people would say delusional."
Graves told the outlet that his lack of sleep triggered a manic episode, accompanied by psychosis, that was so severe his family sought medical care, and he was admitted to a mental health facility for four weeks. But Graves shares he was so disconnected, he thought he was being filmed for something akin toJim Carrey's 1998 film,The Truman Show.
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"I completely left planet Earth. I had no sense of what reality was. I was hearing and thinking and seeing things that were not real. I was performing to these cameras at the mental health hospital and I was trying to engage and entertain the audience," Graves described.
He explained that in his attempts to perform for an invisible audience, he was "singing, dancing, [doing] cartwheels, running up walls. I leapt over a nurse."
"I didn't even know where I was. I thought I was in a television studio, likeThe Truman Show," he said of Carrey's iconic movie, about a man who is unknowingly filmed for a reality show. "They managed to finally put me to sleep after giving me all sorts of medication. I spent the next four weeks in the mental health hospital, coming back to the real world."
He described his health crisis as a "manic episode with psychosis caused by stress and sleep deprivation."
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After he was discharged, Graves said he needed to make a change: "My doctor said I needed to learn how to sleep or I could risk losing my sense of reality again."
As he explained, "I was in the highest level of care you can get. I never thought that could happen to me. That was enough to scare me into picking up a book and figuring out how to sleep well."
Now a certified sleep coach, Graves is on a mission to help others prioritize healthy sleep habits, sharing tips through his social media channels (@Tommygsleep onInstagram,TikTokandYouTube) on how to improve your sleep.
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As Graves shared, he wants to help people realize that lack of sleep isn't a badge of honor — and it can truly hurt them.
"I'm on a mission to make it cool to have a bedtime. I'll go out at midday and stay out until 9 pm," said Graves, who added that his past habit of going out on the weekends led to a "vicious cycle of exhaustion." But as he explained, "It's not about having less fun, it's about doing it at a time that doesn't make you exhausted."
"I want to spread awareness that sleep is connected to every main mental health condition, either making symptoms worse or being a key driver in the problem existing in the first place," he concluded.
PEOPLE has reached out to Graves for more information.
Read the original article onPeople
