Libros publicados

Androids DO Dream: Dr Oli's Mental Health Journey

**Androids DO Dream: Dr Oli’s Mental Health Journey** What does psychosis feel like from the inside? What does care look like when you are frightened, medicated, restrained—and trying to make sense of a world that no longer behaves as expected? And what happens when the same person later returns as a member of staff, and then as a researcher? Androids DO Dream is a first-person account of psychosis and mental health care told from three intersecting perspectives: patient, healthcare assistant, and academic researcher. Drawing on podcast transcripts and lived experience, Dr Oli Delgaram-Nejad traces two episodes of psychosis and the long, uneven path of recovery that followed—not as a story of breakdown and cure, but as an exploration of meaning, fear, credibility, and humanity. The book takes readers inside A&E, acute psychiatric wards, and PICU; into experiences of delusion, restraint, medication, and insight; and later into the quieter challenges of living openly with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Along the way, it reflects on stigma, autonomy, occupational therapy, emotional regulation, and the subtle ways mental illness reshapes how a person is listened to and believed. Written in clear, accessible language and grounded in ethical restraint, Androids DO Dream does not romanticise psychosis, nor does it reduce it to symptoms alone. Instead, it asks difficult questions: how people make meaning under extreme distress, how systems balance care and control, and what is lost when lived experience is treated as noise rather than knowledge. This book is for: * people who have experienced psychosis or severe mental distress * families and carers seeking understanding rather than reassurance * mental health professionals reflecting on practice * researchers interested in language, meaning, and lived experience Above all, it is a book about remaining human in systems that often treat distress as malfunction—and about why listening, carefully and humbly, still matters.

Fought Disorder: A True Story of Utter Bollocks

**Fought Disorder** **A True Story of Utter Bollocks** What happens when reality stops behaving like reality? Fought Disorder is a raw, darkly funny, and deeply human account of a young man’s descent into cannabis-induced psychosis—and the long, uncomfortable road back out again. Told with unflinching honesty, the book charts a period in which coincidence becomes conspiracy, symbols replace sense, and the world begins to speak in riddles that feel terrifyingly personal. Set across psychiatric wards, university flats, hospital corridors, and the fractured interior of a mind under siege, this is not a story about “madness” in the caricatured sense. It is about fear, grief, love, shame, humour, and the strange logic that takes hold when perception itself burns. Written from inside the experience rather than in hindsight alone, Fought Disorder captures what psychosis feels like while it is happening: the sincerity of delusion, the moral panic, the moments of absurd comedy, and the quiet, human kindness that can cut through even the worst confusion. It is as much about vulnerability and responsibility as it is about illness—about learning when to trust yourself, when not to, and how to treat others gently when you are at your lowest. This is not a clinical memoir, a self-help manual, or a redemption fantasy. It is a true story told plainly, sometimes uncomfortably, often irreverently, and always with compassion—for the author, for the people who tried to help him, and for anyone who has ever lost their footing and wondered if they would find solid ground again. If you’ve ever questioned your own mind, struggled with substance use, supported someone in crisis, or simply wanted an honest account of how fragile—and resilient—human perception can be, this book is for you. Respect the doctors. Be kind. You’ll look back and laugh on this in time. **An important warning:** This book uses several narrative, literary, psychological, and psycholinguistic techniques that, while intended to give readers a sense of what psychosis can be like, may elicit (sub)clinical psychotic experiences in vulnerable individuals. It also contains strong reference to drug use, addiction, suicidal ideation and attempt, and other challenging themes. **Ethics and confidentiality:** This book describes real events that took place in 2014, and it was written in the same year. While the names and physical descriptions of staff and patients have been changed, I am mindful that some people may still recognise themselves. I have strived to only include information about places and people that informed the shape of my delusions. Conversations are presented as I recall them, and events are presented as I interpreted them at the time. Where possible, these have been cross-checked against my clinical notes. Difficult material is discussed openly, as I believe that an authentic account of one psychotic experience is more important than being seen favourably. Some portions of the book have been redacted at the request of those mentioned. I have also delayed publication by ten years to offer further protections to those involved. I have ultimately worked to be true to my own experience while remaining sensitive to the struggles of others. I am also no longer the person I was in 2014, nor, I'm sure, are the people described. In the intervening ten years, I have learnt much more about mental health, communication, and relationships. Many of the opinions and attitudes that I held at the time of writing have shifted. I have nevertheless preserved the text as it was written back then, to avoid misrepresenting the experience.

How Language Holds: Schizophrenia Beyond Structure

**How Language Holds** Schizophrenia Beyond Structure What happens to language when speaking is no longer safe? Drawing on fifteen in-depth interviews with people diagnosed with schizophrenia, How Language Holds offers a careful, ethically grounded exploration of how language functions under pressure. Rather than focusing on symptoms or diagnosis, the book attends to something more fundamental: how people use words to orient themselves, protect themselves, and remain connected when recognition is uncertain. Across these interviews, language emerges not primarily as self-expression, but as work. Words are chosen carefully. Speech is shaped by risk. Creativity appears not as flourish, but as adaptation—through humour, constraint, repetition, and structure. Listening, rather than explanation, proves to be the condition that allows language to loosen or tighten, to hold or to spill. Organised thematically and written with restraint, the book avoids case studies, clinical interpretation, and sensational quotation. Instead, it offers a sustained act of listening: attending to how speech behaves when it is under strain, how structure can function as care, and how meaning persists even when it resists coherence. How Language Holds does not seek to explain schizophrenia or replace existing medical accounts. It asks something different: what responsibility follows when we take language seriously, especially when it does not conform to expectations of clarity, fluency, or order. Thoughtful, humane, and quietly rigorous, this book will be of interest to readers in psychology, mental health, philosophy, linguistics, and narrative studies—as well as anyone concerned with listening, recognition, and the ethics of interpretation.

It's Not Over, Until I Win: Dr Oli's PhD Journey

**It’s Not Over, Until I Win** Reflections on the PhD Journey What is it really like to do a PhD? Beyond methods, milestones, and metrics, doctoral study is a profoundly human experience—one marked by uncertainty, isolation, identity change, and endurance. Yet these dimensions are rarely spoken about openly. It’s Not Over, Until I Win is a reflective, compassionate account of the PhD journey, adapted from Dr Oli Delgaram-Nejad’s podcast series. Written for postgraduate students who are considering a PhD, currently undertaking one, or still living with its aftermath, this book explores the psychological and emotional realities of doctoral life with honesty and care. Drawing on lived experience, supervision insights, and years spent navigating academia from the inside, the book addresses questions many PhD students carry quietly: * Why does a PhD feel so lonely—even among other academics? * What makes supervision supportive rather than corrosive? * Why does “becoming an expert” often feel like knowing less, not more? * How do authority, impostor feelings, and academic identity really develop? * What does prolonged uncertainty do to mental health—and how do people endure it? * Why does finishing a PhD rarely feel like the ending we imagine? This is not a how-to guide, a productivity manual, or a promise of academic success. It does not offer quick fixes or generic reassurance. Instead, it accompanies the reader through the often-unspoken terrain of doctoral study, naming its pressures without romanticising them and offering perspective without minimising difficulty. Written in a personal, pastoral, and compassionate voice, It’s Not Over, Until I Win invites readers to be slower, more honest, and kinder to themselves in a process that rarely encourages any of those things. Whether you are at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a PhD, this book is a reminder that struggle is not failure—and that doing something difficult does not require you to disappear in the process.