Category: psychosis

very bad in my head

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, psychosis, suicide

Having a really hard time. Going through financial issues with my therapist because she got a new billing service and they have been harping on her for payment. I haven’t paid her in a long time since being disabled and the whole thing is stressing me out. So now I have to pay what I can pay her so her billing people aren’t harassing her. The whole stress of the matter, which I knew would happen one day, has caused the bad voices to come out and command me to do things, mostly to cut because I am a bad person. My therapist was telling me that this voice is wrong and full of shit. I wish she could hear them sometimes and maybe she would understand what I go through. It’s not easy telling them they are full of shit when they are screaming that you are nothing but a moron and an idiot all the time. Then I have another voice that is trying to get me to do the right thing and take care of myself and these other voices start harping on her. It’s very bad in my head right now and I feel so stressed about it. Every time I get a little stressed the voices come out. My therapist wants me to take some extra meds which I guess I will do tonight. And also to take my pain meds when I am feeling pain not hours later when it’s beyond control. I just don’t feel like I deserve it. Like I am being punished by this pain so just let it be but she said that is not how it is. I don’t know if I am making sense. I have been up since five and have not taken a nap. I am really tired and I am sick. I took a fall today and my knee is hurting. Everything is hurting. I wish the pain meds helped with the internal hurt but it doesn’t.

I have been having urges to cut since I cut last week I think it was. I don’t even remember. My therapist doesn’t want me to cut over the financial situation but I know that I will feel better if I cut. She said that she won’t. I gave her my word that I wouldn’t cut. I am also to keep texting her over the weekend to let her know how I am doing. She is worried right now because I am psychotic. And of course she brings up the hospital whenever I tell her about the voices. I sometimes hate bringing it up but I just let it happen and then I hate myself for bringing it up. She doesn’t understand what it is like living with them. These voices are mean and nasty. They watch everything that I do and criticize everything that I do. It could be the way I cut my chicken up or the way I go down the stairs. Sometimes they want me to take extra medication but I don’t do that. The only medication I will take extra of is Neurontin because I know the effect of this med. I did take extra Ativan the other night. I had to because all I wanted to do was sleep. I think I am going to take Neurontin with some trilafon tonight to ward off the voices. They don’t like the trilafon. That is the one med they don’t want me to take. But I need to because I don’t want to end up back in the hospital.

I emailed my PCP tonight. I told him that I don’t want to see anymore specialists. I just want adequate pain control and that is that. The nerve block didn’t work out and for three days I was in excruciating pain. It took two kinds of pain meds to bring my pain under control. I don’t want to go through that again. The pain was horrible. It brought me to a dark place, granted it didn’t take much to bring me there but still. I hated being there. And now I am thinking of ways of killing myself because I don’t know what else to do. I am tired of living a life in pain and if my PCP won’t acknowledge the fact that what we are doing is fine then I might as well kill myself now than go through hoops to get pain meds.

So I am psychotic, in a lot of physical pain, and am deeply depressed. Yup…I am FUBAR…fucked up beyond all rehabilitation.

stress and psychosis

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, psychosis, suicide

This was the first day that I have been out of the hospital. It was nice. I got to meet with my psychiatrist and we went over my medication plan. She doesn’t want me taking too much trilafon for a long period of time and I told her soon as I stabilize on the abilify, I should be able to come off it. So far today, I haven’t needed it so I am hoping that is a good sign.

I went to Starbucks today and typed out my admission experiences. I filled in where I felt I needed to. I thought it was cool to write it down but didn’t expect it to be so long, so I am sorry about that.

It feels so good to be back in my own bed, take my meds when I want to rather than on a schedule and also to have my pain meds when I need them. I flared up my pain over the last few days because I did too much. My ankle is pretty swollen and hurts really bad so I am hoping to stay in the house tomorrow and do nothing except edit my book, least the few pages that I have already done so. I feel that I need to get going or this thing is never going to get published.

I am glad the fog has lifted enough for me to write this blog. It was so painfully difficult to write while I was in the hospital because my head was out in outer space. The few lucid moments I had was when I was writing my experiences or writing to my therapist. I honestly have no clue what I wrote to her.

This hospitalization was a scary one. I have never felt unsafe on the unit before. Usually it is my safe haven. But the paranoia kind of got out of control and things went from bad to worse with in a few hours. I was needed more support than I ever did during this admission. I never was so scared before as I was this time. I hope that I never become as psychotic again. I told my psychiatrist today that I don’t want to mess with the abilify dose at all anymore. I can’t afford a melt down when the dose is lower. She agreed with me. I also have to work on my stress levels. I can’t get overwhelmed too much because it always causes havoc in my life. No matter how insignificant it might seem, I always become psychotic when a little stress enters my life. This book is a big deal to me and I know it is stressful but I have to take it in spurts and not do it all at once or I will end up back in the hospital. The sad part is that not too many staff knew about psychosis and so I wasn’t treated properly. They wanted me to use grounding skills, like if I was having flashbacks or other trauma symptoms. Psychosis is not a trauma symptom. It is its own illness and the staff didn’t get it. My treatment team did for the most part but the nursing staff could use a little more training. I should have written that as part of the exit interview thing I had to fill out before being discharged.

I did have a good staff member that did understand. She wants a copy of my book so I will send it to her when it gets published. So far she is the only one that seemed interested in my work. I had a few patients that were interested so I gave them the website to my blog as there will be information as it becomes available for it. I am hoping to get it done within a month or by the end of the year. It all depends on how quickly I can go through the editing process and have at least two people read it to make sure there aren’t horrible grammatical errors or repeats in information.

I still can’t believe how much I was doped up while in the hospital. But it was a good thing. I didn’t harm myself or barricade myself while I was there. I did try to manage what I was eating but that was difficult. I did go to bed after I took my meds because my day always started off early and most nights I was there I woke up around 330 in pain. I am so glad I can take my pain meds now and not have to bother anyone with it or tell them my scale of how bad it hurts. I can just pop two pills and be done with it. I do have to find another flavor or powerade or Gatorade though. The ones that I have been using suck after the first sip. My taste buds have been awful lately. Nothing really tastes good. Even the coffee and donuts I was eating today was terrible. I know part of the reason is because I am still depressed. I just hope this phase passes soon. This is the first depression in which my taste buds are affected.

out of the hospital

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, psychosis

I got discharged today. I am happy to be home but am kind of scared too. I think I will be ok once I settle back into my routine.

I haven’t typed up my experience but that will be a duty for tomorrow. I have been up since 0530 and am pretty tired. There is a Sox game on tonight and hopefully I can watch it in the quietness of my house and not fall asleep. Last night at the hospital, things got really rowdy. We had new admits and they were a young crowd. One was clearly manic and was boisterous and didn’t care. I couldn’t be around all that noise. It activated the voices and when I told my treatment team today, I was afraid I wasn’t going to get discharged but they let me out anyways.

I have therapy tonight and I see my pdoc tomorrow. I cannot wait to get a Starbucks coffee. It is a shame that I failed to use my rewards so I lost a free drink by a day. I feel so bad because I really wanted to use it. But I can use another one for tomorrow. I can get my donut for free!

A strange thing happened with my phone. I had to turn if off because it was frozen and when I turned it back on, it acted like it was new and went through the activation process. Then today I tried using it and it wouldn’t allow me to call or text any one. I had to call customer service but because I was in the hospital, they could only do so much. Luckily they sent updates to my phone and it is working good now. It bugs me because this is the second time something like this has happened. I am afraid that the next time, it might not fix itself. I am due for an upgrade but there are no phones that I really want (or can afford) right now, except for possibly the Galaxy IIIs. My brother in law has it and I think it is a cool phone but I am really wanting the wristband device that comes with it. Now that is totally STAR TREK!

I was telling some of the patients and staff in the hospital about my book and most wanted it. I gave them the title but it’s not like they can look it up anytime soon. I don’t have it published yet. I probably will sometime next month. I am going to try and get it done by Thanksgiving. We’ll see how the editing goes. I am not ready to start that yet so it might be next week before I am ready.

still inpatient

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, psychosis

I got a scare this morning when the day shift staff kept on telling me i was gong to get discharged. After the bad weekend I had, I didn’t feel comfortable being let go today. I think it was just too soon. When I talked with my team, they agreed and I will be here another few days. I feel a little bit safer knowing that I am not being let go against my will.

My voice that I always talk to has come back. She was missing a little bit in action last night. I felt so lost without her. I have heard this voice for so long she is part of my thought process. I am not able to read or write without it.

I am feeling a little less paranoid now than I have in the few days. The perphenazine (trilafon) is working for me but it is knocking out all my voices. I hate that because it disrupts my thinking process and makes me more paranoid. I am hoping not to stay on a long term of this medication, I think once I get used to it, it might lessen things up.

I got my first suicidal impulses last night. I thought they were gone for a while because it has been almost three weeks since I have thoughts of killing myself, well active thoughts, not just passive thoughts. I really feel like I can live and have things go on the way they have been going and I am ok with it. I guess MLG’s letting it go has really helped me to let things go. I find that i am worrying less about things and she is not in the least mad at me that I am not writing about the project. She just wants me to get well. She sent me a nice email last night about how she thinks this could be a grief reaction to something regarding my transgender identity. She could be right but I am going through so much grief in other areas of my life that it is really hard to point to just one thing that has caused this psychotic break that I am experiencing.

Just for fun, I did four minutes on the exercise bike just to do something. I thought I was ok but my ankle is now hurting me more than anything. I am walking around with my AFO (Ankle foot orthotic) on the unit just to give me extra support and to ease the pain as they are not giving my pain meds like I take them at home.

I just talked with my therapist and it was so good to hear her voice. I told her all my voices have been wiped out and am finding it hard to think. She felt relieved but is a little worried that I might not be functional.

Group is starting soon so I will stop here for now. If I am able to post later I will.