Category: psychosis

psychosis rebound?

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

My writing partner and I came to an agreement today about writing. I am glad she meant five days and not five pages a day! I would really struggle writing if I had to spew out five pages a day. It would be a worthwhile effort for both of us, but neither of us would be able to keep at it all the time. We can sometimes barely put together two page, let alone five.

I had time before my mock interview today and wrote like three pages. My fricken phone kept going off with email and text notifications so it was hard to write consistently. I wasn’t writing emotionally charged stuff, just my experience but the distractions were enough for me to feel like it was incoherent. I was writing on a legal pad so I am hoping that while I am typing it into a document, it makes sense and that I can add to it.

I almost made it home in one piece. I went to Walgreens for some snacks and while I was walking down the inclined walkway to go home, my foot exploded. It felt like it wanted to flex into a ball like your hand does. It was so painful and I still had a block and half to go before I was home. It was the slowest walk I ever walked. What normally would take me ten minutes took me twenty. It was so bad that normally I have no problem taking off my pants but I couldn’t. I lost mobility in my foot to kick the pants off me. Just glad I didn’t fall because I don’t have good balance on my right foot when I need it.

Got a call from Dell today. My baby has been shipped home and I should get it tomorrow. I didn’t get any calls about the hard drive (not that I thought it was a drive issue) so I am hoping that all my files are intact. It will be so good to be back on the new one, though I know it will be weird at first. I just got used to the old laptop’s keyboard, which is slightly different than the new one. I will be happy when I know she is safely in my hands again. I can’t wait to take her out to Starbucks sometime this week to finish typing my manuscript. I am almost at the 150 mark. By the end of the week, I should be close to 170 and that is where I plan on ending it for a while. My writing partner just advised me to save it six different places and let it stew for a while before working on it. Trouble is that I have a hard time editing a paper on a computer screen. I might have to go to FedEx and print it out to have it safe or go to staples. It might be cheaper there to print out than FedEx. I will have to do some shopping around as I don’t have a working printer at home. I think my sister does so maybe I can save some $$ there.

The mock interview went fast. I was “seen” for about twenty-five minutes, the shortest time I ever had an interview for. The lady was an older woman, probably in her late fifties, early sixties, and every time she asked a question, I would answer and then lose track of what I was saying so I stopped talking. My pdoc kept calling me a lifesaver, whatever that meant. I did bring up my neurological issues and pain issues. At the end she just recommended that I get compression stockings. The weirdest session I ever had! Even my pdoc was like taken aback. She never worked with her before and I felt bad for her. The guy I had last year, even though he kind of sucked was a better interviewer. He only sucked because he wanted things done on a time limited basis so I felt rushed in answering his questions. Plus we got off on a bad start as I didn’t have an ailment on the top of my head, which seemed to annoy him. This time I was prepared but I am glad I just stuck with ankle pain/inflammation rather than body part dissociation. I don’t think that would have gone over well. She didn’t even seem interested when I brought up my depression. I wanted to bring up suicidal thinking but caught myself. I knew this lady was not going to handle THAT at all. If I was a ball buster, I probably should have but I am not. I think it would have been great but my psych was there and I didn’t want to cause myself to go to the ER with just mentioning it. I so wish I talked about the out of body experience. I could have had so much fun with it. But this lady was so damn dry. I talked about it with my pdoc and she agreed. I hope her day got better. I see her Friday for my regular appointment.

I don’t know why I had such anxiety after this experience or if what I was trying to write stirred some stuff up. I just was really panicky and the voices went berserk on me. They ALL came in on me soon as I was alone, nitpicking everything I did and said during the interview. I didn’t take my antipsychotic last night. I don’t fricken care about side effects but I am taking the full 10 mg tonight. I might even take some trilafon if the stupid door chime I hear before a voice enters doesn’t stop. I know I am exhausted and that just makes it worse but I need to feel like I am in control again.

I’m going to go make myself a cup of Chamomile tea. I need it for its calming effects and to try and get the stupid post nasal drip out of the back of my throat!

Voices and Other Musings

by Midnight Demon, posted in mood disorders, psychosis

I don’t know why I am writing this as I am very tired and want to go to sleep. Except the voices are having conversations in my head about things. Some stuff I can decipher, others I cannot. It is very annoying. I wish they would just go away and let me be but they are not so accommodating.

I have lowered my dose of my antipsychotic because I was having side effects. I don’t think I can go back up without my doc’s ok. I just need a little time to adjust to this dose and I am hoping the voices will go away. Something tells me this is just wishful thinking. I really don’t want to go back into the hospital. I won’t have my music to listen to and having music with me calms me down. I will get agitated if I don’t have music, and well, you don’t really want to have a meltdown on a psych unit. It is not pleasant. I guess as long as I am not feeling paranoid I am doing ok. But then, there isn’t much interaction with people I don’t know. I am grounded in my house because my funds for Starbucks have ended. I can’t have my coffee until next week when my paycheck gets in. It’s just as well because I think the caffeine might have had something to do with the tremors I was experiencing. I have been ok the past few days but I still get the feelings like my arms are like stretched out elastics. I know that is a little of the dyskinesthia I experience. I am also worried that this feeling is going to drive me nuts more than the voices will.

In case you are just reading my blog for the first time, I have been hearing voices since the age of 5. They started off as imaginary friends but have always stayed with me growing up. The voices have changed over the years. My latest new voices have an English accent. I think that was because I was preoccupied with England for a time. They have gone away but sometimes still creep back. I also have experienced paranoia while on the bus. I thought it was anxiety but if anxiety caused paranoia than why would I think one of the passengers were going to harm me in some way. I have not been taking the bus that often anymore because of this.

Sometimes I have delusions. When I was younger I had delusion that I was living on the holodeck on the Enterprise. I created this other life that I still somewhat believe today. Or I wish it still existed. Lately my delusions are related to the type of voice I hear. If the voice says he is Allah I will have religious types of delusions. Usually these new voices are often commanding voices (they tell me to do things) and always lead to a hospitalization. I don’t know why voices are an automatic reason for getting hospitalized. I just know that I could be ok otherwise but soon as I say I have voices that are not controlled, they put me in the hospital. It drives me nuts, no pun intended. Other delusions that I have had in the past centered around my coworkers conspiring to fire me or have me fired by planting devices in my email. I felt like every move I made was being watched and every email I sent was being monitored. Usually, it would center around one person. And eventually, I became fearful of this person though I had no real reason to be. When I seriously asked my coworker if she was going to kill me, she gave me a crazed look like “you kidding me”? I then knew that it was just my illness talking and that it wasn’t real.

The hard part about dealing with psychosis is that your view of reality becomes blurred. You often don’t know what is real and what is not. There was a good period of time when I thought God was always watching me and that I had to watch what I was doing so not to offend him. These feeling persisted even when no one was in the room with me, I still felt his presence and it was not a good feeling. I felt like I was constantly being watched and the voices helped to confirm my suspicions. It wasn’t until I started on the drug olanzapine that all this went away. For the first time in my life, I felt free. But then out of fear of me getting diabetes, my psychiatrist took me off this drug. I was fearful that this paranoia was going to come back but it has been over ten years since being off that drug and so far I am still free from that type of paranoia. I often wonder how other people react when someone tells them that God is all around them. For me, I ended up with paranoia for most of my childhood and early adulthood. And it all stopped by taking medication. I was on other anti-psychotics at this time, but none of them took care of that presence I felt all the time. It feel good knowing you don’t have to always watch over your shoulder. That is why I am fearful that I might have to stop this medication. I haven’t had any symptoms since Monday and I hope it stays that way. Maybe it was just a little hypoglycemic attack (low blood sugar). But that still doesn’t explain why I had symptoms later that night AFTER I ate a good meal. It doesn’t make sense.

I see my psychiatrist tomorrow. I hope she has answers for me that doesn’t include me being taken off my medication. So far she has not responded to the emails I sent her so I am hoping that by reducing the dose, I am doing the right thing. But in doing so, I hope that doesn’t mean it’s also open season on a voice attack and that paranoia will start coming back. I am just fearful of this happening. But I think if she really wanted me off this medication, she would have responded and told me so.

medication and feeling scared

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, psychosis, suicide

Meds and being scared

Yesterday I was in a panic more so when I have to take a bus some place. My hands were trembling uncontrollably for several hours. I was scared. Then when I started writing with pen and paper, it got worse. The only other time this has happened to me was when I was on high doses of trilafon. But I am not taking trilafon for my psychotic symptoms. I am taking another medication called Abilify. And it is causing these symptoms. I am scared because it might mean I have to get off this med and if I do, the voices will run rampant and I will have to be back in the hospital. Usually, taking the Ativan will help bring me down and so far today I don’t have any symptoms. I emailed my doc and she has not responded so I think I am on my own with this. I wish she would respond so that I know I am on the right course. I skipped my dose last night and I am only taking half the dose tonight. We’ll see if I get any symptoms tomorrow.

I have been on this drug for more than a year now. I have never had to take a long term anti-psychotic drug before. Usually the bad voices would go away after taking the meds for few weeks and then I could stopped taking them but after my psychotic break in 2008, this has not been the case. One doctor called me schizoaffective because my symptoms were so bad they were considering putting me on clozaril. But then during one of my admissions I was placed on Abilify and it worked for me better than any other drug. I can no longer take Seroquel or risperadone because they give me worse side effects. I rather have the trembling than my legs kicking uncontrollably or my heart giving me palpitations.

Right now the voices are under control. I am still having break throughs. I have a new voice that likes to talk to me just as I am falling asleep. She just pops her head in and starts talking away. I don’t suffer from visual hallucinations but if I did, that is what I imagine is happening. Then the other voices start up and chime in with their own questions and wondering why I am still here and why am I not working so I have to go into that whole debacle. Or the other voices will talk with the new voice and the whole thing will keep me up because I get agitated by them interfering with my sleep. I sometimes have to referee them. It is very exhausting keeping up with them while listening to music to try and drown them out.

If I have to stop this medication, things will change. I really don’t want the paranoia and delusions to come back. I don’t want the commanding voices to start up again. I will not be able to function. I will really hate not being on this medication. But I am hoping, that I can take another medication to counteract its affects. I kind of feel like Dr. Pearce from Perception where he goes through life unmedicated and still be able to function to some degree. He is able to embrace the voices that he knows are not real. I don’t want to go through that. I went through it once and it was not pleasant. I can handle the three or four voices regularly but I can’t handle the paranoia and delusions. That is more debilitating to me than a conversation of voices in my head.

psychosis while reading

by Midnight Demon, posted in psychosis, writing

Just wrote a few pages for my book. I don’t know if it will ever get finished or published but it is a start. I add to it every now and then. I should edit it a little bit to add more to it but then I might want to scrap the whole thing.

I got to my Starbucks and am having my Kati Kati coffee. It’s so good, I might get another one before I go. But I think one coffee per day is my limit. Otherwise I might have a night like last night where I was up most of the night. But it wasn’t because I was restless, it was because I was in pain. The pain finally settled down around three in the morning. I fell asleep shortly there after.

I started writing about my past in the book. And about my diagnosis of Bipolar II disorder. I am not sure I can explain it as I don’t understand it too well myself. But it is basically episodes of hypomania and severe depression, mostly severe depression as the hypomania come infrequently. I have had this diagnosis since I was sixteen. I thought it was just due to a medication reaction (Prozac made me hyper and crazy) but when it lingered long after the half-life, I knew that I had it. But I still have the psychosis that is inherent in my illness. I have been having voices since I was five years old. It’s hard to explain how the voices evolved. But they are still with me and they are not my voices. I know because usually when I read, there is a man voice that reads with me. When I don’t hear this voice then I know it is my voice reading. I once asked my therapist if she hears a voice while she is reading and she says that she doesn’t. I find that odd. I thought everyone had a voice that changes with the way that the book’s words go. I guess I am truly psychotic.

Last night while I was reading it was difficult because I didn’t hear a voice. I don’t know if it was because I was too tired to read or that I just didn’t want to get into the book. I finally gave up after reading for a half hour. I am tempted not to take my meds to see if the voices to do come back while I read. It does make for interesting reading when the voice changes when there is dialog in the book. Usually I hear a man’s voice narrate as I read. He wasn’t there last night and I found it odd. I tried to imagine voices while I read but it just took more effort to try and pay attention to what I was reading. It was very difficult concentrating.