Tag: schizoaffective disorder

Hospitalizations: Fifteen Minutes of Fame

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, depression, mental disorders, mood disorders, suicidality, suicide

Hospitalizations: Fifteen Minutes of Fame

I had therapy. My therapist read my “Brick Wall” blog. She asked if we could talk about the bricks and we spent most of the session going over them. I also told her about my book problems, that I think it is disorganized. She said that it is her most prized possession, so I think she is biased in my writing abilities. She said my short story was heartbreaking to read. I haven’t gotten too many likes on it. I may have to play with the tags a bit. Anyway, talking about the bricks was difficult because it lead to where I was in my last hospitalization, where I wrote the story. I told her how no one was looking at the bricks, that they were just looking for the cement to dry before sending me home, so to speak. That is all they cared about. Stabilization and discharge were the key focus of what they wanted to do. What brought you in the hospital, they didn’t care about. Or if they did, it was always, “we’ll talk about it tomorrow” but never did. I hated that my needs were ignored and patronized. I flatly told them I was going to kill myself when I left the hospital during my initial few days when they wanted to discharge me. And it was true. I needed help and was going to stay inpatient to get that help. Except the help came back to me looking for help from outside services. The social worker that was working with me didn’t care about my needs. I ended up having to call places to look for outside support. I tried to get it but never had a call back or even an email back, though one place the email came back as undelieverable. It was a trying time. I wanted to kill myself so badly and yet I was supposed to make all these phone calls to show that I wanted to live? To do the work my team was supposed to be doing? I just don’t understand their mentality. Yet it has been nine months since I left the hospital. I am still here because the anti depressant they put me on really help stabilize my depression. Too bad it no longer works. I stopped taking it in December.

My therapist thinks I should write a blog about past hospitalizations and current ones. Thing is, I don’t remember much. I know things are different today than they were back then. For example, there are no longer any outside passes given. If you want outside passes, you are basically discharged. When I was in the hospital in August, they wanted to give me grounds privileges. This meant that I could go out for staff walks. I told them adamantly no because I was scared I was going to run. They gave it to me anyway. Granted that at the time, I was in an AFO so I know I wouldn’t get far, but they still took that chance of letting me go. Stupid, I tell ya. I should have gone away from the group and tried to escape. I don’t know what that would look like but I know it wouldn’t be good on either side. I would most likely get reprimanded like a child, even though I am an adult. But that would be on them. I told them I would run and if I did, it was on them, not me.

I remember a time when I was in the hospital 21 years ago. I was severely depressed and suicidal. I had attempted suicide and was hospitalized against my will, in fact the admitting staff forged my signature on the consent form. I went through my records after discharged. Anyway, back then they had ground privileges, which meant you could leave the unit unaccompanied by a staff person. Just as long as you stayed on hospital grounds. Well, I decided to walk around the block after working hours and got “caught” by off duty staff. My privileges were revoked the next day as I broke the “rules”. I never kept my privileges too long. I always did something to revoke them. One weekend I had to beg for an outside pass just to pay a bill (I was there for more than a month and if I didn’t pay the bill, my phone was going to be turned off). I told them I would be back within an hour and I did. It was the first time they trusted me to do this. It was tough because I was so suicidal and they weren’t going to let me try again, hence why my stay was 2 ½ months. That was my longest time in the hospital. It did help me but the demons were still there. I had major issues that I still don’t talk to anyone about, not even my current therapist. It’s just too scary.

Last night I was looking for former therapists. I came across one, Dr. B. She helped me probably more than all the rest. She was the longest therapist that I have seen till that point, three years. All the rest of the therapists that I have seen were year or less. I am going to send her my book and email address. I wrote about her in my book. It was hard not to include her because the opening introduction has her in it as that was my first serious suicide attempt. I had made other attempts before that one, but this one landed me in the hospital and then I was there for a long time. That is when you had good care and one on one contact with someone. Now they have these “teams” where there are all the staff from the unit meet with you for fifteen minutes or so and then decide what to do with you. Fifteen minutes to decide if you need further stay or discharge. It is nothing like the care I had 21 years ago. You met with your inpatient therapist, then a social worker, and then your contact person who was a staff member for that shift. This no longer happens and it’s sad. No longer do you feel safe in the hospital or cared for. It is the end of the era for hospitals. I will never go back, no matter how suicidal I get. They can just kiss my ass goodbye.

Sports and Other Things

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Been trying to write today but keep being distracted by Twitter. A lot has been going on today in the sports world. Deflategate has resurfaced and in baseball news, the pitching coach was fired. In addition to that, my *favorite* pitcher got designated for assignment, which means goodbye, see ya, hope to never see you again. He was a good for nothing pitcher, giving up home runs with inherited runners, all the time. He lost more ball games than I can remember winning. Or if we were losing, made sure we really lost. But the firing of the pitching coach, to me, was unexpected. I understand as the pitchers barely went more than three innings the last few games and it’s hard on the bullpen to be called earlier than they should start. Someone had to get chucked and it was the pitching coach. I am sure the hitting coach is probably next if the Sox don’t start hitting. You need good pitchers and hitters to win games, even if it is by one run.

Deflategate is back because the NFL just ruled that the Patriots and their quarterback was “probable” in deflating the balls for a game. No punishment has been issued, officially, but the haters want to see them stripped of the Superbowl title, the QB suspended 2-4 games to a year and the head coach fired. It is ridiculous. I don’t know what is going to happen. I just wish they would hurry up and make a decision so this can all go away. I know every single game this season is going to bring up the deflated balls. I usually don’t listen to the commentary because the game is so fast. I am watching the game more than listening to the “analysis” or prediction of what is going to happen next. It really is stupid. What happens, happens. Next play the QB could trip on his own feet and there is a fumble rather than a great play. You just don’t know. Though the game is a little bit more predictable than baseball. You know the QB is going to throw the ball to someone and hope he catches it.

There is not a Sox game tonight because it is a travel day. They are usually off on Thursdays. I am kind of depressed that there is no game because I have literally nothing to watch. I could watch my shows but my mother is still watching hers. I won’t be able to get the TV until after eight. But my foot/ankle is hurting so unless I got to go to the bathroom, I am not leaving my room.

I had therapy for the third time this week. We talked but it didn’t go anywhere. I swear whenever she says “this is something we need to work on”, I cringe because I know it’s not going anywhere beyond today. I really want to tell her this, but I just let her finish her thoughts on the subject and let them land where they may. Today’s topic was how not to get guilt tripped by my mother and I had to laugh because she, my therapist, guilt trips me all the time. It was a hard session because physically, I didn’t feel well. I kept on getting congested and the post nasal drip was making me very nauseated. There were times during session I couldn’t speak because I didn’t know if I was going to puke or not. Allergies are in full range today and my nose kept on dripping. This is despite taking an antihistamine that is supposed to last 24 hours. Lately, it has been lasting only 18-20. I was also feeling dizzy most of the day, which is weird. I have been keeping up with my fluids so I am not sure why I was dizzy.

Today was the first day in a long time I woke up early (around 0500) and then went back to sleep! It was only for a couple of hours but I went back to sleep. And I didn’t take a mid-morning nap like I usually do. I did try to take an afternoon nap before I picked up my niece but that didn’t work out. I just rested. I still haven’t heard back from my psychiatrist concerning my delusions and what to do with them. I should have paged her last night. I was really in bad shape but I am better today. I talked about it with my therapist as I was paranoid after our session and the voices were watching me most of the day. I ended up taking my meds early and was asleep before ten or there abouts. So I slept almost seven hours straight. I hope to get that much tonight.

Psychosis is a Funny Beast

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, Paranoia, psychosis

1 March

Psychosis is a funny beast. It terrorizes you, yet when it’s gone, you miss it. It stimulates you like nothing else can. Yet it’s a completely individual experience. No two people will ever have the same type of voices/hallucinations. These voices/hallucinations can be visual or auditory or both. Such a common ailment in mental illness, yet so different in people.

You can have command hallucinations that tell you to do stuff or tell you to harm yourself. Or have other voices that tell you are great and powerful. Others that are more sinister and mean that cause paranoia. It doesn’t have to be people, per se, that give these commands. It can be words from the TV or voices on the radio, even if the appliances are turned off and unplugged. These devices can still speak and it can cause great anxiety and nervous agitation.

Sometimes when I am reading a book, the words will fly off the page giving me new meaning. It is magical and majestic. Most of the time, a man’s voice “reads” to me. It is the only way I can comprehend the paragraphs. Without this voice, the words have no meaning and I don’t know what the book is trying to say. The words are empty and meaningless.

There was a time when my paranoid thoughts got the best of me while I was at work. I was utterly convinced my email was being monitored by a doctor colleague I had a row with. Well, not really a row. He just called me incompetent. I told my boss that I didn’t want to work with him again. In retaliation, he was “watching” my email activity to get me fired. Every email was tagged to him somehow. I was convinced of this because the voices said so. When the emails started doing their dance like the words of the book, I became nervous that something was wrong. I called my psychiatrist. She told me I needed to be in the hospital. Psychosis such as this required urgent care. But I did not feel sick. I may have felt a little insane, perhaps. The delusions and hallucinations were bad that year. It caused me to quit college. I have yet to return to university, but mostly that is because of financial reasons than psychosis.

Soon after my release from the hospital, the delusions started again. This time with another co-worker. Voices had me convinced she was out to kill me. We had been good friends. I talked amicably to her so not to offend her. We played this game for three weeks. With each passing day, the paranoia got worse. I finally asked this woman, to test my reality, if she intended to harm me. She thought it was a preposterous question. The voices lied, again. They always do but they are so convincing, you believe them. No one else hears them. They are never visible though I often imagine what they must look like. A general overview of a female or male voice. It is when they start arguing amongst each other that things become confusing. Sometimes they make sense, other times they are incoherent. It’s like they get weird languages so I can’t follow what they are saying. The language is not any that I can discern. I have been exposed to different languages over the years and this is like nothing I have heard before. The language they speak, however undiscernible, is alien to me. And when I question what they are saying, only then do they talk English again.

These voices have been a part of my life for more than thirty years. I have adapted to them well. Only time they ever really leave me is when I am highly medicated. When they leave, I am utterly alone. It is a lonely place to be in. I cannot think without the voices. They have become so ingrained to my thoughts. They can “read” my thoughts so I don’t have to speak, at times. Yet we do have conversations that either I will initiate or they will. Especially at night when I try going to sleep, is when they come out and talk. There is this one voice that pops in just when I am trying to sleep just to have a chat. This voice inquires how my day went, and other general questions relating to how I have been. This is usually because it has been a while since we last chatted. It’s annoying because I want to sleep, not talk. Yet if I ignore the voice, the louder she becomes. Then I can’t sleep because I get agitated and extremely annoyed. There is no arguing with these voices. They don’t have a sense of time like we do. If they talk and ask questions, they must be answered, no matter what time of day it is. Many nights of lost sleep mean nothing to them. They are demanding creatures of the night.

I read a quote today that stuck with me. “I never understood the ‘psychosis isn’t illness, just an expected response to stress’ line. Bleeding is an expected response to a cut”. Alex Langford. What strike me with this quote is that it is true. People who have stress do not become psychotic. They usually suffer from anxiety of some sort, but they don’t become delusional and hear/see things that others cannot see.

Like most of my psychotic episodes, stress is usually the precipitant factor. Two weeks ago, I was getting stressed over financial matters. I am on a fixed income so trying to pay for everything can be a juggling act. A delusion of command tweets started. We have had heavy snow the whole month of February. I kept getting tweets to clear the roof tops. With each subsequent tweet, I took it as a command to clean my roof off. I started worrying that my roof was going to collapse (highly unlikely as I don’t have flat roof tops). But I couldn’t shake the notion that something terrible was going to happen if I ignored the tweet. So I started taking one of my PRNs (as needed) medication. It helped to ease the agitation and helped me to see that I was safe in my home. But taking this medication caused the voices to go away, temporarily. I have never felt so empty and alone before. I could function, do my every day things, but it was eerily quiet in my room, and in my head.

Not everyone who has stress becomes psychotic. If stress was the reason, there would be more schizophrenics or those suffering from psychotic depressions or manias in the world. Most people who are stressed, as I stated before, have anxiety. I become psychotic for reasons I don’t know why. I start having conversations with myself, out loud, with the voices when I am stressed. It just looks like I am talking with myself, but I am really not. I do know that once I am on medication, the stresses don’t bother me as much and I can handle them better. I sometimes like to think of myself as a functional schizophrenic.

It’s hard to explain the voices as they can be random. They come out more when I am tired, stressed out, or overwhelmed. They also come out when I am in an agitated state. I also feel like I am losing my mind. I wonder, am I depressed? Am I manic? Or am I just mad, bordering on insanity?

My drug of choice when I am in an agitated state is trilafon (perphenazine). It helps to keep the “bad” voices away. The “bad” voices are the voices that tell me negative things, give me paranoia, start with the delusions, and give me commands. If they are not controlled by medication, I usually end up in the hospital.

These days, the “bad” voices don’t come around much since I take a regular anti-psychotic everyday. What is striking is that this pill has no effect on my “regular” voices, the voices that I hear every day. This is good because without these voices I cannot function. Although these regular voices can be annoying, critical, and negative, they can also be helpful to sort out problems or have discussions with.

Pain and despair can also bring about a psychotic episode for me. Physical pain is the not the kind that I am talking about. It’s more like a weight on the chest, making breathing difficult. It’s not like an anxiety attack upon the nerves that I sometimes get. It is more cerebral in nature but hurts like that of a broken limb. Despair will cause madness to intensify and with it comes the suicidal thoughts. Anguish also is felt like never felt before. It is unbearable. The combination of these feelings create a breeding ground for the voices to become unhinged. Delusions of persecution also become acute. I feel everyone is against me and are trying to kill me. I try to fight the rightness of the mind but it unthinkable. My thoughts are just too incoherent. Voices get their way and the insufferable feelings fuel the paranoia. The pressure to resist is futile and to cognitively deny their words proves to be impossible. The torment continues with the increase in despair and suffering of unbearable psychological pain.

In this state, lyrics of songs become perturbed and twisted. The meaning of songs always revolve around death and destruction, even if that is not what the song is about. Hallucinations of hearing the song over and over even when music is not playing is common. I hear the song even when the MP3 player or radio is silent. I once had a song by Pearl Jam run rampant in my head for weeks. Then the lyrics changed and were telling me that I had to die, even though there were no such lyrics in the song. There was no escape from this turmoil. The only place I found solace was in the hospital and being drugged up to calm my overstimulated brain.

These types of voices, paranoia, and delusions respond best to medication. The longer I go without meds, the worse my condition becomes. I deteriorate, losing whatever faculties I may still possess. I have noticed that as I get older, there is an increase in episodes. These episodes are profoundly devastating and scary. It used to be I could be on my medication until the episode passed. Then I would stop it and not have another episode for years. That doesn’t seem to be the case any longer. I must now take this pink pill every day to be sane and prevent symptoms from happening. Since this regimen began a couple of years ago, my psychotic symptoms have decreased. But if I skip a few days, I am in trouble again. Then it is harder to be back in control of the symptoms. The balance of dealing with the psychosis is never easy. It’s a fine line between sane and insane, despair and despondency, psychache, severe depression, and suicidal thoughts. These are the evil conundrums that medication cannot cure or control. Talk therapy is somewhat effective but only as a maintenance. Despair is its own miserable evil that sucks the light out of every window. It’s power cannot be underestimated.

two cups of coffee kind of day

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, Paranoia, psychosis

I am babysitting my niece because she is sick. I told her I am planning on making malted chocolate chip cookies and she looked at me funny. She never has seen me bake before. I still am undecided as to which kind of chocolate chips to use for baking these cookies. I might make two batches. One batch, I plan on substituting ½ cup of oatmeal for flour. I think it will come out good, least I am hoping it will. I have been watching my niece since early this morning and just had my second cup of coffee. I can’t be sleeping on the job. She is 9 and can do her own thing, but I still need to keep an eye and ear out for her.

Soon as her mother comes home, I am taking a long, hot shower. I am cold and stinky as I didn’t take one yesterday like I wanted to. I fell asleep soon after I published my blog and didn’t wake up till around midnight. I stayed up for a few hours until my meds knocked me out again. I didn’t mean to sleep so soundly but it just happened. I think if I had taken the alarm off for my meds I probably would have skipped my meds and slept through the night, possibly.

I emailed my psychiatrist this morning to tell her I am feeling less paranoid than I was last week and that I am feeling a little bit better. She wants me to keep her informed, so hence the email. I think the increase in the trilafon has helped me. I no longer feel like people are watching me all the time. And my stress levels have been down, though they will be up again tomorrow when I see my father. He better be satisfied with what I give him and not complain like he did last year. Otherwise, it will be the last birthday gift he ever gets from me.

I was talking with a friend today. His birthday was yesterday. I totally forgot to call him so I am glad he called me today. He wants to have a get together with my friends that are south of Boston. The plan is to meet up on the 8th of April. I just hope that my leg pain is still nil and that I can walk without pain. He also wants to go to the Museum of Science because they have a Maya exhibit. I am a Maya freak. I have studied them while I was in college and find them fascinating. It will be interesting to see this exhibit. I have to find out if my sister is still a member of the museum so I can get in for free.

I have been reading more of the “Idiot” while I have been babysitting. I find the story interesting and I am wondering if I can write like Fyodor. I am totally in love with his style of writing. I just don’t think I can write fiction like he can. I am still thinking of writing up my story of the delusions but changing the names of the Goa’uld to something else so I don’t get in trouble for copyright issues. I think it will make a good short story. I will also have to change ISIS to something else. I am sure my brain can come up with something.

My sister went to the funeral today. It was sad and a lot of people went. I am not surprised. I have seen young peoples wakes and funerals be very long as they know a lot of people. My friend Danielle’s wake was like that. I must have been in line for at least a half hour before I even entered the room she was in. I was thankful the casket was closed because I would have lost it. I still feel the pain of her loss. We weren’t close as we lost touch over the years but we were good friends in high school. She died last year at the age of 37 from complications due to diabetes. Our whole class was heartbroken.

I think later today I am going to work on my psychosis story now that I have the brain power to do so. I just have to input the corrections I made while editing the story. It is cold out today so I don’t think I will be going out, especially after I had two cups of coffee at home. I am going to be wired for the day so need to focus my energy on something productive, like my writing. Maybe I can add the delusional thinking to the psychosis story and I don’t have to create a new document. There is an idea!! And with me adding to the story, it will be longer than three pages! Sweet.

One of my blogger friends posted a “get to know me” blog but it had over 100 questions. I don’t have the patience to answer over 100 questions. The last “get to know me” blog, I wanted it to be over after the 10th question. I might do it though, but now right now. I am still too paranoid to be putting myself out there.

I am still sad that my game is coming to an end. I have lost the will power to play but continue to play for those players that, like me, will be playing till the end. I have over 900 friends on FB, most of those are my gaming friends. Eventually I will weed them out. I already have deleted some that are annoying and are blaming Zynga for stupid shit. I understand they are upset but why attack someone that is not going to be paying attention to what you are fucking writing! Makes no sense.

I have started a new food shopping list on my phone so I remember what I have to buy for my cookies and for the month. Tomorrow I will have my sister’s car and I hope my LTD payment comes in so I can do the shopping. Otherwise, I am going to have to wait until possibly Thursday. I was thinking about getting the Galaxy S5 with this payment but I might wait until the S6 comes out. I will know then that the price of the S5 will go down. Only trouble is, they are being cryptic with the release date! Pisses me off when they just send you an email saying be on the look out and not give you a time frame for something. For all I know, it could be three months from now before the phone becomes available. I won’t be getting it, just want to know when the price will drop for the lower model. I am going to assume that the S4 will become free and the S5 will be $99. Least I am hoping this because right now it’s $200, even with my upgrade discount. And the only reason I am considering getting a new phone is because my phone keeps crashing apps, even if they are not in use! For example, my Walgreens app was crashing and I hadn’t used it in a few weeks. And now my contracts crashes after I look up a contact. It’s bad because sometimes I cannot close the crash report window in order to end a call. Just fucking stupid. But then I have had the same phone for almost three years. There is a new Nexus available but it’s like a tablet. I can’t imagine talking on the phone with something that big, not unless I was using a headset. The price for that phone is the same as the S5 so there is that. I just want to see it and play with it first to see if I like it. Unfortunately, when I was at the Sprint store, the model was “dead”, meaning it was a display model and not a “live” model like some of the other stores have. I actually prefer to go to the store in Brookline as I like their customer service better. I have always gone there with my phone issues and upgrades. But, we’ll see. I will wait for the S6 to come out before getting the S5. I just hope my current phone can endure the wait.