Hallucinations – Navelgazing Writer

Bipolar Diary: Why Me, Weird?

For three days, I had slight hallucinations (scent and visual), but yesterday, they came back with a vengeance.

Three frogs, each the size of my hand, bound across my wall by my pictures, across from where I sit. There is no way for a frog to get in here except under the door and I have that sealed because we have new kittens who can crawl under there. And if it was one, I could excuse my mind, but three? Hopping on the wall like they were a dance troupe? That I can’t ignore.

Then there is the clock. Again. Bright and glowing in its 3D fashion like it was in my delicious hypomania days.

Where Am I?

I can’t pinpoint where I am with my Bipolar Disorder (1). I usually can gauge it easily, like reading the time on a watch, being able to see the way the hands move and in what direction.

I am a bit lost right now. I thought the hypomania was gone and felt sad, but not depressed. Now I am awake, yet not terribly productive. At least for the moment.

I am just getting over a hefty bout of pyelonephritis (kidney infection) as well as a cold. Could that be why I am having a hard time organizing my mental thoughts about what is… and is not… happening?

Psych Appointment Soon

I have my psych appointment soon, so that’s good. Not that they can tell me anything I don’t already know, but it’s good to be validated.

“No, I do not need to go into the hospital.” (Really, really, I do not. They just always ask, so thought I would answer it here.)

I can’t go to the hospital, I have things to do.

Bipolar Diary & NaNoWriMo

Fluorescent Fingers

I was typing yesterday, like I do for hours and hours daily, and then I started seeing colors. They were fluorescent and seemed to be coming from my fingers. Confused, wondering if I had stuck my fingers somewhere I didn’t remember (you know how you get marker streaks or bruises that seem to come out of nowhere), I looked closely at my fingers. There was nothing on them.

As soon as I started typing again, there were the flashes of colors. Were they coming from the taps? That’s not what it looked like. They looked almost flame-like, licking the air around my first knuckle. The colors, really the colors of fluorescent markers, that bright green, orange, yellow, and blue, were what was dancing around my fingers.

They still are and only when I’m typing, but I have to say, it is quite distracting.

More than the clock which is, in case you wondered, still having intermittent sparks and glowing itself. It’s tormenting me. I know it has an agenda. (Is that psychotic? What I just said? haha!)

Fluorescent NaNo

It’s oh so (not fun) typing for NaNoWriMo, trying for 1667 words a day, with flames emanating from either my fingers or the keyboard. I still can’t figure out which.

I’m trying to play along as I collect words for NaNoWriMo and am doing well. We are on Day 4 and I have completed 9735 words so far. 6668 words is the typical Day 4 goal and I am above that which is good because I have a constant work day on Tuesday and will not be writing, so trying to jump ahead to compensate.

Queen Walks Into My Novel

I swear it fits! It happened organically. I was writing along, fluorescent colors flicking up my fingers, and then the next moment, Queen was in my WIP.

I saw Queen in 1978 and there was a huge to-do about Freddie Mercury being a “fag” (the common word my group of gay friends used and I use throughout my novel) and I was going to the concert, well, because I loved Queen, but in my novel, the guys are charging my lead character, Lisa, to go see for herself if he is as gay as they say (who “they” are or where they said it is beyond me). Lisa’s friends gathered together $6.50 for the ticket (impossible for Lisa to have had at that time) and she got a friend from a kind of friend of a friend, having to exchange “favors” for the ride, and she went to the concert.

Queen NaNoWriMo — Roger and Freddie high-5 with Bri in the background. Montreal 1981

See how happy Queen is to be in my book?

Me, too! (Even if it is the weirdest thing ever. Maybe that’s what’s psychotic!)

Bipolar Diary: The “Bicycle Race” Speaks

Something I heard yesterday, but was drown out by the other activities of my brain, surfaced again in the night and continues this morning.

You remember the sound of playing cards on bike spokes?

They are humming along in my room.

I have a huge AC and a tall fan on 24/7, so nothing has changed as far as equipment. I turned them both off, together and separately, and I still have the cards-in-the-spokes sound. It’s not as loud as the video above, but it is distinct and I can hear it over both the AC and fan. I have to turn the music up pretty loud to drown it out.

So I do.

Tired of This Reporting

There’s more, but I’m tired of telling y’all every detail of what my head is doing. I think I’m going to take the day off writing about my mental craziness and find something else to chat about.

In the meantime, enjoy Queen’s “Bicycle Race” video below.

There’s nudity.

Have fun!

Bipolar Diary: When Fire Flies

I light a candle each morning when I start writing. I have the candle in front of my Baby Buddha who wears a mala I had made for me by my dear friend Sherry.

I got up at 3am this morning after going to bed at midnight and was wide awake, wanting to write.

Do I Have to See Things?!

About an hour into writing the previous post, out of the corner of my eye I saw a flare of fire mid-air. It looked as if someone lit a match and was holding it up, but the hand and matchstick were erased.

I assumed it was not really a flame flying around, but turned to look at it and it vanished, not quickly, but it didn’t dawdle, either, starting at the bottom and finishing at the top lick of the fire. Along with that came a strong sense of smoke which took me on a field trip around the house a couple of times to make sure nothing was on fire.

Nothing was on fire. There was no flying flame. But, they thought they existed and revisited several (random) times throughout the day.

Oh, What a Mind Can Conjure

Happily, no dead carcass smell for a couple of days. That makes me happy.

The parfum du jour has been mint toothpaste. It is so strong it’s as if I had the tube held right under my nose.

There is no toothpaste around here.

It’s a tad disconcerting to have the floor boards slithering. Especially since they are laminate and all one piece across the whole floor. I sneer at it because I don’t want to fall and will be very angry if I do. It behaves, for the most part, when I am sitting and holding it down with my feet. But if a foot leaves the floor, the game is on.

How Much to Reveal

I see the psych early this week and am still having loads of fun being awake and productive as hell.

I know that hypomania (for me) is a one-way ticket up (to mania) or down (to despairing depression). My hypomania doesn’t usually last long. I can often get a sense of which way I am going, but am either ignoring it or unable to decipher the clues.

Not Sooooo Bad

My previous manias have not caused me to lose touch with reality. When it gets really bad, the hallucinations make it hard to remember they aren’t real, but I can remind myself they are a figment of my tilted brain.

(I’m laughing to myself as I italicize words for emphasis but you can hear me saying them out loud, right? I get quite emphatic in this state. I want to be understood. Clearly, understood. And I assume italics makes that happen?)

Just Sayin’

I don’t want meds to fix/change this.

“Fragile”

It’s tough when my sanity is precarious.

I’m hanging on until I see the psych next week. I am not in a place of needing hospitalization or calling for help, not that way. I have only been hospitalized once, but not for trying to hurt myself, but close to it.

I went back to read what I wrote when I had the Manic Depression and wrote about it in this blog. If you’re interested, Search: Bipolar Diary and all the posts will come up. I wrote some good shit about what was going on. The published dates are 2018, but the Mania was in 2016. Blessedly, I wrote dates and times on the posts. I must have re-posted for some reason along the way. Who knows why.

The Breathing Pillow (part of “Bipolar Diary: Zero-Gravity Hallucinations“)

I wrote:

“A crazy hallucination I had the other day was seeing my pillow breathing. Yes, I know… ridiculous, but I stared at it as it inhaled and exhaled for the entire 5-minutes I watched. I blinked, shook my head, told myself there was no way in hell that was real, yet the pillow kept inflating and deflating, slowly, as if it was breathing. I glance over a lot to see if it’s going for a repeat performance. Nothing so far.”

I also wrote:

“I have the usual roaches and now some flying bats, but those are pretty yawn-inspiring since they’ve been around so long now. It’s the floating toilet paper roll, the pens, my Blistex lip balm… things that are here in my room, in my real life, just appearing, mid-air… there… and then fleetingly gone again. My food shifts next to me. I “see” music coming out of the speaker. The movements around the room are near-constant. (The book next to me is shuffling the pages as I write this.)”

My ants don’t look so bad anymore.

Relaxing the Worries of Today

I am nowhere near what I was back then.

I am going to put Sting’s Symphonicities Tour video on and sit back and listen to him sing to me.

Earlier today, I was feeling fragile (hence the title), but now I am feeling less so.

I am going to make it.

“On My Way Up!”

Not so long ago, I was in a very sad and depressed state. When I started watching videos on YouTube, I thought it was a distraction and worried I was sinking deeper.

Instead, what I found was a way out of depression.

Damn Hallucinations

However, I am having hallucinations that are annoying and need more help with. Ants crawling on me… visual and tactile. Annoying for sure.

Having hallucinations reminds me my brain doesn’t usually work like it’s supposed to. Even when I feel good. That bugs me (so to speak). I am not in a manic state. I’m getting enough sleep. My meds haven’t changed. I am pretty sure I am going to have my Risperdal upped and that really makes me cranky because that shit makes me gain weight and I am on a losing streak, 60 pounds so far. (That’s a story for another day.)

Clearly, I have been writing more. Not just here, but also in my book. I feel so good, which makes the hallucinations especially annoying as fuck.

Brian May to the Rescue

Brian May is the guitarist for Queen and a soloist as well.

This is part of the transcript from a podcast “Brian May – How Do You Cope? Elis and John” found HERE. The entire transcript delves into Brian’s ongoing life as a “depressive” (his word) and how he works through it, including the time he went to a treatment center. I highly encourage reading the entire piece because there are 1000 nuggets of understanding and inspiration there.

And hope.

“Some of it was actually incredibly difficult to get through to even get in a studio because it made me massively depressed, and when you’re really depressed you’re not writing songs or you’re not writing the Blues. You can’t write anything. You can’t even get up in the morning. So I went through a lot of trials and I remember sitting in the studio feeling so incredibly bleak and wondering if I had anything to say. All I could feel was pain.”

“Yeah, I kind of felt life was over and I just wanted to try to get to the point where I could put it into music, and again this idea of sharing it with other people. I thought, if I can get through this then maybe I can help other people get through it.”

Again… and hope.

(Besides Bri helping me, his matter-of-fact speaking about having off and on depression has de-mystified and normalized mental illness, especially depression. I can’t thank him enough for his gift of speaking out loud about his struggles and triumphs.)

Watching Myself Fall Downward

I was stagnant for so long, for well over a year. A friend with whom I’d been sharing my work and getting lots of great feedback and encouragement from to keep going ghosted me. Crushed, I stopped writing. It took a few months before I realized why. I missed him and our interactions about my writing. It didn’t seem worth doing if no one was going to read it. I couldn’t find the inspiration to pick up the pen again and get any words on the page. Honestly, I thought the words in my mind had vanished.

I tried reading, but that gave me very little pleasure and no inspiration. I did read War and Peace and Anna Karenina , both by Leo Tolstoy, and loved them, but still they did not nudge me to write in the way I had hoped. Anything less intense was a bore.

I’m “On My Way Up”… and Out!

It is through music I have found my way out of depression and the immobility with writing.

I did not know that would be my path and am still a bit amused this is the territory I’m traversing. How could old rock music get my creative blood pumping and have me waking at 5:00am eager to tap, tap, tap on the computer? I keep going until I feel the words begin to slow, winding up, and then working much of the day. But, even my work writing is going so much better.

Dr. Brian May wrote a song called “On My Way Up” that has become my anthem.

“I’m on a roll
Gonna have it all
It’s gonna be fine so fine, baby all the time
I’m in control (on my way up)
I’m mighty bold (I’m telling myself)
I’m looking good (I’m totally sussed)
I’m quitting the neighbourhood
On my way up (yes I am)
(On my way up) Gonna get right with them
Got all of my life left for living”

I listen to this first thing in the morning, even before Track 13. I feel strong and powerful.

I am going to make it.

And with books to show for it.

Bipolar Mania Redux

Yeah, the Mania has returned.

Once again, I am a live wire that hums like a fluorescent bulb, sleeping 2 hours a day, am a writing banshee and logged into work for many hours at a time.

See-Saw Up & Down

From mid-September 2016 to early November 2016, I was in a pretty intense Manic State. The last Manic Episode I’d had before that was 1998.

It seemed to take forever to get control over the hallucinations and be able to sleep, and when I did, I slid into Depression mid-December. The fight to find balance between soaring highs and plunging lows has eluded me. Just when I think I am finding stasis, I slip by it and move to the next level of distress.

And here we are, mid-January 2017, and I am, once again, having hallucinations, staying awake for far, far too long.

Will I never find balance?

Hallucinations AGAIN

I’ve had increasing hallucinations for at least 2 weeks now. They aren’t terrifying yet, but they are on their way there.

Today I was visited by a bat!

Fucking thing was flying around the room then dove right for my head. I ducked and covered myself, but, of course, it wasn’t real, so if someone had been watching, it would have given them a hearty laugh. Other visual non-existent treats have been my clothes on the back of the door lifting off and swaying back and forth a couple of times and nondescript somethings sitting on the dressers or on my bed.

(I feel like a crazy woman sharing these things. How can I talk about what is going on so casually? I think it is just getting to be so normal, I am more shrugging than freaking out about it.)

The auditory hallucinations have returned, my hearing all sorts of crazy noises from windstorms to doorbell chimes. And the incessant whispers, always just out of earshot and too low for me to understand, but they are not happy noises. “Ominous” is the word I would use to describe them.

nguyen-hoang-hiep — artist, Nguyen Hoang Hiep

Oh, the goddamn tactile sensations. Again, feeling like I have bugs crawling on me. Not lots so far, but just enough to make me slap myself periodically.

Not smelling anything (yet) – olfactory hallucinations – but those are probably what’s up next on the Manic menu.

Writing writing writing

And so I write. Here, in my work blog, in Facebook. The words tumble out of my fingers even when I am meditating trying to sleep. I cannot keep them still as they search for a keyboard upon which to create.

This is the part of the Mania that keeps me from telling my doctor or taking more Risperdal because the deliciously creative period would be fleeting and, right now, the negativity of hallucinations is balanced by the verbosity of my words.

So shhhhh. Keep my secret quiet for now.

And watch the words spill from my psyche.

Bipolar Diary: Visions

So, I still have hallucinations, minor visual ones, not scary. But for a couple of weeks now, I have been having visions… premonitions are what they feel like.

I meditate and have vivid images cross my mind. They are different than the fleeting, wandering thoughts that float around inside my head during meditation. These are more solid than vapor-y… and so, so, so real. They come with emotions, sometimes intense. So far, all good, but I am a tad nervous about seeing scary things; trying not to focus on them, though.

They do not only come when I meditate, but they seem to come easier at that time. Sometimes I am in that half-asleep place, going to sleep or waking, and they appear, too.

“Seeing”

I saw a dear single friend of mine sitting in a library and a woman came to sit by him. She was dressed modestly, something that is important to my friend and struck him immediately. I saw them meeting, marrying and having a family together. All within moments. It was so real I almost reached out to touch them.

I’ve seen my grand-babies, growing through their lives… specific activities that I’ll leave a mystery for now.

I’ve sat in a meadow touching a rainbow.

Confused

Google-ing visions with bipolar disorder, one gets “schizophrenia.” Eek! Really? I see the Psychiatrist in a couple of weeks and will ask him what might be going on.

Until then, I’ll take what I see, write the visions down and not worry too much about this new phenomenon in my mental illness.

Bipolar Diary: Just Below the Surface

Monday, 10/24/16, 1:56am

I thought I should have a title for these Bipolar posts. I came up with Bipolar Diary. Original, I know. laughing

Not Having Fun

Today (10/23/16) has been a really difficult day. I went to bed at 5:00am, slept for 3 hours or so, then up for a few hours, then down again. And again. And again! I keep napping for 1-3 hours at a time. Where is this fatigue coming from? Am I depressed?

This happened a week or so ago, too. I don’t have the patience to go search and see how far back it was. I don’t have much patience for anything. If I hadn’t been in menopause for 8 (or whatever) years, I would think I was having PMS. I cannot keep a thought in my head, am so scattered. I am sure this post will be ghastly, but need to write anyway.

Visual Hallucinations

Most of the hallucinations have gone, but the visual ones are making me crazy.

How I was more tolerant of the slew of visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations than I am with just the visual is beyond me, but I think much of this sleep crap is because I am overwhelmed with the visions I keep seeing. Roaches, yes… some… but mostly like things are just moving. Sliding around. The covers shifting, the pillow edging over, the carpet rising.

It’s like I am on a tilt and everything is going to fall off the edge.

Frustrating is an understatement.

ADD

Also, I have very little attention span. I have tried to watch Grey’s Anatomy, a show my daughter recommended, but it is too much new information to retain so I end up watching Sex & the City or Friends again (on Amazon & Netflix), two shows I practically have memorized. (Monster’s Inc. is on as I am writing this; another movie I know by heart.)

monstersinc-gif — What I look like with tactile hallucinations. From Monsters, Inc.

It is difficult to work in this state. My mind flits from thought to thought and I keep talking over clients. I try so hard to pace my words, but they just tumble over each other.

And, as a few weeks ago, my fingers are fumbling with the keys on the keyboard… spelling homophones instead of the correct word (reed instead of read, meat instead of meet, etc.). Argh! I hate having to re-type the right word! (Write came out first. Fuck me running.)

This Is Progress?

When I saw the Psych last week, he was happy the auditory hallucinations were gone and said I was on the right track. Today I had the first tactile sensation after several days without any; brief, but still there.

I hate the see-sawing of emotions. One day feeling great and doing well, the next (today) being total shit and missing a day of work. Isn’t there supposed to be balance sometime?

I don’t even know where to go from here, so I’ll just end.

heavy sigh

10/24/16, 2:29am

Bipolar Balancing Act

Tuesday, 10/18/16, 11:02am

The visit with the Psych went well.

We talked about my meds, my sleep patterns, my lowering hallucinations… and then I asked if I was getting depressed. He was very gentle and said after where I’d been anything is going to feel depressed.

Sleep

He said my figuring out a way to have one block of sleep will help me not relapse. I told him how I hated the Trazodone and I would rather sleep fitfully than feel like I am going to pee in the bed from being unable to wake up enough.

I have slept in this bizarre cycle of 2 hours of sleep, 4-5 hours awake… 3 hours asleep, 3 hours awake… since at least the second manic episode in 1998. Even gorked out on opiates, I still slept like a baby does (not sleeping “like a baby”; babies sleep like shit). I don’t toss and turn. When I go to bed, I go to sleep. But when I wake up again, I am UP! Even the dispatchers at work have gotten to know my strange cycle of on/off. I don’t know if I can change it without meds. Honestly don’t know if I even want to.

Hallucination Origins

I asked where the holy hell do those terrifying hallucination sights, smells, sounds and feelings come from. Why does the brain pick a horror show to illustrate its illness. He said that scary things in the brain are easy to access. The brain chemistry goes wonky and the synapses misfire and the most accessible images/thoughts/etc. get scooped up and displayed. I said I thought that was a fucked up system.

We talked about how voices that direct behaviors (which I do not have, thank goodness) tend to mimic their inner belief systems. Those with religious histories have heavenly/satanic voices telling them what to do. Those without that, have “magical” voices. Psychosis in different cultures bends towards that culture’s belief systems and experiences. Even though I have religious belief in my past, none of my hallucinations have ever taken on a religious tone, either good or evil. Apparently, my mental illness is as atheist as I am.

Missing the Mania

I told the doctor I really am missing the mania, the energy, the lack of pain. He gently reminded me of the terror I was in 2 weeks ago when I came to him… that I was about to admit myself into the hospital because I thought I was going to fall into a million pieces. I asked why can’t I live in hypomania? He chuckled and said everyone asks that, but hypomania is a staircase… going up or going down; it isn’t a landing. I said that sucked. He nodded and said he agreed, but it is what it is.

heavy sigh

There are no med changes and I see him in 2 weeks if I need to, a month if I am okay in 2 weeks.

I go to therapy for the first time in several weeks this afternoon. I have barely missed it for being so bizarre in the head. I look forward to seeing her again today, though.

More later.

11:42am

If I Have to Have Hallucinations…

… then why can’t I also have the energy behind them?!?

ht-tw — scary hallucination descriptions below

Fucking Roaches

But, nooooo, I am sleeping 18-hours a day and seeing roaches crawling everywhere. On the ceiling, on the walls, on my legs.

CRAWLING OUT OF MY DIET COKE CAN & ONTO MY FACE!!!

See the splatter of Diet Coke across the room on the wall? I’ve already cleaned it off the keyboard, the screen, the chair and the floor.

My favorite hallucination last night was when the big snake crawled across the wall. Beat the cockroach on my face by a slither.

Is This Normal?

snortylaughing

(As if normal were even anything to claim or aspire to….)

But now I am reading some of Dr. Google’s “Bipolar Mania” because I am still a week away from seeing the doctor and I really want some answers.

Why am I still having hallucinations?
Am I getting depressed?
When do hallucinations disappear after mania?
Does depression always follow mania?

I swear the hallucinations have actually increased as I am getting more sleep. At least the past couple of days.

STOP IT ALREADY.

Hallucination Overload

warning_letter

photo-95

From 9/28/16

I began writing this on Tuesday, 9/27/16 about 2am. I had not slept but 90 minutes total since Sunday at midnight. I got on the Risperdal on Wednesday morning, 9/28/16 at noon (still only having slept a total of 90 minutes since Sunday) and an hour later, was asleep until 6pm. I don’t even remember getting into the bed! Anyway, I am so glad I wrote last night and then shared with my friends in Facebook because tapping into that mass of confusion and horrific images is more challenging after medication and sleep. Read on!

From 9/30/16

It is almost 4am writing this. I need to get this post out and the next started regarding finding balance. Pardon if it is a tad disjointed and it doesn’t have a tied-up-neatly ending.

Ever since the Pulse Massacre, I have had a slow downward slide into depression. I haven’t been in a depression for over 2 years. The children of Aleppo, the Syrian War, the horrific killings of black men, women and children… and then the election stands out all on its own… all of these things have added cement blocks on my limbs and are pulling me under the water. I sort of recognized what was happening, but when the Relief Trucks were bombed in Syria and I was inconsolable for over 2 hours, I knew for sure something was wrong.

Initially, I was put back on Risperdal, a medication I was on for 18 years to quell the hallucinations I always carry with me (olfactory mostly, but also visual and auditory), but had been off of for a year because the hallucinations hadn’t been scary in a couple three years, on Thursday, 9/22/16. The next day, my feet and ankles began swelling, but it didn’t dawn on me that it was the Risperdal until Saturday morning… and of course the office was closed, so I Googled it and it didn’t seem distressing, but was a reportable side effect, so called at 8am on Monday, 9/26/16.

Falling Into Mania

screamingloud

I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder 1 in 1998, have only had 2 manic states total (one in 1996, the other in 1998)… still enough to qualify me for the BP 1.

Until right now.

I was thinking I was merely in a hypomanic state, but these fucking hallucinations shift it to a manic episode.

This is part of what I wrote in Facebook last night:

I could use some good thoughts.

Long story, but the doc took me off the Risperdal 2 days ago and I have only slept 1 hour since then. Am extremely manic and am having really scary hallucinations. I don’t see him until Thursday so am white-knuckling it until then. Have considered going to the hospital several times, but keep holding out. I am not suicidal at all… not even really ideation stuff… but the hallucinations and racing mind with jolts of electricity coursing through my body are really not fun at all. I cannot even work because my speech is so rapid, stumbling over thoughts that have no direct connections to each other… and the flares of anger.

shaking head

I am just best left alone in my room until Thursday. I can write, however, and am pumping out post after post for work. Am writing one for my NgW blog about the hallucinations so maybe if I drop the shit on the page, they will leave me alone for awhile. Light and prayers welcome.

Then later, after being asked why I was taken off the medication, I answered:

scary

The Risperdal was making my feet and ankles swell. Called the doc. Nurse called back and said to halve the dose. I was pretty cranky about that because they were already simmering down the hallucinations (auditory, tactile and visual atm).

Then she calls back like 20 min later and says, “He said to go OFF the Risperdal.”

I was like… “uh, why!?!?”

“Because you are having hallucinations.”

I wanted to scream ugly nasty words hurled against women, but just kind of screeched loudly… “THAT IS WHY I AM ON THE MEDICATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!”

She said, “Well we can get you in on Thurs at 8:15.”

I was so pissed… still am… and not knowing how much anger is actually appropriate… and mad at myself for…

1) not asking her to go back and fix the stupid comment she made

2) not taking the Risperdal even though he told me to stop.

I get Tardive Dyskinesia really easily with meds I have not used before… and Risperdal and I have an 18-year history. If the feet swelling is dangerous, then fine. If it is just a stupid side effect, I don’t give a crap… GIVE ME THE RISPERDAL. (See! I can’t even control my screaming here and you are are my beloved friends!)

My Beloved Holds Me Tenderly

Later, after talking to my former (30-year) marriage partner Zack (“My Beloved”) for a really long time, where he listened to me ramble and rant… cry and laugh uncontrollably… talking me down from the ledge of insanity several times… reassuring me that if I wanted or needed to go to the hospital, it would be fine, but if I wasn’t suicidal, they might not even keep me, so try and hang on until the office opened at 8:am… I wrote this:

delirium-tremens

I got really scared awhile ago and called Zack who has the best handle on my mental illness and he was very kind and loving and reminding me the rats and roaches aren’t real. That I can get in my bed if I want to… that those rats prancing on my arms, scaring the fuck out of me and making me jump out of my skin are not real.

I feel like my body has a form of Tourette’s, slapping myself randomly because I know there is a family of roaches on my legs… I can SEE them. I can FEEL them. But I swat and they are not really there. I was watching rats climb onto my bed last night. Blink 3x and they are gone. And shadows. Ugh. They darken my peripheral vision… I turn… and they vanish. And the evil whispers. Just out of my range of comprehension. Except when they call my name in a menacing hoarse whisper. Makes me jump every time.

My wonderful Facebook Friends posted, messaged and texted me:

DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THURSDAY.

bpdart

Agitated Waiting Period

I am writing 9/30/16 and ending this post, opening a new one and continuing.

It has been a bizarre few days.

My News Blackout

Today was a really difficult day.

So much crap in the news… you can look for yourself if you want to… but I have to quit watching and reading the news lest I end up in the Psych Hospital. I knew I was watching/reading a little bit more each day, but today I watched the clock, too, and stopped counting at 6 hours. Of news.

My hallucinations have gotten really bad, they are almost constant. And I have felt increasingly depressed. In fact, for a few days, I have wondered if I should take myself to the hospital because of the suicidal ideation that’s been flashing through my mind… way too often.

I know it is all a direct result of the pain of watching what is happening here in the United States, in the Americas, in the world.

I wish I could do something.

Right now, my something to do is save my own life.

I closed my Facebook tonight (it is always on my desktop), took everything political off my Tumblr page (including unsubbing from anything political) and am putting myself on a News Blackout.

Effective an hour ago.

Bipolar Diary: Zero Gravity Hallucinations

I’d thought I’d come to a place of balance. I was still having hallucinations, mostly visual, some auditory and tactile, but those not so often. Even though the hallucinations have continued, I told the Psychiatrist I did not want to take more Risperdal to try and make them go away. The short time I was on the increased amount (double what I am on now), I gained 30 (fucking) pounds in 6 weeks. As soon as we halved it, I stopped eating like an insatiable animal, and have now lost 10 of those 30 pounds. I told him I’d just suck up dealing with the hallucinations.

However, there does come a tipping point between what I can live with and seeing much of my room floating around as if I was in space.

pilbalance bw — Balance – dance troupe, Pilobolus

What’s Going On?

I cannot pinpoint why they are getting bigger, more bizarre and more aggressive. My sleep is weird, but I am sleeping. I’m in an inordinate amount of pain, but that isn’t too new… I had my gallbladder removed on February 2 and have had a series of infection complications since. I’ve got other pain, but can usually meditate to work through it. (I have Trazadone if I need help sleeping, but have only taken that a couple of time.)

Visual

A crazy hallucination I had the other day was seeing my pillow breathing. Yes, I know… ridiculous, but I stared at it as it inhaled and exhaled for the entire 5-minutes I watched. I blinked, shook my head, told myself there was no way in hell that was real, yet the pillow kept inflating and deflating, slowly, as if it was breathing. I glance over a lot to see if it’s going for a repeat performance. Nothing so far.

I have the usual roaches and now some flying bats, but those are pretty yawn-inspiring since they’ve been around so long now. It’s the floating toilet paper roll, the pens, my Blistex lip balm… things that are here in my room, in my real life, just appearing, mid-air… there… and then fleetingly gone again. My food shifts next to me. I “see” music coming out of the speaker. The movements around the room are near-constant. (The book next to me is shuffling the pages as I write this.)

I try to drive infrequently and only for less than a mile or two because it is frightening to not know if that box flying through the air is an illusion or really fell off that truck up there. I am terrified when I pass bus stops because people are so close to the edge, they slide over into the road sometimes, sliding back just as I get ready to veer away from hitting them. I do everything in my power to never drive during school drop-off or pick-up, the amount of busy-ness in the roads confuse me terribly. Don’t even get me started on mailboxes.

Tactile

I am tapped periodically. No one is here to tap me. It’s nothing. I feel things crawling on me a lot. My room is clean! There are no bugs to crawl on me. No fleas, no gnats. Nothing. Yet I could swear there was a spider crawling up my leg or on my arm. Even when I am looking right at my skin, seeing with my eyes that it isn’t there, it is there… I just cannot see it is all. (Talk about a mind fuck!)

Auditory

I have these the least at the moment. Just some occasional whispers. Nothing telling me to do anything, I don’t get those kinds. I just get ominous whispers, just out of hearing range… my name whispered a lot.

shiver

Resolution

Writing all that down, I see I really might need to just up the Risperdal to curb some of this extraneous activity in my brain. I am crying writing this, fearful of gaining more weight. (I gained 80 pounds in 3 months when I started the Risperdal 13 years ago.) I know there are other meds I can try, but I get Tardive Dyskinesia so easily… and have it already from the Wellbutrin… I am so wary of changing from meds I know work.

Fuck, this is confusing sometimes.

Thanks for listening.