Poetry

I was just deciding which way I was going to handle this last few days. Seems I can't shake off the feeling that everyone in the world can hear me. I know they can't see me though...I could actually muster up the nerve to walk around the house nude. Felt good.

I'm stuck in a delusion
Can't find my way out
Back to the real world
From this schizophrenic bout.

The voices they linger
Deceptive is the tone
Relentless and constant
When I am alone.

Got caught by a customer
Talking to myself
Yelling at the voices
To get the h*#l out.


Lord, what a week. As the week gets longer and longer...I had to work 6 days this week. The voices got louder and louder. And at times were very hurtful...even though they were lying. I have been having some gross intrusive thoughts...out of the blue something gross will go through my head. It might be because I read that schiz's can have sexual feelings suddenly for no reason...it's a part of feeling things that aren't there. I feel "twinges" for a few seconds then it goes away. I think it is gross because I am honestly not desiring any the to do with sex at the time.

The voices have also been quite insulting lately. Which keeps me in an attitude but then I decide I won't let it bother me...I didn't say so...there!!!

I forgot to call Cory this week...

Then, there is also the me that is afraid my kids won't love me if I don't call for a week. Sometimes, I just need time to get through the schiz days without too much emotion.The schiz days are the days when the voices won't stop bothering me and my mind. My mind gets so racked with them that doing too much of anything is a huge trigger for more problems. There are just some days that I have to do the things I have to do...like work..and just try to get through the schiz symptoms throughout the day as best I can. I supposed I should tell Cory about it and talk to him. It is just that if I add emotions to hearing schiz voices then it turns into one big auditory hallucination...I went from hearing a voice telling me that I don't love my kids, which is by thr way totally absurd and I won't pay much attention to it...to it becoming a whole auditory hallucination that the voices (note the word "voices") are saying things like "the reason your kids won't love you is because my kids love me and you are the opposite" and then a voice that says "My kids lived so that means your kids die in a car wreck". And it goes on and on from there. "then the voices try and PROVE to me that that is how the world works by saying something like "I'm happy, so now you are sad" And when I began to take an inventory of my feelings I realize that I am sad. So now it SEEMS as though the voices ways are working...and this is when I REALLY start to get paranoid. And I hear this stuff ALL THE TIME!!! It is just awful to hear stuff like this all the time...no wander I have major depression.The voices tell me if I wear black that means someone I know is gonna die. And the shirt I have to wear for work is a black smock...more paranoia. I can't believe I work like this...this stuff is constantly there. But that is just what is going on now...but with the Geodon it helps me to realize that it is not real and I don't live in an unreal place...work is real, Cory is real, Mel is real...And that basically I understand that my voices are full of CRAP. BUt I still hear it and though it doesn't bother me so much that I get depressed and suicidal anymore....it does bother me. It brings me down that I can't function like a normal human being. That even at work I always have SOOO much going through my head and have to try and concentrate on work also. It is HARD, Damn Hard!!!

It's a damn good thing...

...That I am not paranoid of the police anymore because the police have been trying to call us all day. Nothing bad, I'm sure...but...weird. I heared the phone ring earlier today and I looked on the caller ID to see who it was and it said "UKNOWN CALLER" so I didn't answer the phone thinking it was a telemarketer and left it ringing. Well the "UNKNOWN CALLER" has called several times today. So this time I answered and the voice on the other side said..."This is the Alabama State Patrol Office and I would like to speak to William". William is my husband's first name. Apparently, it was a "courtesy" call and he will call back later when Mel is awake. OOPS!

After those two first times of "hearing things", I didn't hear much more for a few years. I got married and was with Larry for 5 years. You know, it is a wander I wasn't hearing stuff then. Larry was physically abusive, you would think that would've brought it all on. But the next time I remember "hearing things" was after I met David. I fell in love with him and then learned he was a drug addict. I was only nineteen when I met David and turned twenty years old when I started using methamphetamines (Krank). If I remember right, one of the first times I had ever used "krank" I started seeing things. But it was just a time or two later that I began "hearing voices". It started with the radio one night...it played a new song by Robbie Nevel and to me it sounded like someone I went to school with. The radio asked "why did you cut your hair?". I had of course just gotten it cut a day or two earlier. I was shocked! There was no reason for that song to suddenly talk about hair. Then the radio said "I can see you from here." A few minutes went by and I started cleaning the kitchen. Then the radio said "You have to clean it within so many minutes or you'll get busted". Then after I got done with the kitchen...I was cleaning it as fast as I possibly could...I sat down because I was tired. The radio said "You have to clean the rest of the house, too. Get up or you will get busted". This went on and on ... and from there on out I was lost. Lost into a whole new world...that I believed everyone knew about but they never really discussed it. It was like we were not allowed to talk about it. No one would acknowledge the "orders" that they were given by "the power". The people had to do certain things to hurt me in order to get their "running medicine". "Running medicine" was this power that gave you the energy that never made you tired. You ran around and got things done and never got tired of it and anybody would do anything for it.

After a few years of this...I quit the drugs. I couldn't take it anymore. A voice told me or ordered me to "Put it down!!!". I knew it meant to quit the drugs. So I did. I quit for four years. And it quit. I didn't hear anything else for about four years. I had been drinking though. I took, literally, two drinks out of a beer on Thanksgiving Day in 1995 and left my house to go to the store to use the pay phone. I had a wreck soon after I left the house. I ended up ok but I hit my head on the windshield pretty hard. Cracked the windshield into about 25 split cracks. I started hearing voices after that. Without drugs. I believe it was right after that wreck..no more than a couple of days later. The voices went through the television, radio and when I turned them off and made it totally quiet in the house....then they went straight through my head. I could hear them inside my mind. They sounded like other people "thinking" straight to my brain. And that is where the grand delusion of "brain linking" was started. ....................See I know it is a delusion and a hallucination and it is my MAIN one but I can't stop it from happening. Everytime I forget about the voices and schizophrenia something will go through my mind like that and I am back to square one. It is like it won't let go of me. .......................Some voices have names and I have prayed to God to please stop this voice named "so and so" from talking to mee and it has stopped. And I have sat down and wrote in my diary about some delusions and they have stopped...but no matter what I do I can't get this delusion out of my head!!!!

The very first times

I remember the first voice I heard. It was the TV talking directly to me. I was looking for something in the living room. I was about 14 years old. I turned to look at a shelf in the living room of my parents house and the TV said "Yeah, it's right over there". I giggled because it was one helluva coincidence that the tv would say that at that exact time. Then it said "What? Don't you know we can see you?". I turned and looked at the television set. Then it said "You are standing in the living room". And then that was it. I left the living room and went back to my room and forgot about it later. I was a teenager and I had teenage problems. Dilemma's.The next time I heard something I was in Calhoun, GA, lighting a cigarette in the laundry room. No television, no radio...I heard a voice say "I am your best friend". I guess they knew I didn't have many friend's in Calhoun. I told Mama about that voice right after it happened. I was about 14 or 15 then. I wander if that was the very beginning. I remember before then being compulsive that my stuff toys were "comfortable". That meant that they couldn't be lying down on something hard and if it was cold they had to be covered up..just like the girl in "Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl".

One day

I am going to attempt to blog down an entire day with Schizophrenia. Like, I was just outside smoking at 1:05 am in the morning (I have to stay up tonight to be at work at 4:30 amfor training) and I heard two voices...it went like this:

Female voice 1: "You smoke too much." Then I thought to myself "damn voices".

Female voice 2: "AAANT, annt, aaant" as if she were shooing away the first voice.

Female voice 1: "What are you going to do about it?" and I just thought to myself "about what the smoking or the voices?"

The first voice was off in the distance in front of me...the second voice was right below me- sounded as though it were at my feet.

Right then the voices didn't sound like much. They were just rattling off. But usually there is a whole theme around it. This theme is scientifically called an "auditory hallucination" because it is usually all connected as if it were a conversation instead of just rattling off like that.

Anyway, I am going to take my Pocket PC to work with me and note all the voices and hallucination that I have andd then write it up...A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIC....I think it needs to be done.

The increase...

Well, I can tell a difference since my doctor increased the Geodon from 120 mg to 160 mg. I am not forgetting stuff so much and I am not so paranoid that someone watches me in the shower. Boy, that was a bad trip. I would really get scared that people were watching me in the shower. But right now I can walk around the house nude...hehehehe. It makes a big difference to feel like you are alone enough to act normal. I feel free-er. WHEEW. Now if I could get shed of the voices and the roaring...I took some extra meds last night because the voices would NOT go away. It didn't work. So I guess in a couple of months we try Haldol. I told the doctor what all was going on and he asked "Do you still hear voices?" And I said "Yeah, I hear the voices all the time". And he said " I am going to incresae the dosage of Geodon...I know you couldn't handle it before but I think you can handle it now." I said "fine" but that I would not take two at the same time ...I would take one pill in the morning and one at night because I definately couldn't handle it at the same time...He said "Ok".

It's just that SO many schizophrenics are sympton free....that is what I want. I don't want to just have to put up with it. Damn, why does it have to be so tough? It feels like I know so many people that the drugs work for...and at first I couldn't tolerate the higher dosage but I really think it is because I took two pills at the same time. Anyway, I couldn't take the dosages so I felt like "this is it...I am gonna have to deal with the rest of the symptons the rest of my life and just tolerate those NASTY voices".

But maybe this time around...

I am gonna try something else...

I am going to try to train my brain. Since the voices get pretty bad if I pay them any attention...I am going to try to not pay attention to them. They have seemed to get real loud the harder I work. Learning to focus on things that are real might help more...in fact I know it will help..I just can't seem to concentrate on anything once the voices start.

Last night, they were saying "remember when we called you the 'bride of frankenstein'?" And that made some of the things I have been through make sense. Before I met Mel the voices kept saying that I would get married. I never believed it because I didn't think I would ever want to get married again. But then they would call me the soon-to-be 'bride of franstein' andbeing called a monster from the voices is a compliment. The voices claim to be the opposite most of the time. After they said that last night I got to thinking and then I was lost again...inside a delusion. It's easier to ignore them when they don't make sense.

But anyway, I will try to barely ackowledge them for what they are...just voices.

I am hearing loud voices at work...they claim to be raising hell. It sounds like it. But as soon as I got home they went away. I don't understand why they are doing this, but I guess, I just gotta deal with it. I can't tell if the medicine is doing much good or not while I am at work. It seems the busier I get the louder and the voices go. I just can't make myself believe that I am the only one who hears it.

We're okay today...

A few voices...about three...but it's not manic and not really depressing. I got alot done yesterday. I can't get to the schiz support group web board. The computer says it can't find the page. But I wanted to try and go a few days without it anyway. I wanted to see if I had become obsessed with the schizophrenia. I think I think about it so much that the symptons are returning. I should learn to live with it...not live it.

This is what I feel right now...

I am scared...I don't why...I am afraid to take a shower because I think people can see me. I will take a shower anyway and put myself through that trauma because I need to take a shower everyday. I want to get off the computer for awhile but I can't seem to do it. I am paranoid of undressing in the house. I feel like someone is linking to my head all of the time. I still keep saying to myself "no one can see you...no one can link..." but I still feel it. Alot of paranoia. I want to turn on my music and dance around the house like I use to. But I feel like something is stopping me from having any kind of fun. Like I am not allowed to have fun. Or the people I hear will take it away...don't get me wrong...I don't really believe any of this but I feel it.

So that is what is going on right now.

This disease

It has total control over me...you know, or you would think that even though I can "feel" things that might be suggested by my brain...you would think some things would be good. But lately, all I feel is fear and disorganization. Most of the time I feel like my brain is totally separate from my body. It is like it isn't mine at all. I am sure someone else stuck this brain on my body. Even though I am not scared...I feel scared. And I look around and there is no reason for it. I hate living like this. I will be in the middle of thinking about something...such as my pocket pc...and suddenly I'll get what the doctors called an intrusive thought...just a thought that runs through your mind whether you are really thinking about it or not. And sometimes I just can't shake it. It just sticks there like someone glued it on the inside of my head. Most of the time the intrusive thought is just nonsense but there are times that don't seem to be nonsense but it doesn't really matter...I don't care about the issue one way or another.

I got an intrusive thought yesterday about that girl that went off with those three guys on her trip...I was thinking of my pocket pc and some of its troubles when I got the thought. It just stayed and lingered in my head but I wasn't really wanting to pay attention that certain issue. It does seem to bother me a little though. You know....like what in the hell was that girl thinking? Or did one of those idiots slip her a drug. Someone said there might have been a drug called "Ecstacy" involved. But mostly the attitude I get from most people is that the girl put herself in that position...

Anyway, I seem to get a running start on some concentration then I get bobarded with intrusive thinking....I wanna scream "THAT'S ENOUGH!!!"

Today...

I was just sitting at the computer thinking that I couldn't handle things anymoree. I know that I am under alot of worry and that is the main reason for the schizophrenia relapse. But I was writing the prior post and suddenly felt a need to get away from the computer. Like I NEEDED to stay away from the support group and things in nature with schizophrenia. But I went to take my shower and suddenly I felt like I had been spending so much time thinking and dwelling on the schiz that I wasn't going on. Lately, instead of "going on living" with my disease I have just been trying to figure it. How can a schizophrenic "figure" out schizophrenia? There is no logical thinking...though I KNOW what is factually causing the relapse is stress and worry...I still tend to get voices telling me that it is what I deserve or I have schiz so my kids won't have it...and more unrealistic reasons why. Unrealistic reasons bother me and depress me.

So I am going to try to force myself to go on living WITH the disease instead of dwelling on it so much. I felt normal while I took a shower and was up and about doing things I needed to do in order to get ready for work...THAT IS REAL LIFE. Not all these feelings of doom... because this disease is making me not see the real reason for its existance within me. I am FEELING the things the voices are telling me...such as I feel like a low life because I deserve this isease because I hurt my kids. And the REAL reason is that I had this disease when everything happen and the things I heard back then were part of the disease also. And THAT IS THE REAL REASON everything happened the way it did. I KNOW THIS IS TRUE....but I still FEEL like a scum and that I don't deserve to live.

So I have this choice here....either I can go on and get ready for work and feel REAL and the truth...or I can dwell on this disease and feel what the voices think I should feel.

I'm feeling a bit suicidal...I really won't ever do that, I think. But I think I understand why some schizophrenic's kill themselves. It is also scary to know that the most common form of death of schizophrenics is suicide. It is because they FEEL it.

I am forcing myself through this last post...so that I can get these thoughts down while I am feeling them. I feel it is very important to do so. I think that is it...all I needed to say. Now I am going to go and live a real life and try to forget about being schizophrenic for awhile. I will let you know how it works out.... I got to get away from the feelings...

Oh, I am ok, though...I am having the thoughts but have no desire to go through with it. Which is usually how it seems to work with me. But I KNOW that once I quit dwelling on every little thing about this disease I won't have the thoughts either. SO untli next time...

The delusion played on...

Last night at work...the whole night...I was in a delusion. I can't say I was lost in it because I chose not to participate in it. By that I mean, that I let the delusion play out while I did my work and tried to ignore it. I had one voice that was stating almost everything that I was thinking and apparently the whole world could hear it. The voices got so loud last night that I was sure everyone could hear it. And I could SEE my customers remarking in their minds things about me. Things like "Well, at least she isn't violent". And then I could hear my doctor say "No, I don't think she is violent at all". They just kept on and on and when I walked around the store ...the voices would grow deeper or sound like they were roaring inside my head. As the sound of coolers and doors being shut went through my mind the sound changed and seem to go along with the sounds in the store. I just wanted to get through last night.

There is a physical reason for this ...it is that I had been awake since 4:00 am in the morning. I guess me being up for 21 hours would set things off. I managed to get through the night without making a mistake and I ended up 21 cents over on my drawer..the paperwork even came out right after all that nonsense. I know I said I would "step by step" a delusion through but I can't seem to remember how it started. I feel a little bit anxious today....hoping that it all won't start up again. This is the kind of feeling that keeps a lot of schizophrenics in the house and unable to function in other places. i pray that I won't end up like that. I don't wanna lock myself up in the house and go completely insane....I fear that the most. So far I have been able to function and I hope to keep it that way.

Something interesting about DID/MPD

Something most people don't realize about what I have, and something that makes treating me medically a little more challenging...thought I'd share it.

"Each identity within the same person may have unique neurological and physiological responses. For example, some identities may require glasses, while others have perfect vision: some identities are allergic to smoke, while others may be chain smokers: some identities are almost deaf, while others have exceptionally good hearing: different alters within one person will register unique electroencephalogram, electrocardiograph, blood pressure, and pulse readings. Alters may have different allergies and different ailments and unique responses to medications. One identity may be diagnosed with an ailment, but a different identity may be "out" when the medication is taken. In this case, the original alter isn't helped, and the receiving alter may have unfavorable side effects. Prescribing medication to survivors who are multiple should be done with special care and extra monitoring."

The bomb dropped!!

And now I am back inside my little insane world. I FEEL insane ...like I am losing it slowly. The mass confusion of the schizophrenia is back. No hallucinations, unless you count auditory hallucinations.

Cancer seems to have invaded my family. My Aunt Lisa and my husband. And to me it doesn't look very good. I have to take a deep breath everytime I think about it. It is so hard to take. And no one can promise me it'll be alright.

So the thoughts just real in my head. And some I feel could not possibly be MY thoughts. I talk to myself more now and feel this intense fear inside me...like I am going to lose someone. I am sooo damn scared I could hide in the corner with a comforter and not come out at all. The paranoia about the cancer and death is overwhelming. But the SERIOUS difference is that it is real. It is not a hallucination that I can mark up as being the schizophrenia and go on doing whatever I am doing. This is real. And I am terrified. I feel like I am either climbing a steep mountain with sharp rocks barefoot or like I am falling into a pit of that deep, dark, sticky tar that I can't pull myself out of.

Just then it suddenly didn't seem so bad. I still feel normal. But which is the schizophrenia...?

I have a system that I use to identify and deal with the paranoid schizophrenia. I identify each part of it as it runs as I go along. For example, if I am at work and suddenly get an "off the subject" thought or start to hear voices...I identify it as being a delusion with voices and it is part of the schiz. After I identify it it makes it easier not to listen or pay much attention to it and I go on functioning with no other thoughts about it.

I have identified my own sequence of events as the schiz runs it's course: It starts as a mere spontaneous delusion...then there are a view quick voices that don't make much sense. And if I ID them as being a delusion and voices, I quit paying attention and go on functioning. But if I spend just a few seconds on trying to figure out why I had the "thought" then it becomes a stronger delusion and I begin to get a rush of delusions that make me paranoid about the thought. Then if I am still paying attention it will become a much stronger delusion and go into becoming hallucinations...such as "seeing" people say the things to me that I hear in the form of voices. I can actually see the delusion become real to my eyes and in my mind. But I usually do pretty good by identifying the process and it usually never goes any further then a short thought...delusion.

The next time I have this sequence I will describe it in full, as wellas, describing what the actual delusion was....how it starte from first thought to full hallucination. It's almost like a lot of the times I can see myself go through it. It doesn't scare me anymore because of it.

Paranoid Schizophrenia...what a disease...disorder...disabling disease. Have they decided whether it is a disease or not. I think one article described it as being a disease that disables some brain chemistry. They have also said that in "pictures" of the brain...the brain with the schizophrenia looks different from the brain that is "normal". I think they are actually seeing what they want to see in those pictures.

I am over my deep, depression for the moment so I am guessing some of the way that I handle this "family health situation" is also running me a course of the schizophrenia. So, I am still not immune.