They spread like wildfire...

...the voices. They taunted, caught and kept my attention most of the day until Mel (my husband) called me this afternoon. Mel and I had an arguement about 4:00 am this morning and it was something he had gone on and on about most of the week and I cracked. I snapped. At first, I didn't say or do anything...no voices or any other symptons. I just went back to sleep. Then at nearly 9:00 am I woke up to voices that were naming my every move. Voices that were trying to rape me anally...I could feel every move....a tactile hallucination. The voices seemed to have to keep my attention or they would lose or "win" something bad. After a long and very frustrating 4 hours of this. I got a phone call from my husband saying that he apologized for this morning and that is when I got the message that one voice named David said he stole my "Good Feeling" away from me. SO I got mad and deep inside me I took myself back, as well as, my "Good Feeling" and began to put my clothes on and get ready for my husband. I just now realised that I am missing about 1 1/2 to 2 hours inside this delusion.
Part of the memory loss I have been experiencing for the last ...well, damn, I don't know how long...I've known about it for awhile now.

One psychiatrist told me I should put on my shield and I started thinking that I only have the yellow gold shield and that one must not be strong enough cause I could steal feel the rapist. I can't think of any metal strong enough to keep him out...I don't know about metals either. CAst Iron?

Anyway, today was a very emotional day. I stayed in the back room and when it is all over and done and I got to go outside...it was a beautiful day and I had missed it because I was so out of it. I've never been to the Mental Ward of a Hospital, yet. I wander what I do if I decide I have to go...I felt suicidal this time for a little while. I stared at my pills, a deep, long time. But what stopped me was I was going to Mama's tomorrow.

That's all for now....

Today, being a day.

I'm prettty shaky this morning, from the coffee, I guess. It has been rough these last few days with panic attacks and nervousness. A couple of times I was afraid to walk, this happened just a minute ago,also. just scared to walk, like my chair was the only thing holding me to sanity. I just took my medicine so most of this should go away. I was shaking bad...then it just stopped right after I took my Klonopin...that means I find my comfort in the pills. Knowing that I will feel somewhat normal soon. The psychiatrist, Dr. Scott, and my therapist, SHeila Walker are trying to get me to learn how to deal with these symptons without relying on the meds. I rely on the Klonopin when I have the attacks, I know this BUT, I rely on the Respiredal for the voices...it works like a miracle and I also rely on the Geodon for the delusions and hallucinations...so what the hell am I doing wrong but taking the medication I need to take. And these attacks, by the way, are not always panic attacks or anxiety attacks...they are more like a schizophrenic bomb went off in my head. There are ways they could find out if I was having panic attacks or whatever but they haven't offered to prove any theory. They told me also, that the physical goes along with the mental in most cases...such as...a schizophrenic might have a few days of voices and confusion and it be because he or she has a head cold. Maybe I should see a private psychiatrist.

Audio Hallucination

Before I knew what was happening the television said "I want to kill myself..". Then another voice on the television said "Just give it another 24 hours." This had nothing to do with the movie it was what I was hearing...an auditory hallucination. Then the first voice (who seem to be a man) said "I feel like I'm being punished for something." And I said "Like what?" The man went on and said "Conspiracy,..., I see faces, punishments..."He went on describing all the symptons I had went through with schiz...I thought he was making a joke out of it then...but I didn't say anything. Can't very well punch out the television set now can I?! Instead I said you are having symptons of schizophrenia and need to see a psychiatrist; the medicine will help you. And I left it at that deciding I was having an hallucination again. Boy, you try to help some people, whether they exist or not...oh well...intentions are good!11 Merry Christmas!!!

The small attack...Panic

I was sitting at the computer when an eerie feeling came over me. The feeling of terror and the beginnings of losing any control in my mind. It got deeper and the darkness of it seem to come over me slowly aaand more and more intense. I found it hard to breathe and I went into a sort of chaos in my mind...like nothing was right and something terrible was happening to me. I went to Mel (my husband) and he knew I was having another attack. So he sat me down on the couch in "my" corner of it and got me a blanket then layed down with me. When I get like this the huge pillows on the couch seem to comfort me and the feeling that serenity is fighting back against this attack. Mel would talk about something that is important to me and if I catch what he is saying I can bring myself around to feeling normal,but, if we stop talking for even a second I am right back where I was. I took my Klonopin and went through about 30 to 45 minutes of this terror before the med started working. Then complete calmness flows through me and then it is over.

Well, that was as bad as it got. :)

I'm relieved, I talked a couple days ago to my doctor and she said I should be over the worst of it by now, and I feel fairly normal really, as far as not crying all the time with no reason for it, and my moods are more stable, and the agressiveness appears to be gone (thank goodness for that, bad things were gonna happen.)

Maintenance dose...Paxil 40mg.

If this is as bad as it gets...

Then I'll make it through it. I feel generally lousy today..kinda flu-like (typical for stopping an SSRI) and queasy. Taking dramamine for the queasiness, ibuprofen for the soreness, and a prescription migraine med (Midrin) for the headache which did get really bad for a while but has calmed now. The depression is ok, better I think than on the Effexor. I think I was reacting to it negatively like I did with BuSpar, but with BuSpar I couldn't even walk, this wasn't that bad and neither is withdrawing from it, at least so far.

Today: Paxil 40mg, Effexor zero so far.

Well, I was warned. *Smiles Weakly*

When they tell you that Effexor withdrawal symptoms can hit within hours of missing a dose, they're not joking, nope, not at all. I just keep telling myself...it's gonna be worth it...it's not gonna last forever...I'm stronger than the medication...

Now if I actually believed the things I'm telling myself, it might help lol. Thank goodness for DID/MPD right now, it's actually helping me get through this in some weird way. But it's already begun and it's nasty and depressing and ugly.

I'm walking around moaning "Oh Long Johnson, Oh Don Piano"...which won't make any sense at all unless you've seen the talking cats video that's keeping me sane right now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV6DQuEh4UQ


Today: Paxil 40mg, Effexor stopped.

Goodbye, Effexor, Hello Again Paxil

I'm so scared about changing these meds even though I did ask my doctor for her permission to do it and she supports it, having seen today at my appointment that the depression is out of control...basically cried through the whole appointment even though there is NOTHING wrong! I'm not sad, upset, lonely, or anything, therefore I think it's all brain chemical related and these chemicals are not helping my brain. I'll have times nearly every day of crying for no apparent reason and they're really frustrating me. Life is actually peaceful, relatively, for once...why am I so miserable? Then I remember that I have inheirited a brain that probably is similar to my mother's brain, and isn't chemically balanced.

So far the best antidepressant for me has been Paxil, with Zoloft coming in second place.

But what I'm going to TRY to do is document the med change here on this blog, day by day.

Today: the feelings that led to the choice to change meds: Massive overwhelming depression with no rational or situational basis. Fantasies of dying in my chosen way. Fantasies of harming the property of someone who I don't really even know...and going so far as to go to a store to try to buy a large knife to do so. (which was basically the event that told me that it's time to change SOMEthing. Not being able to sleep, and then not being able to wake up, or not having a desire to actually get out of bed. Lack of hygiene and I'm not going into details on that one. Massive anger over tiny things that normally would not upset me. Worsened agoraphobia. New phobias that don't make sense...like being afraid of the ice cream in the grocery store. Seriously.

Time to go back to Paxil. :) Today, took 40mg of Paxil, 150 Effexor. Wish me luck.

New medication and psychotic attacks

I'm tired of all the insecurities and all the fear. I'm off work today, thank goodness or it woulld be awful....

I see a new psychiatrist now. She gave me a new presccription to try and knock down the voices. After 4 days on the new medication; the voices went from screaming, terrorizing, antagonistic and petty to nothing. The voices were telling me that I wasn't worth living and I should die. And any little or major pain that I felt at some point or other was pain that I deserved. The voices would make me feel raped in my anus and say that I could do nothing about it. They would say you are going to take this persons heart attack and then my heart would feel cramped. Those are just some of the things they did to me in the last few weeks. These kind of hallucinations are called " tactile hallucinations", that means that I can feel the hallucination itself. A really awful thing some schizofrenics go through. I feel them....

I couldn't take it anymore...the panic attacks were so awful that I don't understand how I make it through except for waiting for the Klonopin to start working.

My therapist told me today that I should write a book on how to cope with Schizophrenia...since I deal with the symptoms while I keep a job at 40 to 70 hours a week. And I was thinking reallly hard on it and deciding that I should but now as I write this I don't think I could. Just remembering the things the voices said to me and what they have done to me brings me down....too down...I think I don't want to live this way. I don't want to live. I got rid of the voices with the new prescription so things should be better but today I had another panic attack regardless of the new medication...so now I feel like it is all worthless and useless-----fear and terror will always be a part of my life and I can't stand the thought of it. I'm low...really, really low.

If things aren't better in an hour or two I am going to the hospital....it will be my first time in the psych ward.

Well, I have been doing okay with the schiz until the last week. I haven't slept in four days ...no more than 12 hours the whole four days. That could be because of the heat....but my voices say it is because, David, one of the voices and his two friends are keeping me geared up until I "come home" says the voices. I believed yesterday but I don't today. And Samantha is back with her grueling bit about my kids. Guilty conscience....regret ...the things that really get to me. I just wander how I will make it through work today. With no sleep and the voices so loud and demanding. I feel so powerless in my mind that I can't keep things settled in my head. But here I am typing this. Somehow I always make it through it. I am counting on it like I never have before. My therapist (a new one) says she is starting a group therapy and she wants me to help other schiz's learn how to cope and learn skills to cope with schizophrenia. I just told her what I do when I have an "attack" and she was kinda getting real excited....go figure...I sit for hours scared to death for my life and the psychiatrists and therapists are absolutely thrilled about it. They get this look on their faces like "Oh Goody!!! A real one...a real schizo". They have also changed my diagnosis to Schizoaffective, which means I have a mood disorder with the schiz like being Bi Polar. So I say "Great!". Now I am a paranoid Bi polar woman with Sciatica of the leg....

Anyway, I am discovering better ways of doing things and better ways of handling my schiz. When I have an attack, which is like severe panic and anxiety, terror and fear, being terrorized by the voices which make me think that they are in control of what I feel....no shit, I have felt that I was being raped very, very violently and have felt people stabbing me. The voices say tthat they are doing this to me constantly. I hear them now but they sound kind of off to themselves chatting and laughing together...doesn't seem to be about me...so that means I have to keep busy.

I recall the first voices I ever heard... I lived in Georgia and was 15 years old when I went around the house looking for my deoderant...the tv was on and I had my back turned towards it when suddenly I heard a voice say"You looking for something????...It's up there where you left it on the firplace." Not that I should have left deoderant there but I kinda shrugged it off. The next thing I heard was a few seconds later when the voices coming from the television said "Yeah, I can see you..." then I just left the room. It wasn't till I was 19 that I began talking to myself and in a delusion constantly. I thought of it as daydreaming but I seem to carry too extremes. Hell, "daydreaming" was the only escape I had from the misery of my life. Escaping started as like the first day I can remember ever in my life.....I was about 3 years old, maybe...almost 3...we lived in California and I had on a diaper or little panty's and my father was taking them off and he started touching me and I began dreaming I was far away in a grassy field to far for anyone to reach me...and I didn't like the touching.Eerieness, and feeling like if I moved I would break apart inside...scared in other words. Then my family moved us to South Carolina and the "touching and playing" went on for 6 years till I was about 9 years old. Then suddenly, Lisa, was there and I was free!!!! He didn't do it again. I wanted to tell Lisa but I was afraid she would not like me anymore. But even though daddy never touched me again like that I had the eerieness of the first time EVERY single time he was around. I only felt able to breathe anyway I wanted to when he wasn't home. Free to breathe....I could be just me then.

That's enough for now....Jen

I had a psychotic episode today. I felt that the drug people were putting this clear ball of bad feelings inside me and they kept hitting me with it. Everytime I felt the clear ball I felt depressed to the point of not wanting to live anymore and I felt terror and fear. I couldn't breathe and I talked like I was out of my mind with the voices. I went to see the nurse and she told my psychiatrist what was happening to me and he prescribe Depakote, a mood stabilizer and more Klonopin 5 mg. I guess that the Depakote has to get into your system because I don't feel the things I am supposed to feel. Depakote is used for three things...Migraines...Epilepsy...and Bipolar...also for manic episodes with or without psychotic features. I have psychotic features. So we shall see what this drug does. I hope it works....

Where did everyone go?

No one is answering at Our Meeting Place....
This is my little Valentino. Ain't he adorable???

And things get worse...

This might not seem the right place to talk about health stuff but trust me, it has a definite psychological impact and also, I can't access the other blog anyway but this would probably be a bad month for it anyway, since February is coming fast. Or as we renamed it, F-U-ary lol...

I have to have a 'stress test' done and my doctor tried today to give me nitroglycerin to take for chest pain but I told her I didn't want to take that. It just has so many negative connotations to me. But I am going to allow the stress test even though I'm going to hate it. Because I am having pain and it does scare me.

Doctor (medical doc, I have one medical one now and one 'head' one both at the same clinic. I adore the head one so far, and tolerate the medical one) and I also got into a rather humorous discussion on age...she tried to convince the one who went to the appointment that I am 40 years old. Ok, I told her, granted the body might be 40 but *I* am nowhere near it (she was dealing with a 16-18 year old at the time) LOL she knows about the DID though so knows to never expect a routine conversation with me :)

Linda if you're out there, Goldie, my inner 5-year-old says she misses you (of course we all do, but she wanted me to pass on the message. She's the one who sat around the table with everyone and cut out construction paper with the scissors...and the one who most plays with the magnetic toys and stuff. She's one of the most outspoken of us. I think it's possible, after thinking about it, that she got named after the cat at River Farm, didn't we have a fierce tomcat named Goldilocks? She says we did and that he would lick two times and then bite you if you tried to pet him and that one time he tried to nurse on Daddy's nipple and boy did he fly across the room.

My darkest one is making more appearances lately probably because of FUary approaching. Actually I don't know what her personality is like, the only one who would know isn't someone that I can ask and he wouldn't tell the truth anyway most likely. I can't reach her inside, she's the only one that I know of that I cannot contact in any way, at least so far. And she is not sleeping right now, practically at all. Can only sleep deeply in the daytime and best if Dee is home to watch over us. At night we wander the apartment in frustration. Doctors have tried sleep meds, strong ones, but they have a reverse effect on me, leaving me feeling wired instead of tired...so it's just going to have to work through, I guess. But they know I'm 'in crisis' so they make frequent appointments for me and I'm going to get through this month. One way or another.

Well, Bekah's verdict is in...

It is Neurofibromatosis..there are some sites out there that show people who have it and tell about it. She has to go to Valley Children's Hospital soon for a lymph node biopsy. It's a pretty scary disease, but it can also be mild...but either way, it's gonna be part of her life forever now.

We soooo much did not need this to happen.

Something happened to me

I can't seem to get on the page to be able to view what Lisa wrote...but I can type in. Suddenly I heard loud voices constantly and started shaking so bad I could see straight. I went into some kind of attack crying hysterically and saying "I'm going crazy...". The voices were saying that I was like a lamb of God and I was supposed to take people's pain away from them. My foot hurt, my leg hurt...my hips and my head hurt. I felt so sick at my stomach that I got dizzy. The voices said I was going to die and that it would be a horrible death so that some other person wouldn't have to go through it. Then they started chanting that I would be a hero. I am definately not the hero type. My whole body was shaking. This lasted for four hours. I told my therapist about it and she recommended at least three days in the hospital.

So I told my boss about it and she got me three days off. I took it and ended up staying home instead of going to a psych ward in the hospital. I seem to be afraid of the hospital in the mental state I was in. It got to where I would forget the time and what I had done for the last 4 and 5 hours at a time. It happens when I get so caught up in a delusion or hallucination that my mind is almost completely preoccupied with the delusion or hallucination. Mostly auditory hallucinations.

After those three days I felt so relaxed and ready to go back to work...felt kinda clear minded. But when I got to work I felt like I didn't know what in the world I was doing there...what was I supposed to do and be doing...it took a good thirty minutes before I really figured out...that I was at my job and was fixin' to start work. I didn't dare tell my boss about it. She would've thought I just couldn't handle my job...I worry about that too. But all day long, for twelve straight hours I heard voices...alot of them. Like a whole group of people. Had the sense that they were watching me and criticizing everything I did or didn't do.

I truly, nowadays, live with the delusion that only SOME of the voices are from my brain and the other half are from people communicating through telepathy. That they are talking to me from faraway places like Florida, California, and Georgia. That these people can really see me and are afraid to admit that they hear the voices too. I get the feeling that my mother watches me at least once a day, lately. I feel that my Aunt Lisa hears me talking through "this stuff" as I call it. Maybe it is just wishful thinking and I miss them but I feel like it is really happening.

Well, I will update you later on my psychotic breakdown...at least I think it is what is happening...

I'm not doing well emotionally at all...

And the worst part is that there is no reason that I can see for me to feel this way. I can't sleep, can't think clearly and I'm hearing my insiders more and more. I go to a new doctor on the 10th (I think) and I'm going to have her re-screen me for schizophrenia but I already do know the questions that she would ask and I know that honestly I don't have the symptoms of it. It's just wanting to have something easier to find a medication to ease the trouble inside. The not sleeping is the worst right now, if I could sleep perhaps I would be less 'fraggy' which is what I call it when no one is clearly in charge of things inside of me. We've been without any type of therapy since we dumped our most recent doctor, and now I'll be seeing one doctor for my 'behavioral' appointments and one for medical stuff...I don't mind having it separated like that, it actually seems like it would be easier to handle and both doctors are supposedly really good, so that's not what's causing it.

Just found out today that apparently Rebekah, my granddaughter, has a condition that she inheirited from her father, called Neurofibromatosis, which basically means that her life is gonna be a whole lot more complicated than it should be. We're 90% sure of it, just waiting on the official confirmation from the doctor, but that's a technicality, the symptoms are very clear. If she had 6 or more cafe au lait spots on her body larger than half an inch, and one first-degree relative with it (mother or father, in this case her dad does have it as well as 3 other members of his family) and she was born with 3 spots and now has 17, which is what caught our attention and made us check it out. But even that isn't the cause of my stress, this whatever-it-is has been bothering me for about 4 days now. Since it started abruptly I'm inclined to consider it a 'switch', but it's not a comfortable one and I'm not sure who's in front right now.

Anyway, enough rambling, I just felt the need to talk. It's nearly 4 a.m. and I'm going to lie in the dark until I finally fall asleep.