October 6th to 8th, 2007 nighttime

I was at my mother's apartment when I began to leave...I noticed I was feeling lightened up suddenly but sad at the same time. It was my Step father's birthday October the 6th and I think I left Mama's at 12:00 am on the 6th. Anyway, she needed this time to herself so I left. But earlier that morning I noticed I had run out of medication and didn't have anymore to take of anything except my Paxil CR (anti-depressant). So I took it that morning thinking I would have to go without the meds today because I didn't have time to go to the pharmacy before I left on my trip. I was going out of town. ALONE!

Anyway, I made it through the whole day and then as I was sitting there talking with Mama I became uneven...mood swinging really sharp-like...crying then laughing then crying again. I know it had alot to do with the subject of my step father Larry F. Dooley and that I was worried about my mother. As I left I went on down the road and got about 20 miles down the highway where I was to change roads and they had blocked it completely off. They had big barrels all the way across it. So I had to turn around and go completely back to where my mother lived nearly and go another way. I would have to go through Tennessee. Chattanooga is complicated for me to go through but I had done this one before and it was the only other way I knew to get home. That's when I started to freak out and the main voices came. Loud and chatty at first. Once I knew I would have to go through Chattanooga, it all began. I was tired from driving all day, also. Then there was the fight with my 19 year old son.
At first, the voices said "I'm home!!!" I said nothing. Then the voice said "You scared me to death!" Talking as if to me and about me doing something. Then something else was said "Do you know who this is?" And since most of my voices have names I did know who it was. I said "Yeah...How are you?" He said "Fine, now." and "And how are you?" I said "Great" I think. And I had a speed limit change and let off the gas. Then another voice jumped in and they began talking and the first voice said to me "Here's you something to make it home on." Talking about the thing we call "running medicine". Makes you awake and you can get all your work done easy. It makes you feel good, too.
Anyway, I didn't hear too much from him except that I could hear myself chatting what I was thinking out to the world...but that is not what I meant to do. It is like speaking into a microphone and you think that the whole world can hear you. But all I was thinking about was how NOT to get lost. Oh the voices, made fun of me if I studied to long on which way to get back on to the on ramps and things like that but it didn't get so bad till I got home...and I made it with no false turns..THANK YOU!
After I got home about 5:00 am I rested. But I couldn't sleep. My husband called at 6:24 am to get me to meet him at the car rental place to return the car....uggghhhh!!! So I got ready and met him there and the voices did follow. I finally got to sleep about 7:30 am. I slept all day but instead of the voices being dulled down they were still there and loud as ever. This is when the tactile (touching and feeling ) hallucinations began. I felt I was being raped anally and put myself back to bed trying to put up my sheild. But it seemed to fail. Now, I did not come up with the shield on my own the doctors told me to make myself a shield and use it. I myself thought that means more schizophrenic thoughts but...! Anyway, I went back to sleep and slept again and it was too late on Sunday to get my prescriptions filled so I had to wait. I ended up waiting until Monday afternoon at 4:30 pm. Then I got them all and it took about 3 hours for the Geodon to set in and the voices calmed down with the Respirdal. It took a couple more days for me to feel better. It is early morning on the 11th now. Rough weekend!!!!

In Loving Memory of...

Larry Franklin Dooley

October 6th, 1952 - July 13th, 2007

May you rest in peace throughout eternity.




I had known Larry Dooley for about 16 years and he had always treated me like his daughter. I was legally his step-daughter though. I knew him pretty well but I didn't get close to him until I moved in with him and my mother in June 2001. I decided I had baetter help around the house so I helped Larry take care of the "jungle" yard that we had. It had to be mowed and weedeated every week so snakes wouldn't come close to the house. Larry and I tackled that grass every time we had a day off...whew!
I got really close after the Doctor said Larry had Lung Cancer and it had spread to his Liver and Brain. I would come down from Huntsville every chance I got to spend some time with Larry. We talked alot about Mama and Mel and our relationships and how much we loved them the way things were. But all I kept thinking was that he was going to die on me and I would get so sad and cry on the way home after visiting with my kids. It made me so sick that such a good person could get such an awful disease. Larry was the kind of man who would help anyone he could whether asked to or not. I miss you, Larry!!!! I'll never ever forget you!!!

WAS Suicidal...

I was not thinking good at all. I ran out of Paxil CR, my anti depressant, and got so many suicidal thoughts that I wanted to carry them out but I was just too scared. I mean why live anymore I couldn't even work at a fast food restaurant right. How was I gonna find a better job. I was so unhappy there anyway. But I had to work. Turned out I am not a 16 year old who can run around and twist and turn on a dime like they can so I was slow. I need a place that takes a little more time to take care of their customers rather worry about getting an order out in 30 to 60 seconds...hahahaha. I was way better at customer curtousy then that fast food place was!!!! In my two months there, I had three attacks...that's alot...alot of pressure. Anyway, the thoughts were of me turning the car across the median and facing oncoming traffic at a high rate of speed. Most of the time that was it. But I got my Paxil filled and after a couple of days I was fine again. Clinically depressed is not fun. If I can't get a job soon I am going to have to go for disability....

In Loving Memory of...

Larry Franklin Dooley

October 6th, 1952 - July 13th, 2007



I will never forget you!!!

My Step Father

After an 8th month battle with Lung Cancer, my Step Father,(who was very close to me) died on Friday, July 13th, 2007. I was there when he died and saw him take him last breaths. It does things to a person...hell, seeing an animal die does things to me. I was so sad for him the whole time, ever since they explained he had the cancer. This is why I haven't written in this blog in so long...I was so overwhelmed and haviing schiz symptons and trying to work. I had attacks ever other week and every few days. I spent months thinking some magical power I had would save him but then he died...one weekend I was talking to him and joking around and the next week he died.

I should explain my attack that I had. I was at work at a fast food restaurant when the blackness started over powering my head and I could feel it in mychest. Just like a slow covering tar creeping on me with the feeling of fear and terror attached to it. I went to the back of the restaurant and kinof got dizzy. Then there was this shard of pink see through glass that was floating through my brain trying to cut my brain. Then there were alot of pieces of glass trying to cut my brain up....I felt like I had to hide all of a sudden so I tried to walk across the room....I made it but as I got to the other side a feeling hit me and it went from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet and I fell to the ground right then. I had no control anymore. But when someone else tries to talk to me sometimes I can understand and sometimes not...this time I understood my boss and I was told in short to go home if I could drive...it took a few minutes to get my legs working but I had already taken two Klonopin about 45 minutes before this and it was beginning to clear where I could go home. And I went homeand went to sleep. Back in my "safe place" on the couch with a blanket. That's All

I got my medications back!

I went to the Mental Health Center and told them about the psychiatrist not listening to me when I tried to explain to her that it the prescriptions were wrong on some of my of my meds and though they didn't believe me....the one nurse worked her butt off to get my meds to me before the next day was over!!! And they switched my psychiatrist. So maybe they did believe me...I'm back on the Topomax, Resperdal, Klonopin, Depakote, Geodon,and Paxil CR I was on before I got mad and refused to go back to Mental Health for two weeks...man, what a rough ride that was. Now the voices are pretty much gone and there are NO delusions and hallucinations after just two days back on the meds...THANK GOD and thank the nurse!!! No brain links, no drug addicts, no anything!!! Now for a cup of coffee and it is time to take my meds again...nearly 7:00 pm...gotta go!

Hallucinations

For the last two days, I have been so paranoid about different things. I was so depressed I thought about running my car into the river...it's a big river. The paranoia and the hallucinations are usually really bad. I keep thinking someone is always linking to my brain.. like telepathy. It has me paranoid to the max. I got it to chill down some yesterday after I got a couple of beers down me. I talked to myself too.

The hallucination was about drugs and some drug addicts were trying to hand me their pain again. They said the back pain I had was someone else's pain and that they were making me take it. And they would tell the whole world that I took peoples pain away from them and they were healed. But what the psychiatrist says is that I was in so much pain my brain creates a delusional reason for it...like someone else was making me hurt. I tried to tell myself this but I kept hearing this asshole say I was taking it no matter what I did. Then another drug addict started messing with my pain killers so that I couldn't sleep or feel the pain killer work. They said they were doing it for Methamphetamines (Krank). So I ended up chewing out this drug dealer at 1:00 am in the morning but what I was literally doing was screaming at my walls in the middle of the night. It's been a really back week and a half.

All this because I am out of Topomax, Respirdal, and Klonopin. My spelling might be off on those meds. Tomorrow is when I see the psychiatrist again then I will have my meds back in order.

SNOWCYCLES!!!!!

Hello all! We got snow!!!!I can't believe it...I missed seeeing it fall from the sky though. Seems it all happened overnight...broke my heart!!

Mel will be home tonight around 10:30 pm after being gone since last Sunday afternoon. I miss him.

Still hearing voices...

But, I won't tell my therapist about it...she'll make me come see her every two weeks. Had enough of that. I think she is good at her job but the appointments every other week is hard to make when you are working.
But, see my step father has lung cancer and he can't work so I have been feeling guilty about not being much help to them. And today I asked Mel for the money to help Mama out. That should ease the voices up. It has already....somewhat.
The other reason for the voices is my back pain and me not going to the doctor and having them find what is wrong. SO I went to the doctor Friday. They want to do an MRI on me. Physical and mental stress and pain.... will get those voices started for me everytime.

I heard some bad news and been hearing since

I heard my step father had an 8mm sized lump on his brain that is cancer and I've had schiz symptoms ever since. This was the night before last. I've had voices first, then delusions, then audio hallucinations and now those damn attacks (panic attacks).This might be a rocky road for me where emotions and schiz is concerned. I still feel the panic in my heart...scary! Lord, help!!!

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