#I remember how I was at my most paranoid during a prolonged episode | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-attic-in-ealing · 2 years

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TW: talk of psychosis, trauma and abuses

I was not planning to post about this on Tumblr because I know how people react to these topics but I think it is important people are aware before interacting with me that I experience psychosis. I do not have schizophrenia, I have psychosis. Psychosis is its own disorder, separate from disorders commonly associated with it. My therapist and I believe my psychosis was caused by trauma and enhanced by my severe depression. I've been diagnosed for over 6 months now, and have been experiencing it for over a year. I began experiencing episodic psychosis back when I was 12, during an extremely traumatic and abusive relationship. My experiences with the pandemic and my mental health deterioration have only made it worse.

I experience mostly auditory hallucinations, as well as visual ones (and sometimes psychical feelings like being touched and grabbed) when my episodes are more prolonged or intense. My delusions include believing I am being stalked, or I am in very serious and specific danger such as being hunted by a vigilante (unlike my anxiety which is more general feelings of danger.) I do also experience Delusion Misidentifications (also called Delusion Attachments, both are medical terms) not only to animals and objects but also to characters. There are many characters who I experience DAs to, but the two most relevant to this blog would be Luke Smith and the Thirteenth Doctor. I will try to make it clear when I am experiencing an episode (usually through my display name) but here are some important notes:

I do not want my delusions to be fed into, please just avoid talking to me about them without consent/if we aren't close

If you reality check me without permission, I will block you.

If I need to experience a reality check for whatever reason, I will request it from one of my IRL friends, not a stranger from Tumblr (/lh)

Feeding into delusions can be just as harmful as reality checks, both can cause a lot of issues:

I can have breakdowns and panic attacks

It can become even harder to cope with an episode

I can become more paranoid

As well as a lot more things I don't feel comfortable sharing on here.

I'm okay with doubles (in the form of fictives or others with DMs) but please avoid things such as referring to yourself as the IRL of 13 or Luke, at least where I may see it. As I've already said, my psychosis is episodic. It isn't constant and I usually go offline during episodes but it is hard to identify them. Please remember my delusions are genuine beliefs I have in episodes, I cannot control them.

If you unintentionally disrespect a boundary, I'll gladly just remind you and move on. However, if I feel like you aren't taking my disorder seriously and continue to knowingly disrespect boundaries, I will block you.

Another note is that I am being medicated for my depression and since then my episodes have been less frequent and easier to identify. However, I want to do what I can to make people aware of the experiences of people with psychosis (especially due to all the misinformation out there.)

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simonaj1804 · 3 years

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Interview

Warning: this includes drugs use and suicide and depression threats

TLDR; I asked one of my friends to open up about his experiences and share them with me for my FMP to which he agreed since he was planning on doing something similiar previously. He has been through a lot and I won’t be metnioning any other names. He has struggled with mental health, ASD, PD, Psychosis and Drug abuse (he has been clean for past two years).

I will be using his script since he wasn’t completely sure about posting a video of him speaking about it.

Worth mentioning is that one of his biggest role models, David Goggins often says:

‘That to be fully comfortable with yourself, you should be comfortable putting up a billboard detailing your entire life in your hometown.’

I had a prolonged panic disorder caused by an adverse reaction to syntethic weed which was prescribed to me by my psychologists as verging on if not crossed the line towards psychosis at the time. Later his GP reassured him that he retained notion that I didn’t actually have psychosis.. Which I agree with, however I was prescribed Olanzapine (an antipsychotic) which during administration kept my symptoms at bay but led to dulling down my emotions and personality until like very recently. Like I’d say I started feeling like myself again around like, I don’t know like earlier in 2020. This episode, it lasted between like 2017 and 2019. It started kind of when I was young like pre-puberty young and I was like super self-conscious about my voice and I still am like any little comment would set me off, I had like these really big anger issues and I seemed to be like extremely gifted at maths from the young age. I wasn’t for long to be honest. Eventually I was asssessed showed signs of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) with some of my main traits being extreme logic and unwillingness to show or properly express emotion among other things. But I didn’t display the super prominent characteristics that most people with ASD do, like not understanding social cues and stuff like that. I didn’t end up being diagnosed until I was 17 and I didn’t really get any counselling or support when I was young although I was reffered to cams at like 14 and 15 which ended up getting me my second assessment because the first time I couldn’t be diagnosed under the old criteria but when DSM-5 came in it was all good. The reason I was directed to the cams was quite silly looking back at it now. I just had a crush on a girl who didn’t like me back and my best friend started dating her and little 13 year old me in a way other went a little off the rails. As I ended up being a bit of a compulsive liar about this and I just like talked about it different to how it was because that’s how I was at the time. And in second year of secondary school I like pretended to take a pill at a Halloween event that was happening in my town which when I returned to the school I found out that was like a horrible idea because now I had a reputation of being a 13 year old who does drugs. Now please remember at this stage I have never been even drunk in my life before. But this thing is that this newfound reputation of drug dealers and people involved in that scene would like contact me and kind of started treating me as a part of that group. It felt nice in a way even though I felt very outcasted which I kind of caused, like I afflicted it upon myself but like I felt the sense of belonging in the new group I started like regularly smoking weed and at a party in a neighboring town I ended up taking like three pills consecutively but luckily they were like complete duds. I think back to it a lot and kind of wonder if I would have died if they were real. My actual time taking ecstasy was when I was 15 or 16 and it was junior cert results night. I took this orange tesla pill I got off the dark web which had like 300mg in it which isn’t that high dose but I was like a late bloomer and at the time I was pretty publishing so at the time it sent me into like this state... I ended up being taken to a hospital where my mum and my best friend at the time came to the hospital to see me and I was like rolling off my xxxs like I was in the hospital bed just like uhh..The nurse at the time decided it was a good idea to tell me and my family I was probably going to die and after blood tests were done it was the purity of MDMA off the dark web or something else I was accused instantly of being the dealer as there were four other people and they were overdosed in the hospital that day too. So I would say it was probably a very traumatizing event although I’m not a psychologist I can’t psychoanalyze myself or not. However I enjoyed the physical sensation so much I ended up doing ecstasy again in my bedroom alone the following week. Which led to an actual regular intake of drugs. I educated myself very throughly on anything I took and I measured out the doses as my anxiety and paranoia had started to form around the time and as well earlier in the year I had like developed these chronic sleeping patterns as I had no interest in school. Me and my family had taken this holiday to Wales at the start of second year and I’m usually quite fast in attributing me stopping going to school to this as consequences of one of my autism traits (that’s not blaming autism) I just, it’s part of my personality. I could have remedied it if I wanted to, I just didn’t. So after that trip to Wales I just never ended up going back to school like full time and I would often stay up for likee 24 hours at a timee and if I didn’t stay up I was usually nocturnal so I was up at night and I continued to obsess about that girl I had crush on until like the end of third year. Which is a long time and by the time it passed there were so many cringe memories that I had created that I couldn’t even look or talk to her anymore. My first then girlfriend ended up being a long-distance kind of thing but we weren’t like exclusive and despite this I took it to like deluding myself into thinking it was abusive because she would threaten suicide and self-harm and stuff and if I didn’t give her attention then she wouldn’t reply to me for a few days at the time when she no longer needed it and despite this I now hold the belief that she didn’t really owe me anything as the terms of our relationship weren’t exactly concrete. This had a pretty large emotional effect on me. I think it was around this time that it triggered me being like very emotionally numb and I had like a refusal to show genuine emotion like I could show emotion but it was like a mask and an act and I would act very engaged if I wasn’t. I continued to do drugs and I met a couple of friends in school who were interested but had not actually done any drugs yet and one of those people who I found the social acceptance with, because it seems from my point of view that popular in secondary school which I hated but I wanted to be a part of it really at the time. I moved towards like parties instead of sports because people became like old enough to drink and go to the pub and I was a bit of like an over-indulger and usually I ended up crying or screaming various girl’s names into the air when I got too high or drunk for my mind to properly function. My mum started getting really worried about me and then I went to this music festival body and soul and I was basically assaulted because I was paranoid and someone gave me drugs and I was already high so I tried to like throw it on the floor because I didn’t want to OD again and they saw and basically they just ended up beating me up and saying that if I got up they were gonna kill me. I was marked as missing and I woke up next morning coming down hungover and I had like huge bump at the back of my head. And my mom and dad, they were like the most caring parents in the world, they were waiting for me at the front gate because when I asked the security guard if I could call home she already knew my name which was embarassing.. After this experience I began to like recluse and see people I knew as little as possible and the little time I did spend outside I would spend smoking in a different town which was bothersome stuff. Then some of those friends ended up getting into slightly heavier drugs too but some didn’t and I no longer was like comfortable hanging around with them either and then my mom was diagnosed with cancer. After that two things happened really fast, I smoked this synthetic weed in a vape and then I went into town with some friends and dropped a half gram of ecstasy and I noticed I didn’t feel the effects of either of those but after smoking the vape something didn’t feel right, it was like super horrible and my brain just like flatlined but my body was fine I was still like there but it felt like.. I don’t know how to explain it. After I got home after taking the ecstasy I walked past a mirror and I looked in the mirror and noticed my pupils super large but it’d been like eight hours since my dose and as far as I was aware that shouldn’t be possible. So I locked myself in the room for like two days and avoided any human interaction at all. When my 18 birthday was coming around I was supposed to go to celebrate it but I didn’t because I had intence panic attacks and like delusions which I can but won’t share because they’re usually really concerning to the people I actually tell them to and even talking about them kind of gives me flashbacks. I ended up not being able to function properly and my mom would have to sleep with me at night as if I was like a child and my body seemed to just move on it’s own. Eventually I was prescribed the Lanzapine which suited the symptoms but I can safely say it’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, the anxiety and likely ever will be. It was to the point where I was making suicide plans in case I actually had an urge to act on any of the intrusive thoughts that went through my mind. Regardless at the time I had like two main anchors, my mum and my girlfriend at the time, the only two people I felt like super calm around and I’m super grateful to both of them for that but to be honest my physical state started deteriorating I was not shredded before but I was in decent shape, I had like skinny abs and like ‘fake athletic’ and the Lanzapine had the side effects where you would gain weight and you were super lazy. I started getting cold emotionally, I was forced to give up my favourite hobby kickboxing because I couldn’t be around other people especially when there was such a close relation to violence and if my friends were smoking weed or doing other drugs around me I would vomit. I ended up spending most of my time watching anime and playing video games, the stuff you expect from someone who can’t interact with the outside world and my personality changed rapidly especially on the withdrawal with the Lanzapine. I started being very creative and happy in a way but also without the medication there was a constant threat of panic attacks which I had to keep a close eye on when I got better. It felt like I was kind of creafting a new person and even my career path kind of changed because before I wanted to be a computer programmer and I was only obssessed with logic and money and I’ve been training vocals for about a year and I’m super passionate about music. I started yoga and meditation and I workout a lot now but with this like new character I felt like I had to refine myself in a sense because I didn’t really know who I was and I kept doing sthings thought they were unthinkable or uninteresting and I started drinking again. I was just unsure and this stopped around NY 2019 because I got too touchy with another guy (I’m BI by the way). After that I took a month completely from myself and I was meditating a long time and self searching and year 2020 has ended up giving me time to find this. I moved out I made some mistakes, definitely not like big ones, not like the last one but I would say I don’t deeply regret anything from the point after I moved out but basically this is my billboard as David Goggins would have said.

This is my interview that I approached and used to expand my knowledge and understanding of people who struggle with problems and also understanding that not all people are bad or wrong or need to be treated differently. Maybe with just more care. I have met my friend about two years ago and until like an almost year into the friendship I had no idea what he dealt with. I have been doing my best to be there for him and making happy and I think anyone deserves this and deserves to be open about it on the internet. People shouldn’t be put down for having disorders and problems with their health from their past which they can no longer do much about. I’m very thankful to him for being open with me about it and pretty detailed with his story. He prefered not to speak because he stutters a lot and I asked him one single question and kinda explained what I would imagine as response and I’m very happy he has helped me and took me on a way with him.

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mads-baker · 4 years

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Happy world bipolar day! Information and my experiences with bipolar disorder.

Happy world bipolar day! For the past 4 months (before social distancing, that is) I've been going to a mood disorder support group and I've decided I want to be more open about my illnesses. So here's a post that will be a combination of general information as well as my specific experiences with bipolar disorder. It's something that can be really difficult to talk about but it's important to me to raise awareness, so here goes!

*I will link to some resources at the bottom for anyone who has bipolar, wants to support someone who has bipolar, or just wants more information.*

Content warnings: descriptions of mania, depression, psychosis, and dissociation; very brief mention of self-harm.

General information:

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder that involves alternating episodes of depression and mania or hypomania, where a depressive episode is defined as lasting at least two weeks and a manic/hypomanic episode is defined as lasting at least a week or being severe enough to warrant hospitalization. An episode can also last months or even years. My longest hypomanic episode lasted six months and my longest depressive episode lasted 14 months.

There are several subtypes of bipolar disorder, including bipolar 1 (depression and standard mania), bipolar 2 (depression and hypomania, which is a less severe form of mania--this is what I have), and rapid cycling bipolar (in which a person has 4 or more episodes per year). I will talk about depression and mania a bit later, after some more general information.

Bipolar is believed to be genetic, but environmental factors such as prolonged stress or trauma can also contribute to a person's risk of developing the disorder.

The onset can happen at any age but usually happens during the late teens or early twenties. I've had symptoms for as long as I can remember but the full onset--meaning when everything got a whole lot worse--was when I was 18.

There is no cure for bipolar. Medications, therapy, and lifestyle routines can help a person manage the illness, but it will never go away. Someone may be declared 'in remission' if they have no episodes for a long period of time but this does not mean that they are cured or should stop taking medication.

Everyone reacts to treatment and the illness itself in different ways. Some people are able to function at a high level while others are completely debilitated by this illness. Most of us are somewhere in between. Please don't try to compare people with this illness against each other; it can manifest in MANY different ways and affects everyone differently.

Mania and depression:

Mania (including hypomania, which involves the same symptoms but in a less severe form): Symptoms of mania include elevated mood, racing thoughts, pressured speech, irritability or rage, hypersexuality, grandiosity, and extreme impulsivity. During mania people often spend huge amounts of money, go days on little or no sleep, engage in high-risk behaviors, and have an endless flow of ideas. Psychosis can also occur. A person experiencing manic psychosis might have hallucinations or delusions and lose touch with reality. Delusions can be grandiose (e.x. believing that they are god or that they have supernatural powers) or paranoid (e.x. believing that someone is tracking them or that their mind is being controlled by some outside force).

Mania can be euphoric or dysphoric/mixed. Euphoric mania feels like a massive high--the brain pumps out huge amounts of dopamine. Dysphoric mania, also referred to as mixed mania or a mixed episode, involves simultaneous symptoms of mania and symptoms of depression. Dysphoric mania is difficult to describe and can present in many different ways... my experiences with it have been disorienting and terrifying and hellish.

Depression: Those of you who have experienced depression know that it is so much more severe and nuanced than 'just sadness'. It can feel like numbness, emptiness, apathy, anhedonia (loss of enjoyment in activities and hobbies), hopelessness, or generalized psychological and often physical pain. It is usually accompanied by anxiety, fatigue, brain fog, and changes in sleep and appetite. People experiencing depression often isolate themselves from others and may feel intense guilt or shame. Dissociation may also occur. Dissociation is the brain's way of coping with severe distress by detaching from the world. It can also take the form of depersonalization or derealization, and can range from feeling 'spaced out' to a complete disconnect from reality or oneself.

My diagnosis:

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 19 after being hospitalized for psychosis and self-harm during a mixed episode. I went through some severe trauma during that time. Since then my executive functioning, memory, and focus have all declined. I struggle with chronic fatigue and I find myself more easily overwhelmed and less able to deal with stress. I have been told that these symptoms are not uncommon and are related to how the disorder affects various areas of the brain. My life-long struggle to control my sleep schedule has also worsened. I saw a sleep specialist for six months and she believes that my disordered sleep is related to bipolar and possibly exacerbated by my medications.

I go to therapy every week, see my psychiatrist for med management every 3-4 weeks, and go to a support group every 1-2 weeks. These three things have improved my life tremendously. (Quick shoutout to Dialectical Behavior Therapy in particular because it changed my life!) My episodes are much less severe now and I have long breaks of stability between them.

While I have made lots of progress, managing this illness on a daily basis is still extremely difficult. The mood instability, fatigue, anxiety, cognitive impairments, sleep problems, and medication side effects affect just about every area of my life.

Like I said, I have started wanting to be more open about these things. If anyone has any questions or wants to talk about mental health stuff, I'm here. I know a lot of y'all are struggling, and it can be helpful to talk about with a friend. I would never try to drag a conversation out of someone who didn't want to talk about it, but please know that I'm here and open to having those conversations.

One more note: When someone opens up about their struggles with mental illness we are usually not looking for advice. We are usually looking for empathy and support, and hearing "Get some fresh air!" or "You should eat healthier" instead of "I'm sorry you're dealing with this right now" or "I love you and I am here for you" feels really lousy. Most advice comes from a good place but it is often times not helpful. The one bit of advice that I think is appropriate is suggesting that someone seek professional help if they are not already. (It’s important to note that it can be very difficult to find and access mental health services on a good day, and a hundred times more difficult in the midst of an episode. Depending on your relationship with the person, consider asking them if you can help them with searching for providers, making phone calls, dealing with insurance, etc.)

Good ways to support someone with a mental illness include: checking in with them, being a good listener, letting them know that you care about them, letting them know that they are important to you, inviting them out for coffee / lunch / a walk / etc. (but also being understanding if they are not up for it), asking if there’s anything you can do to help (bringing them a meal, helping them with a chore, etc.), and helping them find a therapist and/or psychiatrist if they want help. Physical affection is often helpful but not always so please ask for consent first!

Here are some further resources:

More information and statistics

Information about DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance) groups (many have support groups for friends/family as well)

Information about NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), which also runs support groups

A useful therapist finder, where you can filter by location, insurance, type of therapy, etc.

Information on ongoing mental illness research

The type of therapy I have found most helpful is called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. To learn more about DBT, here is a site I use a lot that goes over the skills and exercises

The DBT workbook I went through

A mindfulness and meditation teacher whose talks have been really helpful to me

#bipolar disorder #bipolar #mental illness #mental health #world bipolar day #bipolar awareness

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