Here on New Year’s Day, I look at the trail of wreckage behind me. I hope that it stays behind me, might just be wishful thinking. At the beginning of 2014, I was at the end of an antipsychotic-free attempt. I’d gone ape in December, my judgment questionable, no longer grounded in reality. I began the year melted down to the point of being housebound for a couple weeks. It was really depressing having to go back on medication, after refusing to give up through months of torture being dished out by my own mind. The weather was horrid where I live, and I wound up in a horrid depression for months.
Then I made another withdrawal attempt in the spring. Just more crap and fear and not a moment of peace, so I gave up again. I spent the better part of the year chasing a rainbow, due to a psychosis that had started up. Some of the things I was doing seemed crazy even to me. Through the year, a tendency had developed to always have ideas, many ridiculous, coming into my mind to explain physiological symptoms or mental health problems. Some potential for somatic delusions to start up. Ridiculous eczema and an inflammatory bowel condition that started back up during the second w/d attempt never went away, it gets miserable.
In October, it came to light about the psychosis the previous year and remaining delusions, and I went through more crap feeling depressed and trying to flush all the falsehoods out of my head. Over the summer I had horrible episodes, and the medication seemed less effective for a while. Stuck with somatic anxiety symptoms, haunted by memories of 2013, withdrawing from medication hardly seems worth it now. The things that started up in my mind during the first attempt continue to periodically plague me.
I started in college in 2014, it has really helped out. It kept me focused on something. Even though it was my delusions that prompted me to start school in the first place, I’m going to keep going with it. School’s been out for a month, and I find myself making up stories and fantasizing too much.
I hope I can look forward to a more stable year. I’m so glad that my foolish delusional quest is over. Only now do I see how stupid and ridiculous it all was.