Is it possible to accidentally do it to yourself?

DX'd - Other
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I don’t mean this in a blamey sort of way, but I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it in the title. But I think I might somehow give myself psychosis-like issues, I just don’t know how it works.

For as long as I can remember, I have always selectively absorbed stuff into myself mentally, and I have always been able to imagine things so vividly that even though I know they are not real, they might as well be. Like right now I imagine running my fingers along a toad’s back, and I can feel it. I know my hand isn’t feeling it - but my hand never feels anything. My hand sends signals to my brain via nerves, and I feel it in my brain. My brain just confirms that the location of the sensory intake is my hand. So I don’t really need my hand to feel anything, in order to feel something.

I am even able to feel things that I have never felt before in real life, I don’t have any idea how, but it happens. Best explanation I have is that my brain’s best guess at how some things feel is just wrong, but that would be very hard for me to wrap my mind around - but I do acknowledge that it is possible, because that’s the only way it makes sense aside from me having other people’s memories.

For a long while this was actually an extremely pleasant and addictive coping method for just life in general. I have created entire massive worlds inside of my mind, complete with long-standing characters, story lines and everything. I go for long stretches of time where I can easily spend most of my waking life in these worlds. It is actually so superior to real life in so many ways that if I were a millionaire, I could happily spend the rest of my life holed up in an apartment.

But nearly all of the material for all of this comes from the real world. Artwork, anime, movies, games, books, even the occasional real-life person who I just carbon-copy into my mind and then make them into whatever I want. Random things might appeal to me, like a piece of art I wasn’t expecting to connect with, and then it gets absorbed.

And what it seems like happens when I start to get “bad” in terms of mental health, like really bad, is that I lose the ability to choose. I lose the ability to only absorb things that I like, and then in addition, it’s like my brain will start automatically activating that part of my imagination that makes something seem real.

And that’s where it starts to turn into a nightmare. It’s like the barrier gets broken, and suddenly anything can invade. And there is a lot of pretty ■■■■■■ up ■■■■ in the world, so that’s just plain not good.

Does any of this make any sense?

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I don’t know. I feel like I understand something right now that I don’t understand all the time. I am hyper-critical of psych professionals because every time trying meds involve a grieving process, and I get angry, too. Meds stop bad things from happening, but they also kill many things that I love, they kill entire parts of me, they kill friends, they wipe out entire worlds. I’m sure none of these professionals realize that, and I don’t ever want to discuss it with anyone outside of the anonymous internet, because it’s mine and nobody can touch it. Nobody understands how much I am sacrificing if I choose to take meds. And I don’t even really want them to understand. It’s just my own secret death.

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As for doing it to yourself: yes in some sense I believe we do so. The brain and the mind are very intimitely related, and it is not only when things go pathologically wrong that our brain influences our minds. When things go right, it is not the case that our minds aren’t influenced by our brains. The same brain that is making horrific psychotic phenomena present, is causing our everyday free actions and thoughts.

As for the meds taking away things: I haven’t lost friends because of taking medication, so maybe you need not either… The vivid imagination may suffer a blow from meds, indeed. This seems a trade-off to me. In the sense that though you enjoy it in moderation, too much of it will make you suffer. Some may say it is intrinsically not healthy to have a vivid imagination… Idk, it’d make more sense to me to say it is all fine until it affects your quality of life negatively. As you describe things, it seems this imagination does have the potential to be disastrous to that quality of life when it gets out of control. As things stand, you seem to acknowledge that at times, things do get out of control and turn bad. I might look at this as the other side of the coin of this imagination being so vivid… I mean, things that are extremely lively, like real things, aren’t subject to our control either. To leave it as it is would be to say that the tradeoff between these bad times and the good times where you’d enjoy imagination is still positive. But it seems to me you do want to get rid of the bad times, hence looking for some new options in treatment.

Maybe it need not be an all or nothing thing: medication need not take away all and everything. I am medicated, and can still imagine things. Sure, not as vividly as you describe, but it is not all gone either. I suspect that finding the right dose will be crucial for you if you are to continue with meds. This will take some trial and error… and time.

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Yeah. I think I just started hitting the sadness part, or something, but also understand it better every time during this part. I do intend to go through with treatment. I just also can’t help but grieve. My therapist officially sent my referral to the psychiatrist today. In retrospect I think that’s why I was so agitated, and maybe also why she seemed to threatening. I don’t know. It’s almost that time.

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I mean one of them even talked to me about it once, briefly. It was the last time I was trying to get on meds, with the whole Zyprexa experience. “Aren’t you going to miss me?” And I saw it smile it’s usual antagonizing smile inside my mind. And the truth was yes, and I did.

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Makes me think of when I started medication. I had voices (which I thought were real subjects communicating with me telepathically) that were at times friendly, but always turned evil against me eventually. In a sense I had all the time wished we’d jut be able to be friends and things wouldn’t be so bad. This wish made me ‘give them a chance’ again and again. At some point enough was enough though. Just as with ordinary people in public reality, too many incidents will have you part ways with them. In my case, parting ways, breaking ties with them, consisted in coming to see them as hallucinations instead of real people. Then the decisive blow was to take meds to really get rid of them. Generally I was very happy and excited about this, but there was some sadness or grief involved here too. For it made me think of ‘what could have been’ and ‘if only’… there clearly was some need here that these voices satisfied in their twisted way, or at least made me think they could… But sometimes there are many ways to satisfy or needs… I had to learn to re-appreciate what may seem obvious to some ordinary people: that the need for friendship can also be satisfied by friends in real life.

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What kind of things does your mind make “real”, which you dont like, when you become psychotic? i totally understand you there, although my fantasy has never been as strong, but i was just wondering what kind of things you imagine while psychotic. also youre a great writer, i enjoyed reading your post, perhaps you should do something more out of that talent?

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Probably the most common thing is random objects becoming sentient/evil and trying to attack me. But by now in life I have learned that if I just stand my ground and confront the vision, it stops and loses its power. At most it just gives me an anxiety/adrenaline surge which hurts in my chest. It is more like intrusive thoughts that seem so real that I react to them, it feels like being attacked in a psychic manner or something. Like I could be walking through a parking lot, and suddenly a car comes to life and tries to run me over, except it’s not really happening. These things have made me wonder if it is some type of OCD.

Sometimes my brain will start to play terrible noises that make me want to tear my own face off. Sounds of people or animals I love being killed or in anguish. It will give me horrible anxiety and sorrow that seems like a different emotion in itself, maybe “dread” with pain, but I’m not sure. I can’t stand it when it’s happening.

The beings inside of my mind will no longer be my own creations, instead they will be like demonic things that are there to harass me and make me go crazy. I lose control of all of it and it takes on a life of its own, and is gnarly.

I will get intrusive thoughts of being attacked, and it feels like I am actually being attacked. I can feel pain from things that are not really happening.

Just all sorts of ■■■■. When I am normal and in control of everything, these abilities are major boons to me, though. But when I am not in control of them they turn against me.