Need Help: loosing grip on reality

“get out of bed”… “come here”… I wake up and see sarah standing next to my bed… “come with me i need to show you something” I leave the bed and follow her to the bathroom… “it eats them” … she points to the toilet… frogs again…jumping out of the toilet… I rub my eyes… they are still there… i sit to use the restroom… slimy things touch me… I feel disgusted… i go back to bed…

my alarm goes off… “hurry you are late”… i grab my watch… it is my normal alarm, I have plenty of time… “they are watching”… “you are so slow” … “shes going to pick the same shirt again” … i grab the shirt on the floor next to the bed and start to get ready… voices continue… .hallucinations…

I kiss Katie goodbye and leave for work… I grab my keys and start my car… “the children are awake”… I look in the rearview camera and start to back up… a child appears in the camera… I slam on my breaks… she dissapears… I take a deep breath and continue to back out and on my way… as i reach the main road the voices continue to torment me… I am scanning the cars that pass for cops… “they know”… “they are going to take you away”… I spot a cop two cars back in my rear view… “hes coming”… the car moves into the left lane beside me and accelerates twoards my car… I continue to follow his movements… he comes up on my left and dissapears… a red car drives past me… as i continue to drive to work I will hallucinate many more cars as cop cars. the voices will point them out… and they will mostly be white cars or trucks, or hallucinations… I play my game of trying to change the color of the cars in front of me while I drive to focus…

I enter a large room that smells of coffee, in the center of this room is a grid like arrangement of cubicals, 4 to a row, 8 rows total. On the outside walls of this room are a collection of offices occupied by the people who have power over those in the center. In front of me I see the 8th row. I make a left and walk alongside the rows seeking the last row in this collection while averting my gaze in hopes that I will remain a ghost to those who occupy the rows I pass. My cubical is the last of this row, I am situated in such a way that my back is to the hallway opposite the door I entered. This will be my prison for the next 9 hours. My chair has no padding remaining, this will cause me to shift around in my seat multiple times throughout the day in search of comfort that I will never find. There are two monitors positioned in front of me both below eye level, I will stare at these during my time here not leaving my desk until 5pm. It feels like there is a hot iron pressed against the skin on my right forearm, i grab my hoodie sleeve and slowly roll it up to expose my skin. The fingernail sized pits in my arm are hot to the touch and covered with dried blood, a wound suffered during one of my recent moments of weakness. My wrists touch the cold table and I start to open the applications I will be using today… one by one the programs load filling both of my screens with code and information. I divert my attention to footsteps behind me… they are drawing nearer to my desk… my heart starts to race… “they are coming to get you”… “they know”… the footsteps pass my desk and continue on. I am here before my co-workers as I always am, always on time. I look back to my monitor and find my todo list. As i read the items scheduled for today i find myself having to re-read entries multiple times to understand what they mean, I wrote these yesterday, I should remember what they were. I check the schizophrenia.com forums. I load my email. “they don’t want you here” “don’t talk to them”… I close the windows and turn back to work. “he is going to fire you”… “you are worthless”… the voices are not letting up today, i find it hard to focus… as the day goes on I see images of past trauma, the rape, my dad assaulting my mother and I, hospital visits … “they know… they all know”… I wonder how many people can tell that I am different… I wonder if I am blending in today, maybe I should smile more… when is it appropriate to smile… i give up these will only make me stand out more… “they all hate you” … “they know”… “you should quit”… “they are going to fire you, they are just looking for a reason”… I hear footsteps again… papers shuffle… liquid is being poured in the office behind me… coffee creamer for the coffee… papers shuffle, keys are pressed… “they know”… “they all hate you”… the footsteps get closer… “cover it they will see” … “they are going to take you away”… I cover the wound on my arm… the footsteps pass by my desk…

Visual hallucinations, voices, anxiety, paranoia… these things continue till lunch…

I am loosing my grip on reality, my friend sarah wore that stupid mask to work again… I am thankful nobody can see him… the voices continue… my skin starts to crawl again… i hate this feeling the most… i feel like I want to run out of my skin and scream, i start to scratch again to peel the skin away… Katies Voice:“Don’t hurt yourself”–“it will get infected again”… i stop scratching… my skin is moving faster now… god I want out… please get me out of here… I stand up out of my chair sweating… “they see you” … “they know”… I look around… my coworkers are not paying attention… I grab some water and sit back down…

This is a sample of how today has went so far… I feel like I am loosing my grip on reality and I am very stressed. I don’t know what anyone can do about any of this save for telling me to get on meds… I am looking for a local shrink…

Sasha-so sorry you are dealing with this.
Are you not on any kind of meds?
A psych doc would certaintly help xx

No, I am not on any meds. I have not been on meds for about 2 years now and I have been able to keep things under control. However these last few weeks have been really rough.

there is a thought that if you’re life is low key and low level stress, then maybe coping without drugs works for you. But if stress gets put in to the picture, you need the meds a bit until the stress passes and then you can wean off them again and be med free again. If you are suffering with out the meds… you still want to get married and have your job to launch your art career. It can happen, but I would say talk to the doc before you end up in a car accident.

I would love to be med free and I am working on doing what I can in that respect, but under the care of a doctor. I’m not self medicating and playing with my meds on a whim.

I have heard of people getting on med when they need to get through a stressful transition and then getting off them when the transition is over. Just a thought.

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Thank you, i will discuss that with a doctor when i get a new one.

I agree. I also have a sister who is bi-polar. she goes on the meds when things start to get overwhelming. The doctor said,“why make your life harder then it has to be?”
With sz, it`s a little different-I know. But the same thing applies. I am thinking about you, and hope you feel better tommorow. I know you will get a handle on this XX

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Hi @sasha I am glad you have decided to see a doctor - believe me I am tired of taking meds because of the damage they have done to my body - but I need them to function. I will be switching to Latuda soon, a newer metabolic friendly atypical antipsychotic

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The final decision is in the works. Very cool Slow and steady. I’m glad this is starting to happen for you so quickly. It wasn’t delayed for 6 months.

Good luck and I do hope the transition is very smooth for you. Switching meds is scary, but sometimes it works out to be so much better then before.

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Hi J - I am still on Risperdal and after tomorrow I will be off of Depakote completely, so far so good. I am continuing to up my lamictal dose, I don’t know when she will be switching me over to Latuda but I do imagine not too far in the future - I still have to adjust to the current changes with my mood stabilizers. I am looking forward to getting off of Risperdal and over to Latuda. I will find out more as to when I make the switch over when I see her in a week or so.
Thanks for the well wishes

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@bridgecomet Thank you very much for your kind words. So far the day has started about the same. I didn’t sleep much it is a circus in my head.

@SurprisedJ I am more worried about being locked away from being honest to a shrink than I am being involved in a car wreck. It is very hard to contact these people and try to give them an honest chance… I think I have talked to 16 so far and I hate them all. I am so terrified that they are going to take my freedoms away and drug me. I might need some meds to help but I don’t want to be sedated and dull… i don’t want to not be able to paint or enjoy life. The last time I was on meds all i remember is feeling of falling through the bed endlessly, being dizzy, not wanting to eat, not being interested in anything, and my art turning out horrible.

I wish I knew what to tell you on that one. I did go through a period of negative symptom that was sort of kicked in by over medication… But once that got straightened out, WOW. I am up and moving, I have my job, my own apartment, ( I do live with my kid sister while she starts college) I am in school, I have the motivation to get a business license. I have the motivation to pick up the violin and dust it off. There was a period of rust brown and sorrow. But I’m on the other side. I do take meds because I personally need them.

Others have done well completely med free, I’m not one of them.

Others on here have said that on rare occasion they have been admitted due to being to candid with an doc. The times I’ve been admitted is when I’ve decided to go med free and lost it completely. Then I’m talking to my toes personally as my 10 little friends and licking the walls.

@radmedtech Is there a way one can talk to a doc to get help and not be hospitalized?

It is possible to talk to a psychiatrist and not be hospitalized. Of course, it’s easier when talking to a psych that you have an established relationship with.

The key is to show that you have no intention or history of hurting yourself or anyone else. And also showing your level of functioning to be higher than your symptoms. For example, this poster has a job and family (higher functioning).

Suicidal/self-harm ideation and low functioning on the GAF score are the key reasons why people are hospitalized. So, as long as you can prove these don’t apply to you, you should be a candidate for outpatient treatment–and not hospitalized.

Blessings,

Anthony

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Get a shrink. Also, spend time in the present, only focusing on your breathing. Plant positive seeds in your mind. Water them with positive thoughts. It sounds like you could be helped by cognitive behavioral therapy, but that’s AFTER you get the intrusive thoughts under control. Talking to the voices right now is not the right thing to do. The right thing to do is stop any detectable biofeedback loop which may be maintaining the voices.

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@radmedtech I have scars all up and down my arms. I am not sure I can prove that I am not self harming… However, I am not suicidal, or a threat to anyone else.

Are you self-harming now? Or in the past? That makes a huge difference to a new psychiatrist who’s evaluating you. Having a history, vs presently and actively self-harming are very different.

I always recommend being honest with your psychiatrist. But with some filters. Do you think it’s important that he or she knows? Do you see it as a problem that you want treatment for?

Those factors should affect how much you communicate to your psychiatrist.

Blessings,

Anthony

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They have a very poor track record, they may not be coursing this directly this huge problem, but i think hell of a lot are in the know, you are told or selected from a young age. They can completely destroy a country, its army, everything. Of course it requires a lot of people but that’s just one role of the selections

Why do you do it? Self Harm?

I think the right help is out there it’s just not shared.

Mind you yes that makes complete sense and I see why