Just needed to be heard for a little while

UKTigerlily

(((huggss)) worried and scared, your last post I can kind've understand, I felt exactly the same way the other day and kept falling asleep but then waking and hearing things and felt so strange. I hope you are ok, hang in there you're definitely in the real world with us xx

Pyxis

Here you are, worried and scared:-

jobbingmusician

Yes, lots and lots of hugs coming your way - also an enormous golden blanket of light, to wrap yourself in. ((((()))))

oldestgnome

Hugs being sent your way Worried and Scared.

dibuzz

Hugs coming your way.

Waves_and_Smiles

Aw, thank you all for the hugs. Today is a lot better, I slept for 10 hours, psychosis is exhausting in the same way that physical exercise is. It takes me an incredible amount of effort to try to stay grounded. I will attempt over the next few hours to put a post together describing what happened as honestly as I can although it will seem confused as it will obviously just be my interpretation and I was bouncing between 4 worlds, unsure of which one was real for 19 hours. It was absolutely terrifying.

This is an example of why my psychiatric team agreed on maintenance only for my condition, pushing myself to do anything different causes a relapse, this is purely because I left my flat on Tuesday. The worse is over though and the next step is to inform my psychiatrist on Monday what happened. I record every relapse with him to ensure that is on my medical records.

I thought of you all thinking of me during it and it helped. Thank you all so much, I knew you were here for me. Now I shall will work on an explanation but it might take a while as I am very anxious and shaky but it will also help ground me further and remind me that yesterdays experiences largely weren't real. Also if people here read it then it confirms that I am back in this world, I will have a niggling doubt about that for a few days to come...

Waves_and_Smiles

I am going to explain first what it was like for me and then in another post how I dealt with it. This is because I would end up with the longest post in history of MSE and also because I am still very shaky so it is better to do it in small portions.

The best way to describe this is if you have ever nested or very vivid dreams? When you wake up you aren't sure if this world is real and if you are really awake? Imagine that but much stronger where you are almost convinced that nothing is real and could slip away at any moment so that you cannot trust anything.

I woke up feeling very unreal as if I was in a dream in this world, lets call this in world 1. I kept slipping inside where everyone was crying and screaming, there was a huge thunderstorm and the building was swaying. We shall call that world 2. I also slipped into another world where I was living in my old house and sleeping on the sofa and thought I kept waking up from dreams - world 3. Finally there was another world where people were being ripped apart and murdered, world 4.

I began in 1. but nothing felt substantial here, everything was floaty and sounds came from inside a tunnel. I slipped rapidly into 2. where everyone was screaming constantly and begging for help. Before I could comfort them I 'awoke' in 3. where I presumed that I had woken from a dream, I believed world 3 to be the real one and that the others were nightmares. Before I could sit up in 3 I found myself in 4. people were being experimented on by aliens, the Devil was coming, people were ripping each other apart and devouring each others flesh. I moved rapidly from world to world, I was aware that something was very wrong and that I was psychotic and needed to return to the real world, unfortunately I believed this to be world 3.

I then started to panic because I couldn't get back. I would scream at the top of my voice in worlds 1, 2 and 4 to try to wake myself up to return to world 3. Eventually I began to break things over my head, slap myself and pull out fistfuls of hair in the other worlds, to try and awaken myself. I also did this in world 1, the real world as it didn't matter as it wasn't reality. I was incontinent twice (embarrassing to admit but I said I would be honest) as I wasn't aware that I needed to go. The switching slowed as the medication worked (more on that when I explain how I dealt with it) and eventually I was able to ask if I was real.

Apparently my appearance during this was mostly one of catatonia, I was sitting very still and staring into space with tears streaming down my face. These times were interspersed with sudden activity where I would hurt myself and scream to try and 'wake up' and get back to world 3, unfortunately world 4 was the most prominent and the most horrific to witness. Eventually the times in this world became longer and I was able to speak and ask what was happening and if I was dreaming. Colours were very vivid, sounds echoed, I could smell rotting garbage and oddly, oranges and I saw an overlay of the other worlds on top of this one. Finally after 19 hours I was back fully into this world but not convinced that it was real for another couple of hours.

It was absolutely terrifying. I knew that I was having a psychotic episode and tried desperately to stop it but I was unable. Today I am 99% convinced that I am in the correct world but will doubt it for a few days yet. In a little while I'll explain the procedure for dealing with it and the techniques used to try and bring me back.

Primrose

That is such a compelling and lucid explanation of what you have been suffering and helps to explain exactly what you are going through. It must tbe terrifying for you and difficult for your carers to know in which "world" you are at any given time during the process. I can well understand that it must take quite a time to recover from these episodes and leave you feeling very confused and vulnerable.
I do hope that in time there will be a way, either through medication or other means of curing this situation for you.

You are obviously trying very hard and deserve all the support you can get.

Pyxis

When you wrote that post at 4.48 PM you WERE in the real world, because I've just read it and I am real, I assure you.

Worried and scared, what a terrible time you've had. How utterly, utterly dreadful. It's bad enough having a nightmare, without not knowing if you've woken up from it.

This is a real eye-opener for me; I had no idea that someone could suffer like this. You must have lots of hugs. Hugs are good medicine!

I am very unhappy that you are suffering like this. Be assured this IS the real world. Would it help to devise a 'password' that we could say to you, that would let you know this is the real world, or could a password get 'hacked' by the bad people and used to fool you? If so, is there any other thing that we could do to convince you?

I realise that you could only devise such a thing when you are completely in the here and now, so it probably wouldn't work for this episode.

Is there any particular trigger to this? I ask, because as I read your thread, it seemed to echo recent real events, like the thunderstorm, and the events in Iraq and the terrible things happening to people there. So could a real storm and the news items have triggered this?

:grouphug:

whitewing

What can we say to you that would help you, w-a-s?

I am reading a book currently about someone who was diagnosed with cancer, and she has put some things in that she found helpful and some that she found insensitive.It was making me think that I haven't seen anything much about mh conditions.