Just needed to be heard for a little while

Waves_and_Smiles

Hello! Just checking in to say I am alive. Unfortunately, I had a day of psychosis, there is no reason why-it just happens sometimes. I am still not quite back and very tired so after a sleep I will reply properly. Don't worry,it is under control now but I could have done without slamming my head off the wall (I don't remember doing that) because my head is killing me. I am thinking of you all.

whitewing

Thinking of you too, WaS.

I still hope we aren't triggering things for you (or anyone who is lurking).

haybel19

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

Hello! Just checking in to say I am alive. Unfortunately, I had a day of psychosis, there is no reason why-it just happens sometimes. I am still not quite back and very tired so after a sleep I will reply properly. Don't worry,it is under control now but I could have done without slamming my head off the wall (I don't remember doing that) because my head is killing me. I am thinking of you all.

Big hugs. Hope your ok.

whitewing

I am rereading the thread (reminder to self: up to post 127).

WaS, may I ask if you pay for prescriptions or if you qualify for a medical exemption certificate? You don't need to answer. I currently have a prepayment certificate.

Can I also ask, if I may, what happened eventually to your grandmother and uncle? (You may have mentioned later in the thread).

Have you ever tracked to see if your psychosis getting worse is linked to your menstrual cycle?

Waves_and_Smiles

I am ok haybel, don't worry. Sometimes I just can't get out of the dream state and back into this world but I am aware of it at the time so I try to hurt myself to bring myself back, not realising that I am doing so in this world, too. I remember very little of it now and have been back for 7 hours so hopefully it's over. I am just very tired and anxious. Oh, and embarrassed. I find it very embarrassing afterwards as I really don't realise what I am doing when it happens and the memories quickly fade, I just remember cringeworthy pieces as if it was a dream. My poor MIL is on her own again tonight as my partner had to stay with me so there is a good helping of guilt, too.

I will see about replying now, distraction is good!

Waves_and_Smiles

Duke, anyone can join the hearing voices network. You will be more than welcome.

Pyxis, asking the Salvation Army about B is a good idea! I shall email them, thank you.

No, very little triggers me, whitewing. I have retold my story so many times that most of the emotion has gone, in fact one type of therapy I had was done to achieve this. I would repeat incidences over and over and then take tapes of the sessions home and listen to myself recount things daily until it felt like someone else's story and as a result most of my past is pretty easy for me to talk about. There are some triggers, such as speaking about working but not many and if something is difficult for me I will say so.

As far as going out, it has gradually shrunk. For a long time I was having therapy to try to enable me to do a lot more but this was resulting in a lot of self-harm, incredible anxiety and at least yearly sectioning. Everytime I had a full psychotic break, I would lose a little more of my ability to do things, my memory would become worse and I would be confused more easily. it is as if bits of me never came back and each break left scars. Eventually it was agreed to maintain my condition and stop trying to push me to make it better because I was losing more than I was gaining, after the last one my ability to go out went completely. So now we deal things as they come up but don't attempt to change things, if they change on their own then that's fine but I am terrified of and my psychiatrist is also apprehensive about me having another full break. A little less of me exists everytime and I fear that one day I won't be able to come out of the catatonia. Since we have stopped trying to make improvements I haven't had a full break for 6 years, the longest I have ever managed (not counting a few days blip 18 months ago on the strength of receiving an ESA form).

I get free prescriptions because I am in the Support Group of ESA and also because I have two life threatening conditions which makes me exempt. This is just as well as I take 12 different medications a month!

My psychosis is indeed worse when I ovulate, surprisingly not during PMS, though. Today's blip was during ovulation and things always tend to feel a lot worse during those days. Chemically things are a mess in general unfortunately.

I contacted my uncle 10 years ago after being estranged from everyone for 9 years, mostly because I wanted to know what happened to my mother and also because I wanted to know if he had children, I would have reported to Social Services if he had after his past with me. I was informed that my mother died 3 months after I walked away because "You left and she gave up and died because of you". My grandmother lived to a very old age and obviously died of natural causes, although again I was informed "She was never the same after your mum died and gave up on life because you walked away."

My uncle was clearly still very disturbed and blamed me for their deaths and wasn't really rational for most of the phone call. I was very honest with him about the treatment I had needed and he did manage to ask why I saw a psychiatrist. The conversation is etched in my mind forever and went like this:

Me- "I developed Schizophrenia like mum and needed therapy for PTSD after mum abusing me.
Uncle (without missing a beat)- "There is a new series of Only Fools and Horses on tomorrow, it's meant to be really good"
Me- "It has been a huge battle to deal with my mental health over the years and I am still very scarred by the past and the abuse from mum in particular."
Uncle- " I still remember the Batman episode where they dressed up in costume, that got voted one of the funniest episodes of all time"
Me- "You know as well as I do what mum was doing and nan knew as well, it has taken a long time to come to terms with that"
Uncle-"I think it starts at 7.30pm and it might be a double episode, make sure you don't miss it"

I gave up...

He never got married or even had a girlfriend and hadn't worked for 10 years. He was still living in the same flat that he shared with my grandmother his whole life and said he "didn't need strangers in his life" unlike me and pointed out "I am not a typical <insert my dad's surname here> unlike you" said with distain. Most of his conversation was about TV shows which is a typical family trait, they would all sit around and discuss them and ignore anything else happening in the real world. It wasn't planned avoidance as such,it was just how they were. For example, once my grandmother in mid-conversation about tv pointed out to my mother "It would be nice for you to have a little baby again from <my name> and <uncles name>" and then they carried on discussing programmes as if nothing had happened. They communicated this way.

My uncle did manage to get in that "Too many spades" had moved in around him so he was carrying on the racist tradition, too. I felt as if I had gone back in time, nothing in his responses had changed at all, there wasn't even any acknowledgement that we hadn't spoken for so long and I just tried repeatedly to insert questions inbetween the television discussion. I never bothered contacting him again, it was completely pointless.

Pyxis

Good morning WaS. Thank you for that.

I hope your head isn't too painful! Could you put an ice pack on it?

DUKE

Gosh WaS you've certainly been through it! You leave me speechless at times, what strength! How's the head now?

Waves_and_Smiles

I have had one bad experience of public transport that was so bad that I stopped using it entirely from that point onwards, it was around 6 years ago. I had been placed onto a new anti-psychotic, within 3 days of taking it I realised that I couldn't get to the bathroom in time. I was told to stick with it as it could be unrelated or could be side effects that would soon stop. For the record it got worse and I changed back to my old anti-psychotic.

I got on a bus outside of a psychiatric hospital after seeing my therapist, it was very packed. A woman sat next to me and next thing I noticed a tiny patch of urine on my jeans legs so I tightened all of my muscles and thought I would get off next stop. Unfortunately the woman saw it, too. She leapt up with a half scream and said to the woman she almost knocked over, "The dirty woman has wet herself". She then proceeded to tell a packed bus how she had never had problems with incontinence despite her age (I would say she was around 70) because she looked after herself and the problem was they let all sorts on the bus from the local 'mental hospital' these days. She went on to tell passengers that her daughter was never incontinent even after having a baby, but then she didn't have a weight problem 'like that woman' either (I was around 10 pounds overweight). I got off at the next stop in tears and that was the last time I ever used public transport.

After that incident I stopped going out entirely, ended my therapy as I couldn't face travelling there and stopped washing myself, washing my clothes or taking part in any kind of life, really. I was sectioned a few months later. That is one of the things I still find very hard to deal with, the woman has no idea how much she hurt me and perhaps she wouldn't care. I tell myself that maybe she had some kind of dementia or mental illness herself as I can't quite accept that someone could be that cruel. It still makes me want to cry today. In fact, it is one of my intrusive thoughts that I relive over and over again in my mind.

My head is a bit better! Not too much of a bump but I appear to have bruised my knuckles. I am not sure that I even want to ask my partner how I did that...

whitewing

WaS, I am so sorry that you had to experience that. It is based on ignorance and fear. I'm not a hugging person but if I were in your flat right now, I'd give you a hug.

I think you are so kind to post that story to make people think twice about how they react to unusual situations.

I bet if you and the woman were in a room together now and talked it through with a therapist, she would apologise. Her fear, based on her own life experiences, may prevent her from listening and being sorry initially, but I can't see how she would fail to be sorry if she took the time to consider it.

Have you ever thought of being in a sympathetic documentary? I would learn a lot from your autobiography but I am now thinking that I'd like to 'see' you too!