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spiritual_emergency · Mar 28, 2010, 04:15 PM

For those not in the know, I reposted this here with D's consent because the location where the query came up doesn't offer as much in terms of software support. I thought I could respond better in this environment but I'm hopeful some of the rest of you who have an intimate understanding of her experience will also share your insights, support and ideas.

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There have been differences in the hallucinations I have experienced. Many have been like a brief comment by an external voice, bell, or other sound, that seems real as anything else, but I can see no reason that it could be real in most situations. If the situation is such that it is rational that there could be a sound like that in the situation, then I am not sure. Sometimes I am sure that others must have heard them since they were so loud. But I see they didn't react so I judge that they didn't. These don't have any emotional content unless they are so frequent that they become disruptive and annoying to the extent that they are louder than reality. They don't feel frightening, just interesting, and then irritating. These seem related to poor sleep or seizure.

I can understand why in some cases hallucinations are associated with dissociation. What I experience as dissociation is like a layer of thick grey fog that overlies everything and only lets part of what is real through, so it is easy to misinterpret what is really happening. I get more nightmares when I sleep as well. I can't tolerate noise or music. Then shadows and things out of the corner of my eye startle me and take on a negative context until I can reason with myself that it is not real. Sometimes this fog makes reality hard to see, and I can get lost, or confused about where I am, and I have to try to figure it out logically. This happens driving, or doing paperwork, and can make things take a very long time to complete, because I can't concentrate.

These occur more with anxiety and depression. This is my most common state of mind. Then there are the ones that are spiritual in content, complex visual and auditory, give me a sense of insight into the universe, there is a euphoric sense of peace and meaning in these. They are rare, but I really enjoy them. They seem more associated with mania. The thing about all of this is that the hallucinations are thoughts and they are as much a part of my memory and my life as any trip to the park.

It is the moods, with the slow thinking, and fog that become the problem. It's much harder to say a mood isn't real, or that the molasses movement of thought isn't real. It's even harder to care about doing anything well. Of course, depression is my longest delusion.

The thinking in mania at first is good focus, good concentration, insightful, where I want to be. Then I can't complete or recall a thought for more than a few seconds. I get giddy, embarrassed, over confident, then aware of my foolishness all like watching thoughts and moods, like scenery go by out of a car window. And all I want to do is sit in my car and watch the world go by it's safe, less embarrassing.

There has been so little time that my brain thinks normally, but it is closer to that right now than it has been in 20 years or more. I keep thinking what if I can't stay here for more than a few weeks or months? How can I keep being this person who is never herself because she is never her long enough to experience ...who that is? If I identify myself with my most frequent self, I am depressed. That's why I need to find meaning in depression. But I don't need it now, because my experience now doesn't relate to that feeling. So which way will the wind blow? In all of this I am just a person wandering wherever the road goes.