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Originally Posted by Daisydoll29
Anyone else as socially isolated as I am?
I have such a hard time being around anyone that I don't know. I'm constantly feeling like I'm being judged by everyone. Sometimes if I'm out in public I will get frightened by a random stranger for no reason. I prefer to be home because anything else is just too stimulating and overwhelming. I can't even tolerate my radio playing in my car. My social anxieties are completely debilitating to me.
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YES. I am on disability from work right now and the most I've left the house since then was 9 1/2 hours in a week, over five different days.
I have a thing about noise, and words. There can't be too many words in my day, whether I read them, hear them on TV or radio, or from another person. Sometimes I think so many words when I'm high anxiety that I don't turn on any electronic device.
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Originally Posted by Daisydoll29
What are your delusions?
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I am from another planet and am a very powerful empath. There are humanoid aliens dressed all in white who follow me and try to protect me from black aliens who look like you see on UFO magazines. Those aliens want to destroy me. Regardless, I am being watched all the time.
One time I thought a helicopter had landed on the roof to kidnap my cat so I ran screaming upstairs. In reality, my husband told me our townhouse neighbor had turned on his garbage disposal. I contort sounds a LOT.
I believe there is a sniper with a rifle aimed at my downstairs front window. I can't sit in front of it with the shades open.
There's prolly more, but those are major ones. And besides, I need someone else to tell me when something is a delusion and not real to everyone.
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Originally Posted by Daisydoll29
Hearing things? I really don't hear voices but I will hear a quick sound bite of music or hear my kitchen timer going off for just a couple of seconds when it isn't. It's never very long and usually faint but I hear it.
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I had massive auditory hallucinations before they upped my Haldol to 15 mg. A radio or TV announcer would turn threatening to me alone, I'd hear music (usually cello), I have the usual hearing of voices.
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Originally Posted by Daisydoll29
Prognosis?
I feel like I was fine when I was 19 and that I only continue to get worse as I get older (I'm 34). I was in college and held jobs....the past 3 years have been my worst so am I going to decline? Feeling pretty defeated.
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Not so good. I have been on disability since January 12 (through my employer, not SSDI or SSI). Currently, my psychologist has me returning to work in mid-June, but we both know that was just a letter he wrote to appease them for a timeline. I currently plan to go to long-term disability through my employer and then start a SSDI claim to supplement.
You have to be disabled a year to start SSDI, but my employment has been impaired since January 2012. I had a job I lost after seven months due to excessive absences, then I had a total breakdown and was out of work for eight months. I started working as a temp at a university in March 2013. In my temp days, I would go home if the workload was too light, telling them I didn't feel right billing them for hours I wasn't really working. Really, it was my illness. They hired me on permanently in August 2013 and I have been struggling ever since. It's been particularly bad since May 2014 with excessive absences.
My psychologist thinks I can get SSDI the first time around since I have schizoaffective depressive type, panic disorder with severe agoraphobia, and DID (what they now call multiple personality disorder). Plus I have a collapsed disc in my lower back. I hope he's right. There's just no way I can handle working. Like you, I've been declining for a while and I don't see an end to it.
My biggest challenge about this illness is that I can't do anything to change it, it's always there. I can take my meds, yes, but the disordered thinking doesn't go away, my paranoia doesn't go away, and I feel so impaired. I have major struggles with hopelessness.
Sorry that was so long! Welcome again to the board. Keep posting! I'm shy too, and I wrote all that. This is a good place to be.