[BeyondtheRainbow]

The new AP seems to have stopped the hallucinations already--thank God! I do not miss that at all although I'm going to be cautious for a long time before I believe I'm ok. I think that things can come back temporarily as the Seroquel levels drop and I'm on a teeny dose of loxapine.

But the paranoia......it's going to be so hard to see this substitute therapist this week and talk about this because I do not want her to send me to IP. The paranoia is scary, not dangerous and I always get through it.

THe lightning bug paranoia from yesterday (he was following me and spying on me and tracking my movements) got better and then I was in the shower and looked up and there he was. Since a lot of child abuse occurred in the shower that was rather rough. I haven't seen him since so I guess the bugs found me boring. Or something. Whatever, that one I think I conquered with the help of a friend who made me laugh about it.

Today it was other drivers. First it was someone who kept passing and slowing down and then I'd pass him and he'd repeat the processl. I was pretty sure he was trying to make driving impossible. Finally I got away from him but not until I'd said quite a bit out loud to him (obviously he couldn't hear and it wasn't much more than a usual annoying driver gets, just I was questioning his intentions). Then I stopped at a rest area and came out with a man on a cell phone and his wife behind me. For some reason I was completely sure the man was on the phone tracking me and planning to trap me. I pretty much ran to my car, dove in and locked it. The couple innocently continued to get in their car while I drove off as fast as I could. The woman had made me anxious in the bathroom by turning on the hand dryer and not using it (covering something up?) and then the cell phone conversation was weird and just triggered my mind to be sure it was about how to "get me".

I have 2 choices; I can tell the truth Tuesday and hope for the best or I can lie and hear about it from my therapist next week. And I'm not a good liar.

Not so good. Maybe the med will help with that soon. And just to make this funny I had to call in with a message about the med today. I told the secretary everything except that I was still paranoid b/c I was too paranoid to let her or the pdoc know that. So I'll have to email the pdoc Monday with the update on that.

[Crazy Hitch]

Paranoia is not fun. I hope that the meds start taking effect so that you begin to feel less paranoid soon.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

Me too. I think I'm ready to move the dose up one notch so maybe that will catch the paranoia.

[Crazy Hitch]

I'd say go for it BeyondtheRainbow - if that's something that your pdoc has recommended you've got nothing to lose and you're right I think it will help the paranoia.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I have to wait for permission. Because I'm paranoid I don't like to admit to real life people that I"m paranoid. So when I called to update her yesterday I didn't tell her secretary that I was still paranoid. So now I'll have to email Monday or Tuesday (more likely she gets it Tuesday) and see if the dose can go up. I know she planned to do that if needed because she gave me enough to double the dose.

The trick with this stuff is that it is supposed to be taken twice a day or even 3 times. I'm really hoping she keeps me on all at night since I need it for sleep first and foremost because I am terrible at taking AM pills. I even take my thyroid med at night (with permission). Last summer when I was on pain pills and blood thinners I had to do morning meds and the blood thinners lasted a lot longer than the pain pills that had a built in reminder to take them. Setting an alarm should work but doesn't I will get up, go to another room and shut off an alarm sitting under a pillbox and go back to sleep. And then last summer I topped it all off by taking my night pills in the morning because I grabbed the wrong pillbox when I thought "oh, meds". That was a fun day......My pdoc was off so I had to convince another that it wasn't the world's lamest suicide attempt.

But no matter what I'll figure it out if it helps this work. No more paranoia by July is my goal.That's a long time so I really hope it is sooner than that but in case it takes a while I'd rather not be disappointed by a too short goal. I hope that 2 weeks is not so long that anyone decides to hospitalize me; I think adjusting to the new med should keep me safe.

Pdoc acted like if we increased it would be after some time passed which is reasonable since I need to go on slowly. I don't know when she'll decide it is safe to go up a dose. It probably also has to do with the seroquel levels that are still dropping for a couple more days. Nobody wants to make me unable to pee at all.