[tecomsin]

I fell into a delusional state in my last episode, and now, looking back on what I did, including things I got in legal trouble for (totally uncharacteristic as I've never broken the law before except the odd speeding or parking ticket), the things I did that were illegal that I didn't get caught, the things that I did that were not illegal just dangerous, and the accusations that people have made that were actually false...

I had this belief that I was on a mission to save the world... I was rewriting the geopolitical framework and assigning new leaders to areas all over the world.

I thought i had rediscovered an ancient plan on how to govern and make decisions from the Mongols of Genghis Khan. I thought that birds were in communion with my times. That certain times of the day, and certain dates in the year had prophetic meaning... I thought that birds also had this higher intelligence.

Now I look on the wasteland that is my mind. It scares the wits out of me now, what I was doing, what I thought and what the consequences could have been (they are already bad enough but it could have been a lot worse). I could have actually hurt someone or myself in an accident. Fortunately that didn't happen. I thought I was being followed on the road and people were trying to run me over.

It's traumatizing to go through a mental descent and then wake up slowly, day by day, week by week and month by month with the slow realization that I'm one sick puppy...

I'm hoping other folks here who have been through a delusional episode (I am not sure if I was psychotic as I wasn't hallucinating or hearing things), have you scared the wits out of yourself? How did you come to terms with it? What does it mean to have any identity when one/s thought processes can go so dangerously awry.

I think part of the anxiety I have no is an adjustment to the realities of not only what I was doing but what I was thinking. I wake up each morning with dread and anxiety and then slowly sometime in the day it lifts a little and I can breath again.

[leejosepho]

Originally Posted by tecomsin

What does it mean to have any identity when one's thought processes can go so dangerously awry.

I think part of the anxiety I have now is an adjustment to the realities of not only what I was doing but what I was thinking. I wake up each morning with dread and anxiety and then slowly sometime in the day it lifts a little and I can breath again.

My recent mornings have not been as challenging as some in the past, and I can make that statement even though I suspect I might live out the remainder of my days without ever having an identity such as you have asked about. Overall, I carefully take every thought captive and then process it thoroughly in relation to what I either know or believe to be good and right before acting upon it...and that is the essence of how I no longer end up being scared of myself.

I have had several delusions of persecution in the past when manic. They frightened me vs. me frightening myself. Once I was in such a state at home that I called 911 screaming and screaming. I couldn't even talk. Then I ran from the house accidentally locking myself out and was screaming at the top of my lungs (I'm sure my neighbors heard. They knew it was me, because I'm the crazy neighbor). I think the 911 operator thought there was a murder. Six cops showed up at my doorstep where I eventually settled. They asked me questions, but I only screamed in response. It didn't ease until my husband drove up. I remember running to him and holding on tight. My husband said one of the cops said he figured I was in an "episode". Hubby told him he was surely right. My pdoc was then called and I saw him the next morning. I managed to avoid the hospital with my pdoc's help.

Other times with delusions of persecution I would scream and run through the hospital ward and would be dragged into the isolation room and given an injection. That happened at least three or four times, maybe more. Some of those times are fuzzy in my memory.

The only time I believe I really scared myself, was when I was getting manic and still going to AA meetings. One time I had such agitation and racing thoughts in the meeting that I stormed out and went straight to a bar. I don't know how much I drank, but I ended up leaving and driving around in a blackout. About 6 hours must have passed and I came to when I heard the ringing of my cell phone at around 3 am, according to hubby. My husband was frantic asking me where I was. I didn't know, even though I normally would. I told him I was one place and he went there and didn't find me. Then he called again and somehow I managed to figure it out and tell him. He found me in my car (battery dead) not too far from a police station. There was extreme amounts of vomit all in my car and outside the car door. Hubby drove me home (with a stop for me to vomit out the door). Then he went back and cleaned some of the vomit from the car and moved it so the cops wouldn't notice vomit outside the car door. The next morning he had to call AAA for a jump start. I guess I must have parked there and passed out with the car running with lights on, causing the battery to die. I believe I ended up in the hospital only days later. That situation scared me.

Another thing I did that scared me also involved alcohol. I was unwell with a mixed episode brewing on a business trip to a state far away. I was in a desperate state and went to the hotel bar. I got so drunk that I went into a blackout. All I remember was a brief moment seeing a guy holding my hand leading me back to my hotel room. Then I came to in the morning with the worst hangover I've ever had in my life. It wasn't clear if anything happened with that man since I seemed to be dressed when I woke up. I was so sick that I was unable to attend any of the company's events that day. They never drew my attention to being missed, but I will never know. Basically I wasted the company's money on a flight and hotel because I did nothing on that trip other than get drunk and recover from a hangover. I ended up in the hospital very soon after.

I had never had alcohol blackouts before going on bipolar medications, even though I abused alcohol for quite a time. I don't drink much anymore. Hardly even 1 drink per day. My medications definitely do make me drunker faster and more prone to blackouts.

[HALLIEBETH87]

My psychosis is scary but the times I attempted to take my life and the time I held a weapon against myself are the worst.

[scatterbrained04]

How close I get to committing suicide freaks me out. That and how badly it effects my thinking just in general. I definitely scare myself.

[tecomsin]

Originally Posted by leejosepho

My recent mornings have not been as challenging as some in the past, and I can make that statement even though I suspect I might live out the remainder of my days without ever having an identity such as you have asked about. Overall, I carefully take every thought captive and then process it thoroughly in relation to what I either know or believe to be good and right before acting upon it...and that is the essence of how I no longer end up being scared of myself.

I will take that on board... to become more reflective rather than either ruminating endlessly with worry, when I'm in the anxious, depressed state or
acting (in retrospect) impulsively because I truly believe my thoughts are totally correct when i start to become manic.

I have no insight when I'm full blown manic, but it has also been the case that many people in my life are keyed up to the possibility of my being manic and accuse me of it even when I am depressed. I can't count the times my neighbors have called the police to have so called 'wellness check". so I don't trust anyone's judgement except my psychiatrist.

Underneath all that ia person capable of rational action and not going off the rails one way or another. It's the mania that gets all the attention but the other side is also unbalanced and perhaps even more destructive. I'm tired of self-destruction.

Halliebeth and scatterbrained, thank you for sharing. I hadn't even considered how I'd come to terms with intentional suicidal behavior.

I'm looking integrating with the fear and with the identity confusion (for lack of a better term) accepting myself as a whole person.

BirdDancer, I guess what you are saying when you say your delusions frightened you rather than you frightening yourself is that you clearly separate yourself from . your delusions?

I'm very confused about whether or not my delusions are part of my identity.

Hi tecomsin. Yes, I do separate myself from my delusions. Even the pleasurable ones.

Yes, several times I have. It’s not my though, it’s other people’s thoughts but it’s hard to accept all the same.

[BipolaRNurse]

I'm with scatterbrained...I've scared the hell out of myself due to suicidal ideation/intent. I came thisclose to using my .38 on Halloween three years ago; that episode landed me in the hospital. While there I "saw" cats running under the linen cart in the ER. That scared me almost as much as the suicidal thoughts. Not something I ever want to repeat, I can tell you.

[Sunflower123]

When I get close to committing s my blood runs ice cold and there’s a wave of dread and terror in my whole being. It terrifies me and I am traumatized during and after the event (of successfully fighting it off).

[richeyd80]

For me when I am in a mixed state, now that is scary. But, I will say at the time it's not scary, it's basically like I'm living in a movie. My last episode involved me hearing a voice commanding me to extinguish my self so my family could have eternal life. Cops called, threat made towards police, taken to local crisis unit. But, after looking back I wasn't scared at all at the time, oddly kind of at piece. But, on the other hand, I can look back and say damn that was a close one. I came close that day and that scares me.

[UpDownAround]

This thread reminds me of the song Dangerous - "I don't hang mirrors around the house cause I even scare myself!"

[wildflowerchild25]

This last mixed episode scared the hell out of me because I felt completely at mercy to the “evil” part of my brain, the part that wanted me dead. I felt I could not be safe and I was inches away from hurting myself severely. Thankfully I went to the hospital instead. I do get scared sometimes how my mind cooks up these strange thoughts.

With severe mixed and agitatated impulsiveness I scare myself.

anything involving the police scare me.

I don't like them, even though I know they are just people like us

I've had them show up at 1, 2, even 3 a.m in the morning, banging on my window demanding entry because of something done or said (either as part of an episode, or because I meant it)

1 morning, I clearly heard someone say (over an anouncement system), " could emily please report to the front desk."

that scared me too, as I thought I was in a hotel without any knolledge

I wasn't... I was in, I think a bar.

someone explained to me that before I'd punched everyone involved in a country and western performance led by this guy called pete

oooo it was scary

once I saw some flames in front of me (episode), and at the time I was standing on a stage

feel down a few of the steps and grabbed on to some random woman in front of me to protect me.

tried to turn around to go down backwards, and the poor woman in front fell and hit her head on the railings

once I saw this woman sitting on the bed in front of me, and convinced myself for about 3 days that somehow she had got a key from me, and came in to burgle me from time to time

I have scared myself countless times with stomach pain, convinced I was going to die by the morning

[99fairies]

I have definitely scared myself during an episode. Some of the more serious episodes have given me PTSD.

[tecomsin]

Originally Posted by BirdDancer

Hi tecomsin. Yes, I do separate myself from my delusions. Even the pleasurable ones.

I was doing that for the longest time... since my first psychosis 9 years ago, I have gone in and out of a delusional belief system full of ideas of reference, paranoia, knowing secrets, being spied upon, on a special mission, delusions of grandeur and persecution at the same time. A big difference now is that I have acted out on the belief system and gotten into a bunch of trouble beyond anything I ever had before

Now I've looked back at what i have written in the past and realized that I've had various persistent delusions that went on for months, and sometimes years.

So it is very hard to separate these delusions from myself. Now I can choose to believe or not to believe them. I chose not to. I think it was a way of filling up a life that otherwise I find empty. It's the persistence of the delusions that is so scary to me, the fact that I wasted years believing in a make believe world.

My guess is that this is closer to the experience of people with schizophrenia than bipolar... delusions that persist while mood states vary. I never really talked about them with a professional because I had a deep distrust of psychiatry since my first episode.

In my first episode I thought the man who was living with us had an earpiece where he was being told what to say to me by other people that I knew. Then I startehd having auditory hallucinations and asked him to take me to ER.

I told the ER doctors about the hallucinations but not the false beliefs. They sent me home after 12 hours with a prescription of 25 mg of seroquel to sleep. I had been seeing a psychiatrist for the first time ever and he had put me on a high dose of celexa for chronic pain. I was also smoking pot.

A week later I was crawling out of my skin and couldn't cope and called the crisis team. I was taken to hospital again and passed out in the seclusion room. They had put me under intense flourescent lights that trigger massive headaches. I woke up locked in another room, behind 2 more locked doors, certified even though I had voluntarily asked for help. I was held for 3 or 4 weeks. All of my psychiatric hospitalizations since then have been involuntary and I was held about the same time.

I didn't tell anyone then about my delusions either because I was afraid I'd never get out. In canada you have few to no rights as a psychiatric patient. Even though I trust my long term psychiatrist compared to others I have always been afraid of being committed if I talked about what was truly going on inside my head.

This is the first time I have opened up about it.

[zbmom]

Yes, I got so depressed recently, and I think I was in a mixed episode, that I attempted suicide three times. It was very scary and now I'm quite committed to staying on meds.