I figure it's due time for a real post here because, over the last 4 or so months, my psychotic experiences have become increasingly worse. Please forgive me if I don't make much sense sometimes or if my train of thought is kind of jumpy... I haven't been doing well the past couple of days & I have been manic as hell.

From reflecting on the past, I've always experienced hallucinations/delusions to a degree. A common experience is when I would take a shower & I would hear my family fighting or being murdered, but when I would rush to get dressed & get out of the bathroom, they were just fine. Whenever this would happen, I would just convince myself they were lying because that really happened. I'd always brush it off, though. And when I was younger, I was deathly afraid & convinced that a plane was going to hit my house because there was one morning it sounded deafeningly loud. I had a panic attack & every time a plane would go by after that, I would get into the "duck & cover" position & start hyperventilating. It eased up & eventually wore off after a year or two, but it was a really big part of my life & took up a lot of energy/stress.

Also, I don't traditionally think this has anything to do with psychosis, but I've also always been heavily spiritual. A lot of the reason why I don't think it's related is because my belief has never taken over my logic & my most strange experiences have been substantiated by people around me. Granted, perhaps a couple of experiences could have been imagined, but for the most part... I don't think my spirituality has anything to do with my mental health. If anything, it has been positive for my mental health because regular meditation can usually avoid stress accumulating which will sometimes lead to being more prone to psychosis & the mood rollercoaster going off track. But I suppose that I should have included this factor because a lot of people who are "psychotic" also have what they deem "magickal beliefs". I just wish they could clear the line between normal spiritual/magickal beliefs & psychotic ones...

I've only been diagnosed as Bipolar since last fall, though I realized it enough to get examined by a local clinic since around last July/August. But I didn't ever think that I had psychotic symptoms until I moved in with my boyfriend in late May. I went from constantly full & noisy households with 50 different things going on to a quiet, calm apartment. I've been happier here than I've ever been, but at the same time, it's also given way to scarier experiences & more time to dwell on them.

The first phenomena were as follows: indiscriminate voices way way in the back of my head that I can barely hear or understand, foggy shadows of people along the walls, mechanical whirring/buzzing, the sound of gears turning, gigantic booms coming from out of nowhere, feeling like there are bugs crawling all over me or fingertips pressed against me, hearing fingers tapping on walls or doors, feeling watched.

They weren't all at once, but they kind of gradually started appearing one by one. They're relatively commonplace now, but they still manage to scare me because I've always dreaded the thought of losing grip with reality. I've always been really philosophical, so even before realizing I had a screw loose, I've always been fascinated with the idea of perception & whether or not our senses can truly grasp the world that is around us. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_perception ) So... My instability in reality as it is was rather thin at the time, but in recent times, it's been quite unbearable.

The past week has been incredibly hellish. Though I have had a lot of experiences with hallucinating, most of them seem to blur together for the most part. This week has been definitely note-worthy. It all started out with this experience, which was triggered by a pain medication that caused me to go manic.

Originally Posted by Shayatanica

During the day, I felt the most normal I've been in months. Optimistic, but not overly so, & finally out of the depression I had suffered for 2 weeks now. Then, as soon as night fell & my boyfriend woke up (& I have NEVER had "hallucinations" in front of him before), it all started in.
Perceptory distortions as well as true hallucinations. The lightbulb's buzzing sounded like a bee was in the house & I spent 10 minutes looking for it & cowering. It sounded like there was a train speeding through my head & another time like there was a bull stomping & snorting behind me (the bull was actually the coffee pot). I layed down on the couch, but I saw shadows around me & felt like I was on an operating table...
It was also the first time I've ever had really paranoid delusions, as well. I'm up on the 17th floor of a building, but for some reason, I was convinced that people could see right through the windows at what I was doing & criticize me. I felt like I was in serious danger. And for some reason, I had this pervasive fear that I was going to choke on my tongue & die in my sleep.

Since that day, August 29th, I haven't been feeling like myself. The 2 days after that, I really didn't feel real. I felt totally out of it. The first day, I thought it was just the Benadryl I used to knock me out, but after it persisted through coffee & through another day, it was obvious something was amiss. The days after that were incredibly happy, but that was due to a mix of the psychosis not being present & from getting to spend a lot of time distracted & doing things that made me happy. But all the while, I've still been kind of troubled.

The last two nights, it's been back in full force. I honestly forget what I was hallucinating the night before last, but all I know is that's when my mind started to get really bad. When things start to get bad, I feel this really weird pulsating in my head. My thoughts are less like coherent thoughts & more like this jumbled mess that can't be sorted through. My thoughts aren't words or pictures: They are just this noise that grows very hard to listen to. Even my coordination goes weird. That night, it may have been my paranoia, but I've been starting to worry that it's more than Bipolar Disorder.

I've always done weird things (usually while I'm alone) & I'm not sure if it's a symptom of something, or if I'm just weird. I tend to rock back & forth a lot. I also get weird things stuck in my head that I repeat over & over again & it gets really frustrating. Sometimes I feel the repetitive need to widen & clench my jaw, or to stomp my feet, all to the point of tiring myself out. A lot of these things even other people have noticed, to the point that my ex-roommate thought I had Tourette's Disorder... To further refute that belief, it didn't help that since I was sixteen I often went into bad twitching spells. They get worse when I am manic/psychotic. One even lasted unremitting for eleven straight hours. It's like there is this inner feeling of pressure & my head goes dizzy & then I twitch, so I'm not sure what that is about.

Yesterday was really out of character for me & probably the most out of character I've ever been. I was feeling just fine until it started to hit sunset. For some reason, it's always worse for me at night, but I digress. The lights started to flicker & I heard this wicked laughter right behind me, so I bolted off the computer towards my bedroom to wake my boyfriend up & hide until the lights came back on. I was relatively fine, except for the pulsating feeling in my head & the whirring noises, until later in the night. For some reason, I just felt unbearably scared & in danger. I started scratching uncontrollably on my shoulder & my arm to the point where I have deep nailmarks & bright red bruising. I just couldn't stop doing it & I was so scared I was going to somehow hurt myself very badly. My boyfriend put me to sleep before he went to work so I wouldn't hurt myself while he was gone, but I'm still so jarred by that experience because I have no idea what came over me.

So. I suppose that is my story up until this point. There are a lot of reasons why I decided to post it. One of them being that I realize that psychosis has become such a mainstay in my life at this point that I might as well. Another one being that perhaps someone can relate to some of my strange experiences & perhaps help me to feel less alone. In the BP forums I usually feel at home, but some of my symptoms don't feel so characteristic of BP & that's kind of scary...

And the last one is actually a question: Does anyone else have a hard time speaking or conveying thoughts when they are psychotic? I have a lot of weird things that go on when I try to express myself when I am off the deep end. Sometimes I mix up words, like yesterday (I think) I said "pheletone targer" instead of "telephone charger". And most times, I have a hard time speaking in general, & usually wind up not doing it at all. It's like I totally just freeze up. I stop moving, I just look around, & I don't say anything. Sometimes I manage to get out an "I don't feel right" if my boyfriend is speaking to me or asking me what's wrong, but beyond that, I just freeze up more.

Anyway, thank you all for paying attention to my ridiculously long post. I didn't intend for it to get this long, but I guess I had a lot to say. I apologize for taking up so much of your time. But if anyone has any interesting input, that would be greatly appreciated. I just really wish I could understand this more because perhaps it would stresss me out a little bit less...

[costello]

Thanks for the introduction, Shay. There's so much interesting stuff here. The thing that really jumped out at me was the comment on how the change in your soundscape - from noisy home to quiet apartment - seems to have helped, at least with some things.

My son moved out of mhc housing in October 2009 and immediately fell apart - for a variety of reasons. He disappeared in early December, and I went to his apartment to see if he was holed up in there and not responding to phone calls and knocks. It was the first time I'd been to the building, and the first thing I noticed was how weird the accoustics were. You could hear disembodied voices, doors slamming, and other sounds coming at you from other parts of the building. It would really be a nightmare to live there if you were prone to psychosis I think. I do wonder if it contributed to his decompensating at that point.

I was listening to a Madness Radio interview the other day. Will Hall was interviewing an author who had a website and blog to accompany his book. The website included a recording of the soundscape of an African village where one of the psychotic people featured in his book lived. Frustratingly I can't find it now. If I find it I'll post it. I'd like to know what people here think about it.

[costello]

Originally Posted by costello

I was listening to a Madness Radio interview the other day. Will Hall was interviewing an author who had a website and blog to accompany his book. The website included a recording of the soundscape of an African village where one of the psychotic people featured in his book lived. Frustratingly I can't find it now. If I find it I'll post it. I'd like to know what people here think about it.

Ah, I found it: http://www.crazylikeus.com/ On the right side of the page, under the photo of his book cover, is a link to a youtube recording of the sounds in a street in Zanzibar. I find it pleasant, but he theorizes that this soundscape contributed to the girl's delusions.

Here's the blog post that goes with the recording (http://blog.crazylikeus.com/2009/10/...r.aspx?ref=rss):

THE SOUNDSCAPE OF ZANZIBAR

In my chapter about cultural differences in the expression of schizophrenia I traveled to Zanzibar to spend some time with anthropologist Juli McGruder who studied families on the island who lived with the disease. The chapter addresses the ways families in different cultures conceive of the disease and how those beliefs effect the experience of the ill person.

The auditory landscape of a place often becomes central to the experience of a schizophrenic. I've placed an audio clip of the sound of a public square in Zanzibar on the front page of this site because this is the soundscape in which a Hemed and his daughter Kimwana lived while they struggled with their disease. Sitting with anthropologist Juli McGruder and listening to the sounds of that square was a memorable moment for me in reporting this book.

Kimwana's central delusion was that the bicycle repairman outside here house could see into her thoughts and feelings. That her delusions would come in the form of intrusive auditory hallucinations made sense given the location of the household. The roiling, pulsing sound that filled the square during the day was remarkable for its volume, texture, and complexity. Across the square from the house was the Bakathrir Muslim School for Girls, and directly to the right of the house was the Al Nour Islamic school for boys. At any given moment the undulating, overlapping choruses of hundreds of children chanting in Arabic could be heard. The noise that emanated from the schools created a kind of hypnotic background sound, like breaking surf. On top of that sound could be heard the single voices of individual children teasing and playing with each other or calling out to people in the courtyard. Then there were the voices and footsteps of adults heading across the square on their errands and the constant squawk of crows in the shade tree. in that cacophony of sounds reverberating and echoing off tin roofs and cement surfaces, the only discernable individual voices were those of the bicycle repairmen chatting among themselves or with their customers as they did their work.

Considering the additional commotion of the comings and goings of the members of the household, the noise must have been unrelenting. The many small children, though well behaved in the manner of most zanzibari children, created a racket. hemed, even though he could not walk or even bathe himself, could yell and often did for long stretches without ceasing. Several of the family members shared with McGruder their belief that the noise itself was exacerbating Kimwana’s illness. Bimkubwa, the most Westernized of the siblings, told McGruder that Europeans have much smaller families and that their houses were much quieter. “There are too many of us and this place is too noisy,” she said emphatically. Kimwana often asserted that she felt better when she was alone, but given her auditory hallucinations and the general noisiness of her surroundings it was clear that she was talking not just about a desire for physical solitude but also for quiet. “I do like being on my own,” she once told McGruder. “being with people I feel like I am tangled with them. I feel like calming myself, just silently. Just quiet and silent.” Unfortunately time alone was a scarce commodity in the packed household. And silence was all but unavailable.

[Tsunamisurfer]

Originally Posted by Shayatanica

Does anyone else have a hard time speaking or conveying thoughts when they are psychotic? I have a lot of weird things that go on when I try to express myself when I am off the deep end. Sometimes I mix up words, like yesterday (I think) I said "pheletone targer" instead of "telephone charger". And most times, I have a hard time speaking in general, & usually wind up not doing it at all. It's like I totally just freeze up. I stop moving, I just look around, & I don't say anything. Sometimes I manage to get out an "I don't feel right" if my boyfriend is speaking to me or asking me what's wrong, but beyond that, I just freeze up more.

Thanks for sharing that with us, Shay.

Yes, I have trouble explaining what is going on. Sometimes I can't think of the details in a way that is orderly and can be put into words. My thinking feels like a chaotic junk yard without any paths or roads. Its painful to dredge up memories of even 5 minutes ago and put them into language that others can vaguely understand. Then, as you say, it takes a lot of effort to get very little out in comprehensible words. The other thing is I usually don't want to communicate anyway - I tend to go crouched up and wide eyed, or bury myself somewhere to keep the noises out.

Shay, I'm sorry you are going through all this

I can relate to so much of what you said. When I am psychotic I can't communicate well. I also stutter alot. I have a hard time talking to anyone about anything. Too jumbled inside. I even have a hard time doing everyday tasks like the dishes. When it is all over I go back to being normal me and sharp. It is indeed very frustrating to live this way.

I am glad you joined us here and I am glad you posted this.

costello: I was actually able to ignore these types of things better when I was in a busy house. There was always so much drama going on, there would be no reason to dwell on a random noise here & there for more than about 5 minutes before trying to find some other type of distraction. But that article is really interesting, especially since this is also my first time living in a big city. I remember one time I thought I heard the noise from "the Grudge" directly in my ear... Turns out it was someone mowing the grass 17 stories down. Kind of weirds me out how the acoustics allowed me to misperceive something from so far away as being right next to me! Ugh.

tsunami & anika: Thank you so much. I'm not glad either of you have to go through this either, but I'm definitely comforted by not being alone. I was just the only person I knew of that had really severe problems with communicating that it was starting to make me paranoid that a lot more was wrong with me than I thought... I stutter sometimes too, but usually I just get really frustrated. A lot of my "therapy" right now is trying to sort out what goes on in my head with my boyfriend. He's really the only person I've been honest with, so a big issue has been trying to convey my thoughts. But like you, Tsumani, I tend to just get wide eyed & go quiet because the stress of trying to form a sentence or remember anything properly is too much.

Thank you all so ridiculously much. This means a lot.

Literally every second of yesterday from when I woke up at 10 until about 7:30pm consisted of a horrific panic attack & constant paranoia. Every noise was someone tracking my movements & spying on me. I was scared of my soon-to-be mother-in-law because I thought she was evil incarnate & wanted to pull me away from her son (though she really is a genuinely sweet lady to everyone, I was just afraid that her niceness was too good to be true & planned out specifically to target me). I've been checking for the past 2 days at a condo window relatively far away from me because I think they've somehow been spying on me. Even isbn numbers & other random numbers have been mocking me & I think they were placed there specifically to taunt me so I will realize what they're up to. It was literally the most paranoid I've ever been & I couldn't stop shaking or hyperventilating or being scared.

Today, however, has been a complete 180 degree turnaround! My boyfriend & I took a "mental health day" which essentially means exploiting our good-feeling mania to go out to eat, get ice cream, & buy some new videogames & hairdye since he got his paycheck. A little splurging, but nothing we couldn't afford. I've been feeling so good today. It just goes to show that it doesn't always last forever... Though those people in the condo across from me still kind of bother me a little, but at least it's not overwhelming. Night before last I was crawling on the floor in the dark so they couldn't see me. : /

[costello]

I'm really sorry you had such a bad day, but I'm glad the next day was so much better. It's like I tell me son: everything passes if you just wait.

Here's hoping for many, many more happy days in the future.

Hehehe thank you!! It's been happyville here since I posted! Ahhhh, it's been so refreshing. I hope you're doing well too. How's your back??

[costello]

Originally Posted by Shayatanica

Hehehe thank you!! It's been happyville here since I posted! Ahhhh, it's been so refreshing. I hope you're doing well too. How's your back??

My back is doing great. Thanks. I was even able to start a workout routine this morning! A step video.

I lost my purse in May when my car rolled into the lake. I replaced the car but not the purse. I hate purse shopping. It's such a complicated thing getting just the right one. Anyway I went out looking for a purse yesterday, dragging my poor son along with me. I couldn't find one I liked (of course), and I got worn out just walking through a few stores. So I thought I should get back into shape. I dusted off my step and pulled out a beginning level video and worked out.

I'm glad things are going well for you too. Life's like the weather. Don't like what you're getting right now, just wait a while and it will change.

I hope you are still in happyville