[ickydog2006]

May be triggering, especially to those who are suicidal

I guess I'm just really struggling with the thought of living forever with this disorder. I had another episode of delusion/psychosis or whatever you want to call it, this week. Short version, I thought my husband was an alien. I'm trying a more permanent dose of Risperdal until I see my pdoc again. He was letting me take it just during my period because I hadn't been having hallucinations for a while except during that time, but in the last couple weeks I've had two significant episodes lasting a day at a time. Since my last one, I've been worried a lot about becoming a danger to others in future episodes. I worry that I'll get stuck in a delusion where I think the only way to protect someone is to kill someone else. I know that my symptoms over the past year have been getting more intense, although the Risperdal did help quiet the hallucinations some. I just feel like this is never going to end and I'm so tired of trying to manage symptoms. It really hit me hard after my therapy appointment Friday, that all the therapy in the world isn't going to make this go away. I know I already knew that, but it really hit me. It's not that therapy isn't useful. We did realize that my self care has been going down lately (missed showers etc., just one more sign of starting a downward spiral), which also upset me, one more realization that I'm letting the disorder take over. I hate feeling like I am barely hanging on. I hate feeling like therapy is mainly there to track symptoms. I feel helpless, at the mercy of a disorder. Trying to hang on just to track it and lessen its impact on others. I know things could get better, but that just translates to manageable, not to good, and I feel like the longer we try to save me and manage this, the longer there is a chance that we won't be able thus a greater chance that someone gets hurt.

[Sometimes psychotic]

How long have you been sick? So for me I worried about this same thing but I had to rationalize to my brain that killing is never acceptable....when I think it out in general I would rather risk my own death than defend myself or someone else in error. I mean that's the trick isn't it...if you kill this one person you'll save the universe....well that scenario is never going to actually happen and what are the odds that you actually get attacked...if you tell yourself that killing is never the answer and you really believe it at a core level you won't do it. My voices kept telling me that if I crushed my bird she would reemerge as a mini-dragon who would become my familiar and filter the voices. I love my bird a mini-dragon would be cool but not at the expense of my bird so my core values and feelings didn't actually change while psychotic. You have to make sure your core values are not conducive to the kinds of tricks your mind will play on you.

Second therapy well most typical therapy is just monitoring but cbt is actually helpful. Here in the US most cbt psychosis programs are still experimental and hard to come by but you can certainly read a book on cbt for psychosis and work though the exercises. Even if you can't get cbt for psychosis you can get it for anxiety or even depression and it will teach you the same skill set. I mainly used it for anxiety and basically it taught me how to reduce the stress in my life which decreased the frequency of hallucinations.

Third have you tried any alternative treatments. There is a supplement called sarcosine that activates the NMDA ion channel which is a contributing factor to some psychosis it's a slightly different mechanism than he typical d2 agonists and NMDA hypofunction is one of the things that is thought to be corrected by clozapine. Great thing about sarcosine is it's pretty close to an amino acid and doesn't really have known side effects unlike clozapine which is lethal. You want to make sure to get pure sarcosine though and not with an excitatory amino acid added because those can be neurotoxic. I posted something about that in roll call maybe a week ago but I'll try to repost a link if I can find it again.

[Sometimes psychotic]

ProFrontal - a natural option to support NMDA Receptor function.

This is the sarcosine I found...they pair it with NAC which is also activating for NMDA.

Originally Posted by ickydog2006

May be triggering, especially to those who are suicidal

I guess I'm just really struggling with the thought of living forever with this disorder. I had another episode of delusion/psychosis or whatever you want to call it, this week. Short version, I thought my husband was an alien. I'm trying a more permanent dose of Risperdal until I see my pdoc again. He was letting me take it just during my period because I hadn't been having hallucinations for a while except during that time, but in the last couple weeks I've had two significant episodes lasting a day at a time. Since my last one, I've been worried a lot about becoming a danger to others in future episodes. I worry that I'll get stuck in a delusion where I think the only way to protect someone is to kill someone else. I know that my symptoms over the past year have been getting more intense, although the Risperdal did help quiet the hallucinations some. I just feel like this is never going to end and I'm so tired of trying to manage symptoms. It really hit me hard after my therapy appointment Friday, that all the therapy in the world isn't going to make this go away. I know I already knew that, but it really hit me. It's not that therapy isn't useful. We did realize that my self care has been going down lately (missed showers etc., just one more sign of starting a downward spiral), which also upset me, one more realization that I'm letting the disorder take over. I hate feeling like I am barely hanging on. I hate feeling like therapy is mainly there to track symptoms. I feel helpless, at the mercy of a disorder. Trying to hang on just to track it and lessen its impact on others. I know things could get better, but that just translates to manageable, not to good, and I feel like the longer we try to save me and manage this, the longer there is a chance that we won't be able thus a greater chance that someone gets hurt.

Hi, I noticed that you have the 12 step program creed at the bottom of your post. Have you suffered from addiction or are you trying to manage your psychosis using the 12 step doctrine. If you do not have an addiction as such , I cant think of anything that is more harmful to you.

Originally Posted by Materly

Hi, I noticed that you have the 12 step program creed at the bottom of your post. Have you suffered from addiction or are you trying to manage your psychosis using the 12 step doctrine. If you do not have an addiction as such , I cant think of anything that is more harmful to you.

Let me clarify a bit on 12 step programs and why i do not think its appropriate in managing psychosis. The program unfortunately engenders the concept of inaction and deferral of problems to a supernatural force. If you know the program 'inaction' might not be readily understandable as the 12 step program also states that we go on a kind of rule making exercise to absolve ourselves of weakness or sin or addiction or immorality or whatever you choose to call it. Unfortunately a person that suffers psychosis interprets all kinds of issues as problems and defers to a higher power to rescue a situation as they perceive it. Rendering the person incapable of taking practical steps to help themselves. As well as inaction persistent rule making pushes people further from self expression and connection with themselves and their humanity.

[ickydog2006]

Thank you Sometimes Psychotic and Materly. I've never tried any supplements but I was able to think through the whole killing thing a bit more clearly. Along with the God says it's wrong to kill others, I fear doing something I'll regret and ending up in prison, as such, my thoughts when it comes to killing someone else is there needs to be adequate proof to those around me that it was a necessary reaction, which takes out pretty much anything caused by delusions as they are not tangible to others. And for once, my lack of self worth comes in handy because if it is between the possibility of me dying or someone else, I'd always choose risking myself anyways. I'm not sure if any of that is really reassuring to anyone else, but it is reassuring to me, so I am a little calmer about my initial concerns.
As for the 12 step program. I very strongly believe in it, but I have never even thought of applying it to psychosis, and I'm glad you clarified Materly because I can see where it could be misused concerning this. I personally use it for addiction and I do believe it can transform the lives of addicts and non-addicts, but mainly when used in context and although the first few steps deal with inaction the majority are action based. I do think it easy though for psychosis to twist this and pretty much everything for that matter.