Driven out of apartment by neighbors

Thank you, Kori! I don't think they will ever stop as long as I'm living here. I heard them talking (just vocal tones) a short while ago. They have stopped doing all this during the daytime, but after dark they start up again. I really am sick thinking they're going to kill me. Anyone who hasn't been here probably thinks that's silly, but I don't think so at all. I think it could happen and I'm scared.

They are continuing to trigger me. I have a very ubiquitous trigger. It's meant having to isolate myself all throughout my life. And it's the perfect weapon to torture me because no one else thinks anything of it. So that's what they are doing from upstairs and downstairs. It causes me physical torture and I have no way to relieve it. I'm very upset.

They will be doing it throughout tonight, tomorrow, forevermore that I live here. Killing me can remain a back up play as long as they have this means to torture me. (Anyone who has ever lived adjacent to my apartments has been able to figure it out.)

I feel more and more like starting the process of leaving but I'd rather not look for a place with this kind of pressure on me. I can't afford to move either. I have just about enough money for a couple of nights in a motel and a cheap car rental for maybe a week. But I still have to buy lenses first! Oh. While I've been typing this out, the pos downstairs triggered me 3 times.

I would start making really weird noises loudly and freak them out

Thank you! It's a great idea. But I think the freaks upstairs were talking to the police two evenings ago, and they might be trying to record my outbursts like I'm trying to record them. I don't know. Still it's a great idea. When I shouted at one of them upstairs before the police came, she stopped stamping. She started back again though. I'd have to walk a fine line between being alarming and rating another visit from the police. I don't want the police to think I'm crazy, I need them to help me.

^ Regardless of whether these people are trying to harass you, I think doing anything in retaliation would be a very ill advised thing to do. You'll just make it worse or get in trouble yourself.

I think the best thing to do is just do your best to ignore them, or at least don't react. I'm sure they'll lose interest eventually.

PS - how did they know you couldn't hear them? Have you been doing stuff back & if so, since when?

They can hear me reacting. It's loud and full of rage. And theyve had 5 years to notice it. So they've been using it against me, because what else do psychopaths do?

I agree with you that I should do my best to modify my reaction. I discovered early in my life that when my adrenaline is high, I can skip the reaction. Maybe my adrenaline will surge or something. But yes, you're right - I should not do anything they can record and claim is payback.

Sorry, probably not the best advice. Just thinking what I would do and laughing about all the weird noises I could make if I were in that situation

I think it was great advice! But not necessarily with the police sort of involved.

I'm sorry they continue to torture you with their obnoxious behavior. I hope they move so you don't have to.

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Thank you, valley. I wanted to move to a place with more amenities, and less stairs. So I have that need, but I've been feeling like another move might make me psychotic again. I moved at least 10 times since 2004. I hate that it might be mandatory because of what's going on now. I keep thinking my next move will be my last, and then something happens and I have to move again. That's how I've amassed so much clutter.

But I'm scared of these people. That ambush after new years was way over the line. They want me scared and they want me gone. I'm afraid to call the police again because with my history they might decide all I need is another 8 days of being inpatient, and that all of this has been a psychotic fantasy.

If I really am in danger, that's when I should call the police, but they wouldn't get here instantly.

Hi, Angelique,

I think, but I'm not certain, that I have seen your messages here before? I'm not certain – to be honest, I've been having one psychotic episode after another for the past couple of weeks and my memory just ebbs and flows so I might not be in the best place to offer any advice.

When did you begin to have psychotic episodes? My first was in 1999. Freshly divorced and living in a new townhouse. I had the simplest and most common sort of psychotic episodes: hearing voices over a radio. I didn't have a radio and I almost totally lost it as I continued to hear the genuinely life-threatening voices AND search the townhouse inside and out for a radio.

Going back inside, the voices began again when I entered my second-storey bedroom. I finally figured out that the voices were coming from my laptop computer (I think that it was an Apple PowerBook 5300cs). It wasn't plugged in and I took the battery out so that there was no way possible for it to receive any power, but the voices kept coming.

Using one hand I can count the number of times in my life that I actually ”flew into a rage.” I destroyed the computer and, finally, threw it out the window. I closed the window and the voices stopped. I put my forehead against the cool window and started shaking and crying because I realized that I was almost overwhelmed by fright and that I should have called the police before going downstairs.

I had a few other similar episodes before I told my doc what was happening. Things get fuzzy around this time but I left a message on my doc's machine, after hours on a Friday evening, and the sheriff deputies broke down my door. Doc's secretary had returned to the office to retrieve something left behind and heard the message.

I spent the next six weeks in a really swank mental health clinic. I had great insurance. It took me a long time, and I went through a lot more episodes, before I was able to assure myself that the voices weren't real and that no one had plans to kill me.

I've read through this thread and it sounds as if you have some very cruel neighbors. I'm in a ground floor apartment and, with my social phobias and other mental issues, I am afraid of leaving my apartment. My building is elderly/disabled only so I don't have to worry about noise from above or beside me – those apartments are let by two older gentlemen who stay inside all of the time, just like me.

Have you ever had a voice delusion similar to mine? You're fortunate, I think, to be able to distinguish between a ”real” voice and a ”false” voice; I perceive the false voice as much more real than the ”real” voice. Do you recall your first psychotic episode? I was just diagnosed two days ago with "Schizoaffective disorder, depressive type” and I'm having a really hard time distinguishing between a hallucination and a delusion. Someone told me that hallucinations have sensory deceptions while delusions are beliefs that are false.

From what I've read here it seems that you've had your share of psychotic episodes and I'm wondering if you could take a moment and give me some clues about how I can, hmm, maybe establish some sort of rite for distinguishing between that which is real and that which is not real. I had a very bad episode five days ago and I still do not know if it was real or not. It still seems to me that it was real in every way but, if it was, the only explanation would lie beyond reality. So how do you know? Even when it's all over, or (more helpfully) during an episode, how can you test the feeling and the sensory sensations?

I'm just tootling along here. I've taken my bedtime meds but still cannot sleep. And I'm going into a kind of cloud and that's where I am hearing voices, 2-3 times an hour. As the day has passed I've realized that wherever these voices take me, it's a place of safety.

Just one last thing... (I believe that I'm Columbo) I have problems sleeping period but I can't sleep at all if I hear even the most subtle and normal sounds at night. My stepmother purchased a device for me 30 years ago called (back then) a Sleep–Mate. Mine is still going but I bought a backup from Amazon last year and it's marketed now as a ”Marpac Dohm Sleep Conditioner." An adjustable white noise machine. MUCH better than any earplugs.

Help me out if you think that you can. I'm going to try to get some sleep...

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Why don't you ring their doorbell and politely ask them to stop, and if that fails call the cops on them?

^ I think unfortunately that option was not taken & went out the window a long time ago. Good shout though.

I was wondering, surely you have other neighbours in adjacent flats. If these people are making as much noise as you say, why does no-one else complain? Could you talk to your other neighbours to see if they are getting disturbed too?

Like, when you got the police out, one would assume they should talk to other neighbours too to verify the noise levels. Maybe if you had them on your side the police would have a sterner talk with these troublesome neighbours.

Hi Ciderguy! Yes, you've probably seen my posts before. I've answered your posts, and it's nice to see you around the forums again.

My first psychotic experience was probably when my original illness began around the age of maybe 7 years old. I've had to live with it all my life. Sorry I can't describe it here - for privacy reasons.

But my next psychotic experience began about 7 years ago. I heard a man's voice and for almost all of 7 years I believed he existed. So, the hallucination was of the voice. I couldn't believe I was hallucinating so I created the delusion that he was a torturing sadist who was stalking me and following me. I believed he was had skills with new technology for getting his voice into my apartments.

I know that sounds very similar to what started here with my neighbors except since I can record them, I know this is real.

Anyway, the hallucinations were the man's voice. The delusion was the back story I created to try to explain why he was doing it. At various times in the whole ordeal I believed he was one person or another who I'd crossed paths with. I usually though was unsure who it was. But that was the delusion part - that he was some sadistic master of cutting edge tech, and that's why I couldn't record his voice.

What stopped it, finally, was the Abilify finally kicking in and my initial posts here. There was a huge coincidence that those two things finally happened at the same time and I realized it was all psychosis.

For a period of time the winter before I ever posted here, I had a few days of "insight" and realized it was psychosis, except his voice was so real I slipped back into my delusion.

I'm afraid I don't know what to say about the hallucinations you are experiencing. Maybe they are similar to my original problem which is very short periods of time that I experience intense physical torture due to an external trigger. I mean, timewise, since your hallucinations only last for short periods. I don't hallucinate the trigger (except for when the man's voice was triggering me) but I guess the intense torture it causes for me is a delusion that this trigger can hurt me.

I've never found anything that can remove the torture from the trigger except high adrenaline. But that doesn't often happen.

I'm not sure if what you are experiencing has any delusional component, unless it is at the same time as the hallucinations. If you continued to believe your father were still alive between the hallucinations of hearing his voice, that would be a delusion. But between hallucinations you know your father is gone. It's not a persistent belief that he is still alive on earth.

I'm probably not expressing myself very well, sorry about that.

About your one last thing, it sounds like a great idea for me, because I also have extremely bad tinnitus and I've heard white noise machines can be helpful.

Maybe I'll try to write more today but my nerves are pretty bad. Thank you for posting, I really enjoy how you express things and I think you're a very gifted writer.

Thanks, but as Loial said, that ship has pretty much sailed. And, never negotiate with terrorists. They don't have the same playbook we do.

I'm not sure what my neighbors know or maybe said. I just don't know them, and they've heard me shouting and shrieking in here for years when I still thought I was being stalked and tortured. I just can't face them. It's possible the landlord may have spoken to them about that night because I don't know if he would have believed it happened if it were just my sole complaint. Sorry, I just can't face my neighbors. It's a good idea, but I can't.

I have some stamping recorded and if I wanted the recorder to pick up the things they say or do where I can hear them, I could let it run for a period of hours. Maybe I should do that, I don't know.

Last night they did trigger me a lot, but with earplugs in and listening to music on my phone, mainly drowned them out. I took a Tizanidine to knock me out and I slept pretty well. Got the most sleep I've had since all this started. I should be feeling better today but somehow I'm just a ball of anxiety.

Angelique,

That's the finest explanation of the difference between hallucinations and delusions that I've read. Thank you for taking the time to explain... the explanation, I think, helps to bolster my feeling that my psychotic episodes can't be bundled and packaged and called Schizoaffective disorder.

But it makes perfect sense. As I've said before, I tend to use mathematics to understand and describe these things. And it is perfectly logical that delusion would spring from an attempt to reconcile hallucinations with reality.

Let me ask something. Most of my hallucinations (and, now that I have been able to sleep, the hallucinations are waking me up) lately have been centered on and around my parents. I hear them, I respond.

What I was calling a "delusion" was a "feeling," a "sense" of being in a world where everything is safe.

And there isn't any "time" when I'm in this state. I could drop into that state now and come out of it tonight and the only thing that I could tell you was that the sun was out the last time that I was awake. I keep saying that these episodes last about four hours but, honestly, I don't know. This hurts. I have been trying to suppress something but I'll just write it. I've lost days. The longest was four nights, five days. The only reason that I know that time span was real time is because of my new phone.

So I don't think that's a delusion, even though I have an awareness of my parents then, too. I'm in a lot of distress over this. Your explanation would only go so far in explaining these states but while the hallucinations and the cloud-time have a few overlapping themes, one isn't trying to explain the other.

I'm really quite confused just now. And I am very afraid. I feel ****ed.

I just called my doc. I think that I need an increase of Seroquel maybe. I don't know.

Thanks for writing back. I wish that there was a way that I could help you with your neighbors.

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Hi Ciderguy,

I would be very afraid of that too, the losing of time. Do you think it may be something like DID? I don't know much about that, but when the main identity can't handle a situation, another person comes to the fore to deal with consciousness.

Maybe you could use an app to sign in on your phone once an hour, then when you dissociate and return you could see how much time you lost. There are a lot of good alarm apps to help you remember.

I really envy that place of safety you've have been experiencing. It sounds wonderful to me.

Do you think if you weren't so isolated, maybe you'd have a firmer grasp of reality? Are there any places you could go to socialize, like church groups or other social centers? I know how bad isolation can be because I isolate myself entirely, except for the occasional texts from a relative and sometimes my one last friend. Lately, under this stress, I've been feeling closer to losing what little sanity I have left.

If there were some way to get prosthetic legs, could you eventually drive again? If you'd rather I didn't suggest things like that, please just tell me to stop.

I'm not sure still about the types of hallucinations you're having and delusions. I wonder if your doctor diagnosed schizoaffective because you also have depression? They seem to like to diagnose schizoaffective these days, I'm not sure why.

I hope the higher dose of Seroquel will help. Did you tell your doctor about losing time yet? Maybe they'd have suggestions to help. The only times I ever lost time was when I was young and a binge drinker, but then I'd just black out and couldn't remember anything past a certain point.

Well, they are tag teaming and triggering me every few minutes. I feel really sick from the physical reactions. I texted my landlord about it just now and I feel like such a jerk - what if he evicts me. Oh my God.

I have the TV on and still the earplugs. They just do it louder. I should probably record it.

Hi Angelique, I know how you feel. I used to live with some students last year and one didn't do his dishes for days, partied until 3-4 am and I was working the morning at 7:30 am!! The other kept inviting his gf over and all I'd hear is moans all the time, it's a miracle I didn't end up more crazy than I am today. I did cry a few times though and now that I'm living in an apartment alone, it's much better but my neighbours talk very loud every night at around 10 pm and I have trouble falling asleep because the building is old and if I go in my bathroom, I can hear them as if I was in their apartment. @_@ It's weird because my door blocks noise extremely well but two of walls, it's as if they were in paper! And that danged neighbours upstairs keeps moving his chair on the floor all the time and drop something that sounds like a rock, many times a day. It's making me slighly paranoid so I when I'm at home, I listen to music and sleep with my headphones on. It kind of works but it makes me feel abused by my neighbours and I can't do anything, if I go talk to them, they will talk about me, I will hear them through the walls and go even more paranoid!! I'll try Ciderguy's white noise machine, maybe this can help me!

Because I DO have quite a great quality of life, noise isn't bothering THAT much but it's rather the fact of having to put headphones on all the time that bothers me. Why should I have to go through this in the first place?

Anyways, I wish you the best of luck with your devilish neighbours Angelique, really, all the best and may you stop being tortured by these potatoes (any swear word will do loll)!

You're great and I don't know how to thank you. 200mg added to 400mg Seroquel so maybe that will help.

I'll have to look into DID... no, I didn't tell my doc about the time loss. I ordered a security system with 8 cameras that will be here tomorrow and a neighbor is going to install it Saturday morning. I want to be able to see what I'm doing during those periods of lost time.

My doc suggested that I ask a neighbor to call me twice daily, in the morning and evening. My house phone just isn't loud enough but my new iPhone screams.

I'm feeling flat right now and a bit physically uncoordinated. No, my amputations are too far up, stumps are too short, for prosthetics.

I think that this flat/numb feeling precedes something but I don't remember what. I'm going to use this as a marker because I'm beginning to feel less anxious and everything is slowing down.

I'm terribly isolated. For over a year now. My bedroom is blacked out because I need to be in darkness.

I need to go now as I'm getting rather clumsy and I'm slowing down too fast. You're always welcome to make any suggestions.

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Thank you, Lazarus! I'm so sorry you have to live life with headphones. This is just a nightmare. Good luck, I hope your neighbors get quieter!!!

I can't write yet, but I will! They are laying the torture on very heavily.

My pleasure Angelique! Yeah, it feels kind of strange when I take them off... lol Thank you, tonight is pretty quiet and it feels so heavenly but it's getting close to 10:00 pm, watch them restart with the whining! My neighbours are always whining about something and if that would happen during the day, I wouldn't care but when I try to sleep, it's very annoying.

I used to sleep with headphones on at various times in the past 10 years, it's not fun! I wish your neighbors were more considerate.