A forum I belong to had a posting about delusions, basically it said many Shrinks were deluded by their own sense of self importance, well that’s an interesting point of view and from some of the experiences I have heard about I aren’t going to argue.
But talk of delusions made me think of me and my own particular madness. I know that it has been said I am delusional, mainly about the voices I hear, I have been told that the voices are a symptom of my distress; but I don’t believe this to be necessarily true. I have my own set of beliefs about the voices but I keep my ideas to myself now as it does me no good to start holding forth on what I think as then I am delusional or to put it another way my beliefs are different from the professionals.
To be sane it seems that I (and everyone else) have to fit into a nice safe little pigeon hole and if I don’t fit then I am “mentally ill” “unstable” and “mad”. So the best thing is to keep my beliefs to myself and agree with them. So if I know to do this am I mad at all? What is madness anyway?
I went for my bloods doing today, I was also weighed as the Shrink needs to work out the correct dose of Lithium for me I have been thinking about medication a lot and why I take it. I take it because it is better than the alternative which is a psyche ward. Of course I do get suicidal, and I am teetering on the edge of feeling that way again, so I guess death is an alternative too. But it is far more likely I would go off on some acutely psychotic episode raving about voices and trying to cut myself to ribbons.
I have been on a psyche ward against my will before and I won’t let that happen again. I was sectioned because I was suicidal and was displaying a distinct lack of insight. Poor Shrink didn’t really have a choice he knew I would kill myself if he didn’t send me in. Being held against your will is not fun , it’s is frightening and totally disempowering. I was coerced into taking mind numbing medication when I didn’t behave, told when to go to bed, told when to eat and told when I could shower. I don’t want to have to go through that again so I take the medication.
The medication helps, it numbs the pain down slightly and it makes me less liable to hallucinate or become manically depressed. The medication doesn’t stop the voices, it doesn’t really stop me being depressed and it doesn’t take away a lot of my other symptoms such as flashing lights and stuff. It all has side effects too; a tremor from the anti-psychotics and a fuzziness that lasts till the afternoon, when I come off them I will have to do it slowly. The Lithium can damage my kidneys and make me hypothyroid. I have no doubt I am addicted to the sleeping tablets.
So for me it is a bit of a balancing act – demons or medication.
I went to the gym and managed half an hour on the treadmill with my MP3 player blasting away, afterwards I felt better but it was only transient and I am beginning to get restless again. Luckily my trusty Shrink has me on a cocktail of drugs including Zopiclone, Trazadone, Aripiprazole, Escitalopram and now Lithium which seems to knock me out for a least a few hours so hopefully I will sleep.
The voices have been active this evening and are encouraging me to self harm, I have managed to resist but I don’t think I will last the night out without cutting myself. It will ease the tension and make the voices get off my back so it is probably a trade off of one lot of damage for another.
Damage is a good word and sums up how I feel, irreparably damaged goods with little to offer. It is hard in the throes of depression not to feel inconsolably sorry for yourself and there is little anyone can do to lift you out of it, it just seems an endless gamut of emotional pain that leaves you drained of any feeling except despair Some of the self help stuff does help but inevitably that becomes a futile exercise.
I think I have been psychotic, I certainly have had psychotic symptoms but both of those statements depend if you agree with the term psychosis.
People with psychosis may have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, or lack of insight .
I have had and still have hallucinations, I have been delusional and I have certainly had a lack of insight at times, not too sure if I have had thought disorder but I suspect I may have; therefore I have been and probably still am psychotic. This is not to be confused with psychopathic which means something totally different
So I am psychotic if psychiatry is to be believed. But I am not sure if I believe it, I am not sure if I believe in psychosis at all. I hear voices every day, occasionally I have visual hallucinations too, but rather than medicalsing it as some sort of disorder I prefer to think it is my own mind trying to tell me something. I strongly suspect that this is the root cause of my hallucinations and other happenings. I do think external factors play a part too, for example, if I am stressed or upset things get markedly worse. The medications do help in that they numb you to some of the effects of the hallucinations such as fear or confusion but what they do not do is take them away.
I feel that psychosis as a term to label or diagnose people should not be used at all as that label is damaging to the individual labeled so. It is damaging to the individual as it will follow them round in life forever branding them as disordered and therefore lacking somehow.
Posted by p3bbles 
Posted by p3bbles 
Posted by p3bbles 