Psychotic Thoughts

R and I have now been having a relationship for a couple of months.  It’s not real and that’s my fault.  He seemed to be getting moody and annoyed around me and I was terrified of losing my one friend so I gave him what he claimed he wanted and agreed to a relationship.  I feel bad as I don’t put in as much as he does.  I haven’t even been faithful – I’ve done two bdsm session with other men without telling him.  Both have involved sexual contact.

I like R a lot as a friend but I’m not in love with him.  I can’t end the relationship though as that would leave me entirely friendless.  I feel like such a cow.

It’s been a while since I last wrote anything here.  Things haven’t changed a lot.  I’m currently under the crisis team (again).  I took a paracetamol overdose on Monday.  I had no other drugs as the crisis team have them.  At the time I took them I really wanted to die but after about half an hour I began to have second thoughts and called NHS Direct who called for an ambulance for me.  I got some treatment and now I’m home.  The voices think I’m weak as I chickened out of dying.  Liver failure is a long slow process.  It scares me slightly.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  I had to be seen for a psychiatric assessment before I left the hospital.  It was a waste of time.  All I got told was I need to deal with my anxiety and that my family would be upset if I die.  The psychiatrist was rather patronising too and kept calling me “darling” which I disliked.  There is one member of the crisis team dislikes me too and I always seem to end up getting him whenever I feel down.

I’m still hearing voices – loud, aggressive abusive voices but my mood has picked up a little.  I am back on aripiprazole and I think it may be beginning to work.  I stupidly cut myself on my neck and chest and now I’m having to wear polo necks to cover the marks.  Why am I so stupid?

I saw my GP to get my prescription repeated.  He won’t repeat the dianette as I have depression.  I don’t know what to do about that.

I haven’t been to college in the last week.  I just can’t stand the noise and the people.  I’m trying to study at home so as not to miss out.  I have an appointment for a psychotherapy assessment on friday.  I hope that will be helpful after the personality disorder place turned me down.

I have now been given a CPN which I’m pleased about.  He seems like a nice man and I think I can work with him. He has helped me fill in an application for DLA and it would help a lot if I could get it.  Money is very tight at the moment.

College wise I’m still scared of not getting my assessments done or making up all my time.  I’m going in on saturdays still so hopefully I can get some assessments done then.  I can’t face failing.  I don’t know what I’ll do then.

It’s been a while since I last posted.  A few things have happened and they haven’t helped my mental health.

Firstly, the council have written to me telling me that I’m not actually entitled to housing benefit so they’ve stopped it.  It means things are going to be tight financially and I’ve no idea how I’m going to repay what they’ve given me.  I think the mistake was made by Jobcentre Plus (as they sent me a letter telling me I was entitled to Income Support and the council used this to assess my eligibility) but that’s really no help.  I wish they would stop fucking me about.  I am quite stressed about this at the moment.

Secondly, as I took time of from placement due to the lithium overdose I need to go through an occupational health assessment before I can go back on placement.  It’s scheduled for Tuesday but I’ve no idea how honest to be.  I certainly won’t mention that I’m still hearing voices.  All this is worrying me too.

My anxiety levels are quite high at the moment.  I can’t relax and find myself pacing or rocking. I have a permanent feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.   Sometimes I feel unreal and completely detached from my body.  I have to cut to feel something, to confirm that I actually exist.  The voices come in then of course and tell me I don’t exist.  It’s a horrible experience and it can last for a couple of hours.

The biggest development though is that I’ve started to hear another voice, one I haven’t heard in a few years.  It’s slightly different from the others in that it doesn’t insult and criticize me but simply repeats what I’m thinking.  It’s worrying hearing your thoughts outside your head.  While logically I know that other people can’t hear this voice or my thoughts I find myself acting as though they can.  I feel the need to try to control my thoughts to stop myself thinking anything private or uncomplimentary.  This is hard work and almost impossible.  I imagine it’s like having a phobia.  The person with the phobia knows that their fears are out of proportion to the actual risks and yet they still alter their behaviour.  I spend so much time trying to control what I’m thinking that I miss what’s actually going on around me.

I imagine the new voice and the anxiety have been brought on by the stress I feel at the moment and I hope they go away once that passes.  I have some Clonazepam but it doesn’t seem to do much.  The Risperidone has killed my sex drive and that has left me almost completely isolated.  The only emails and text I get are from people wanting sex and I haven’t got the desire or the ability to become aroused at the moment.  On the couple of occasions I’ve tried to have sex I’ve been so unaroused that it’s hurt and I don’t want to go through that again.  It means I have no social contact at all though.  It’s now been nine days since I last spoke to anyone.  I know I should make an effort to make proper friends but I don’t know where to start.

Anyway, at the moment I’m focussing on the occupational health interview.  The stress hasn’t helped my mental state but I fear for it even more if I fail it.

At the moment I have an overwhelming feeling of guilt.  It’s an odd sensation as I don’t think I feel guilty about anything in particular other than my existence.  I feel guilty for taking up space and resources.  I feel guilty for being useless and a failure.

I don’t know where this feeling is coming from.  I’ve just started Risperidone.  It could be that.  Or it could be the start of another depression.  I can’t concentrate at the moment and I’m finding being alone difficult.  I’ve invited R round three times this week.  We don’t do anything, I just need a distraction from that feeling.  I’ve been using Clonazepam to try to take the edge off but it doesn’t really work.  I’ve never got much out of minor tranquilizers.

Hand in hand with guilt comes fear and I feel afraid for the future.  I can’t explain it but it feels as though everything is about to go wrong.  I can feel the fear in my stomach.  Sometimes it’s so strong I feel physically sick.  I can’t relax at all.  All in all, I don’t feel good at the moment.

I think I’ve reached my bdsm saturation point again.  I’ve done nine sessions in the last three weeks (which is probably too many) and I no longer feel in the mood.  I wasn’t happy with the last two, both of which I topped in.  In the first the man was some kind of supermasochist who took 486 strokes with cane and dressage whip and while that part wasn’t a problem I felt completely out of my depth with him socially.  We had little in common and conversation was a struggle at times.  I felt so unhappy I cut after I left his flat.  He wants to meet up again but I don’t think I can.

The last session I did was a let down for different reasons.  My partner was a novice and I don’t think he was ready for the real experience.  After all of the build up and anticipation he seemed to go through anything was going to be a let down but I fear I did let him down.  I checked he was okay the following day but he was quite short with me and I haven’t heard from him otherwise.  I also fear I pushed him too far on the pain scale.  He had a safe word and a guide word (and used neither) but maybe that was bravado or some sort of endurance test.  Whatever happened I feel bad about it.  I have another session arranged for monday.  I’m not in the mood and the man is becoming more and more demanding.  It’s not going to be a good session either but I can’t back out of it now.

I seem to go through a cycle where I do lots of sessions, sicken myself of it and drop out then feel lonely and start again.  I wish I could break this cycle.  I wish I could relate to people in a way that isn’t sexual.  I wish I could relate to other people on a friendship level and be able to maintain that friendship.  Unfortunately it’s a skill I seem to lack and I’m lonely (and crippled in some ways) because of it.  My psychiatrist has decided to refer me for psychotherapy which I’m quite pleased about however I googled the name of the unit and found it’s for people with severe personality disorders.  Do I have a personality disorder?  I’d like to say no but I’m not sure.  I know that my coping strategies don’t work very well and I have difficulties relating to others.  Maybe that’s what a personality disorder is.

At the moment I just can’t be bothered to do anything, whether that’s medication or reaching the bored and feeling bad part of my cycle I can’t say.  I just hope it passes soon.

It’s been a while since I wrote a post and one of the reasons is I feel so drowsy at the moment.  I saw the psychiatrist afterI stopped the Aripirazole and he seemed to understand why I’d done it however, as the voices were becoming problematic again, he has now prescribed Risperidone.

The morning after I first took it I was struck by a heavy feeling, as though someone had strapped weights all over my body.  I did feel calm and relaxed though so maybe it’s having a positive effect.  I’m seeing the crisis team again and they told me the sleepiness may just be my body trying to catch up on the sleep it lost while I was having all those sleep problems on Aripiprazole.  Maybe.  i hope it doesn’t make me permanently drowsy in the way Clozapine did.

It’s been six days now since I stopped the Aripiprazole.  I still haven’t told the psychiatrist but in some ways I feel much better.  I can sit still now and I don’t feel like I want to climb out of my skin anymore.  Unfortunately, the voices are back to being loud and aggressive and I’m still not sleeping properly.  Something strange has also happened – my libido seems to have gone through the roof.

I had sex with R.  I shouldn’t have done as it’s not four weeks since the polyp removal operation.  The following day I started to bleed quite heavily again.  I wonder if it’s my fault.  I have an appointment with the gynecologist next Friday. I guess I’ll have to discuss it with her then.

I’ve also been playing in a bdsm sense quite heavily, mostly as a top.  I hope I don’t get to the point where I burn myself out with it again.  On Saturday I saw one man as a bottom but he didn’t push me hard enough and I was left rather disappointed.  I could have taken a lot more, I was barely flinching when he brought the session to a close.  We both said we’d see each other again.  I think we both know we won’t.

The other sessions were all as top – K on Monday.  I was amazed that he managed to ejaculate with no physical stimulation to his penis.  I never used to believe men could do that until I met S and saw that he could too.  K is only my second man who can do this. He seemed embarrassed about it.   We did some knife play where he seemed really hard  but it was when I was smothering that he achieved orgasm.  I guess his fixation and excitement from that must be very strong.  With S is was bound women and it came as a shock to me that he could ejaculate simply by watching me lie there struggling.  I used to think it was a sign that these men weren’t very experienced sexually but now I’m not so sure.  Maybe they’re just hugely aroused by the one thing, maybe they just have a very strong fetish.

I also have a couple of CP sessions lined up as top.  Both seem like nice men.  One is quite extreme and I suppose I fear going too far.  I’m still learning and while I think I’m reasonably proficient he wants to submit entirely and wants a “proper punishment beating”.  He won’t get one.  I’m still going to stop if I see he is in too much distress although I do intend the session to be long and quite heavy.  The other man is lighter but I think I get on better with him on a personal level.  We manage to chat and tease each other so I think I’m looking forward to that one more.

I can’t explain this sudden rise in my sex drive.  Maybe it’s some sort of rebound effect from stopping the aripiprazole.  I’m also much happier and much more talkative than usual.  I don’t think I’m going high as the voices are still negative but it feels quite nice.  I’m still slightly worried what the psychiatrist is going to say about my decision to stop it alone though.

I’ve decided to stop Aripiprazole.  I know I shouldn’t do this without consulting my psychiatrist but I can no longer take the constant feeling of restlessness, the fact I can’t sit still for a minute, my leg bounces or I start to rock without consciously wanting to.  I feel the need to pace all the time and if I try to stand still I shift from foot to foot.  This is a form of hell and I can’t take it anymore.

I imagine the voices will come back just as they were but at least with them I could sit still, I didn’t look so odd people asked me if I was okay and I could sleep.  I haven’t had a full nights sleep in about two months now.  I don’t have an appointment with my psychiatrist for another ten days and I can’t carry on like this for that period of time.  I had to leave college early today as trying to sit through lectures was impossible.

Aripiprazole is the first med that’s had a positive effect on my voices but I can’t stand this feeling anymore.  I wonder if there is (yet another) med to counteract this side effect.  Whatever, tomorrow morning I won’t be taking the tablet.

At the moment I seem to be both drowsy and restless.  I can barely sit still and constantly feel the need to be on the move.  My leg bounces while I sit or I find myself rocking without consciously wanting to.  This is punctuated by periods of extreme drowsiness where I am so tired I fall asleep regardless of what I’m doing. I am however not really sleeping at night.

I am blaming these things on my medication but I don’t know which one – I’m currently taking Aripirazole (Abilify), Lithium, Diazepam and Zopiclone.  I have been told that Ariprazole can cause all these side effects but that they wear off.  I am desperate to know how long that takes. This feels like a form of chemical torture. Tonight I’m trying a night without sleeping tablets as I thought they may be responsible for at least some of my drowsiness the next day.  The effects of the diazepam seems to wearing off.  I think I may be becoming tolerant to it.

I had my review on Monday and I’ve been discharged from the crisis team.  I’m never sure about these decisions.  Certainly I feel pleased that I won’t be being visited at home by nurses on a daily basis and am allowed to take control of my medication again.  It always felt like a bit of a violation.  On the other hand I feel no different and I’m not sure what they’re supposed to have done.  Are any of the problems that led to the crisis sorted out?  No.  Am I settled on my new medication?  No.  Am I less likely to see suicide as a logical escape?  No.  So what was the point?  I have been referred for a psychotherapy assessment.  Hopefully this will provide something that so far has been lacking in mental health services.

I had an exam on Tuesday.  I don’t think it went that well.  I can’t study at the moment.  I just can’t concentrate and during the actual exam I really struggled to sit still for three hours.  I was so shaky that one of the invigilators asked me if I was okay.  I’m not sure how long I’m meant to carry on like this.  There is a great temptation to just stop all the medications but that may provoke yet another “crisis” and I don’t feel there is anything in place to help me should that happen.

Maybe I’m feeling bad as it’s half past three in the morning and I can’t sleep but I know that this drowsy restlessness is wearing me out and making me useless. I wish I knew how long it should last.