Issues at the interface of Mavis, community-based psychiatric services and the mentally normal

[Mitchy1nge]

I think that covers us all?

My worst manic purchases have been cars. I don't know what it is about being manic and the desire to drive. Usually very fast and recklessly.

cars, I dunno

but see also: horses

I like travelling at speed (not that you'd notice if you watched me run!)

It should be in the DSM: Bought at least one car in last month. Bonus points if nice car. Extra points if patient doesn't know how to drive.

they are actually quite right to disqualify me when I 'appear to be becoming unwell'

have been in police chases before and utterly utterly oblivious, stuff I would not and could not do 'in cold blood', the speeds and the undertaking on motorways and worse

would not want to share the roads with someone like me when am in that state to be honest

trouble with being in that state is that am not only invincible but above anything so petty and mundane as The Law

some of my things that I secretly miss having the ability to do include having night vision (really handy so could switch off all my lights to make self imperceptible to radar ) and driving with my eyes closed for longer and longer periods of time, starting with a second and daring myself to keep increasing it

I DO NOT DO THESE THINGS NOW (except off the road round the farm )

I didn't drive after my last episode until I was 3 months stable. I followed all the rules (DP took my car keys ). I just don't know why they're leaving me hanging for so long.

Would it be horribly rude to say I'm kind of glad that I've never experienced anything like that? It sounds truly amazing but really really dangerous.

Because they're cunts Mental.

Good point Enpo. And no it's not wrong to be glad that you haven't experienced the tying that mitchy and I have because it's shit. It's fun at the time but I end up psychotic which is definitely not fun.

I try to stick to cars with small engines these days

am creature of extremes though, did a white knuckle drive recently at 55mph clinging to the back of a lorry all the way along a dual carriageway and then was too terrified to drive home

so at least I get the full range of feelings

I drive a very fast car and I scare myself sometimes.

and then there's being normal, very conscious of speed limits, courteous and considerate to all road users

I don't know where the mad stuff comes from but I must try not to mourn it because as MP says it's not that desirable, ultimately

I don't think I've ever been psychotic, despite diagnoses and admissions for it.

I must have been, at least when was trying to drag some poor bystanders to justice for having killed someone - was operating as 2nd assistant to some angel of vengeance (about as grandiose as I get, keep self humble at all times) and had it on good authority

am SO violent when ill :( broken lots of noses and faces

there is a really awful side to it all that I suppose is more comfortable to draw a veil over mostly

I can empathise with the eye-closing thing though - the closest I think I've been recently to the experience Mitchy describes was dancing/running down the middle of a local A road with my eyes shut, listening to madonna. I was trying to feel the camber with my feet to stay in the middle. But the cars do go round you and when there's no pavement it's probably safer in the middle anyway.

It sounds awful.

My supposed "psychosis" was thinking I stank (when I hadn't washed for a month), seeing myself looking dead when I looked in the mirror (I didn't look great), thinking everyone was thinking bad thoughts at me (I looked bloody awful, of course they were) and just general inability to properly form words/sentences and spacing out a lot, just because of being depressed.

I seem to get sucked into services designed for people with actual serious mental illnesses somehow.

I hear messages from god. Sometimes he gives me tasks to carry out, sometimes he tells me to hurt myself. I become extremely paranoid as well.

Please be aware that I'm not hearing messages now

I think, very much like psychiatry itself, the concept of psychosis can be viewed as of more use to psychiatrists than patients a lot of the time.

I mean, I can see why I was being encouraged to take aripiprazole if they really thought there was a risk I would become manic like you both describe. And they don't know I don't get like that, I suppose.

Lots of people hear messages from God. I wonder which came first - people getting messages, or people coming up with the God-hypothesis.

Good old aripiprazole, every morning. There's a new antipsychotic coming out which apparently has no metabolic effects. I'm hoping I'll be able to give it a go and that I can get off quetiapine.

I remain sceptical.