Is anyone there, I am losing reality

[AnxiousMunchkin]

I don't know if anyone remembers anything I've posted before. I am losing touch tonight. I have remembered and admitted to myself that I have heard voices, I believe my visions are real. I don't know if I am in the physical or intellectual realms. I have to pretend to be like other people, I am good at it, so much so I fool myself sometimes, but I'm not like most people, I am different, perhaps not even human.

I am away at the moment, alone. I have emailed the psych team to see if they think I should be reassessed. But in the meantime I am alone in a foreign country with no extra sedatives to bring me down. OCD anxieties are high, I don't know where my mood is, and I don't know where my reality is.

I'm here, it's ok. Where are you? Are you on holiday where a rep may be able to point you towards medical assistance?

No, I don't want to start again with new HCP in a different language (I speak it but it's not native so more challenging). I don't think I'm in immediate danger, not physical, I don't think. But I have lost my emotions, and the other parts of me are at risk of breaking away too I think. I can see enough that if I were at home I would take some diazepam and sleeping pills and wake up in a more logical place. Here I only have my antidepressant and a little propanolol. Not even any alcohol, it's dry here.

I have had to stay by myself because the sound of people talking is too loud, it makes my ears ring.

It's like I'm on the edge between two worlds, two dimensions or realities, and I can see both but not really exist in either.

When are you due home? I don't have any experience of what you're describing, just plain old depression and anxiety here, but you seem very self aware and able to recognise what's happening.

Does anything like mindfulness or grounding help OP?

You will be ok, you're going to get through this

Home Sunday, is the plan. I think I've been doing too much mindfulness, perhaps, to the point now I can hear all the subtle vibrations of the universe I am so aware! I can see distant places. I need to ground back into the physical world somehow. I think. I say I need to, it feels like a reluctant obligation, something I should do rather than I want to do.

It sounds like it's raining outside - I don't want to move to check. It doesn't normally rain this time of year here, I think I might have made it rain. Or maybe it's not really raining, but I can hear the rain in another reality.

Self awareness and insight comes up from HCPs all the time - if you know you're crazy you're not crazy, right? Apart from I spend so much time pretending to not be crazy that I fool myself, and perhaps them too. But if I keep it to myself, if I step through to the other side - will I disappear? Does it matter? I don't know.

I meditated, I remember a lot of visions/dreams, including one 'normal' dream (i.e. a weird story-type one) that involved a friend dying from shock when I revealed something about myself to them. I think it was about responsibility.

Anyway I'm now awake and feel pretty lucid. Im in the dark in bed, but recognise that this is the real world and yesterday I was losing my grip on it. I feel better, sleep works wonders doesn't it. What I believed yesterday - if I was religious, would be socially acceptable. It's started me thinking about what is sanity, it is cultural, not discrete.

I'm so glad you feel better OP. And yes I agree about sanity. For me madness (for want of a better term) is only in distress. If your beliefs keep you happy and safe and able to function it doesn't really matter what they are. We all bellieve things others don't at times

Keep looking after yourself Op

Ps if you trust your hcp - open up to them. It might help

Well given that I emailed psych assessment team last night asking if I should be re-assessed because I had realised that I was not human and was stuck between planes of realities, I expect I might be hearing from them at some point(!).

A few weeks ago I also had an episode where I heard voices but knew they were voices, I believed that I had special powers and the universe (radio etc) had messages only I could understand, but I knew this was 'crazy talk', so my head was rationalising things and explaining away things, but in my soul that is what I believed.

Had a funny moment today when I saw an odd thing, and for a moment thought only I could see it, then realised others could too

Going to focus on grounding myself this afternoon. Talking to home but also writing things down. I don't know if these symptoms would just be hypomania or class as psychosis? I have just been doing some googling (I know) and reading about the theory of attenuated psychosis syndrome.

Have you had psychosis before? Glad the team will know what's happening hope you are feeling ok about that

(I had that odd thing once too - man in a supermarket with a hamster on his shoulder but others saw it too )

Hi AnxiousMunchkin

I'm here. I recognise you from another thread. Are you safe at the moment? So sorry you're going through this. Keep posting if it helps.

My opinion is that whether your symptoms are classed as hypomania or psychosis matters less than firstly keeping you safe and secondly having things not get any worse, if that makes sense to you? Googling symptoms tended to make my symptoms worse, ymmv.

Do you have anything else that helps you?

Erin

I had some auditory/visual hallucinations and delusional episode when I was unwell many years ago but it was kinda swept under the carpet and I wasn't really engaging with HCPs then, I moved away and travelled around a lot.

I am safe, I don't need to go anywhere until my lift to the airport on Sunday and then have a taxi to take me home at the other end. Just have to keep my head down and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I've had some panics today. Taking propanolol to manage them. Some scary intrusive thoughts but no desire to act on them.

Reply from assessment service was that I have been discharged so the GP needs to re-refer me. Brief and didn't comment on what I wrote. I am relieved, I wish I hadn't sent the email in the first place.

(((Hugs))) Anxious. I'm glad to hear that you are safe. It sounds as if you know what you need to do until Sunday. Hope that it goes okay. Keep posting here if it helps.

I know what you mean about googling symptoms although I have quite an analytical, intellectual approach to life in general (always want to buy a textbook and study my latest obsession in detail) so far I have found learning that things that I experience are recognised phenomena/diagnoses reassures me, that these are real things that other people experience too. When my CBT therapist started talking about common beliefs in OCD and they almost all mapped straight onto how my mind works it felt amazing - I wasn't just making it all up for attention, this was a real thing and it was recognised and established treatments existed.

I went for a walk earlier - ended up having a panic attack in the woods nearby and came back in tears, I said something flew in my eye and think I got away with that. Have since just spent time in my room. I am exhausted tonight, I think I probably will sleep just through fatigue. I know I am delicate and a bit vulnerable right now. I just want to get home.

You are doing so well OP. Do consider going to your GP when you return, some teams can be really wonderful

I'm not going to leave the compound tomorrow, I don't need to, there is food, and a pool, I can swim, I have my iPad and can watch Netflix if I download things slowly I think. I've been trying to read/write/contemplate life during this time but it's just led to my mind imploding so I should probably bald more of that now.

It's very late here now. Hoping I will sleep soon. Reading inane gossip articles online in the meantime. Stupid things, but nothing about dimensions, the nature of reality, steering clear of philosophy and physics and all the things that led me down the rabbit hole.

The intense existential stuff makes my head explode too OP

Sleep well, hope you get a good nights rest

Well done AnxiousMunchkin

It sounds as if you have a sense of what you need to do over the next couple of days. Keep doing what works for you, until you get home. If it goes to shit, MN is here for hand-holding.