Paranoid delusions

[Bhj]

Hi. I’ve posted a few times about my psychosis. I’ve been on my fourth anti psychotic, amisulpride 400g for about a month now, no improvement in thoughts. Can anyone tell me an anti psychotic that worked for them where others have failed. Thanks.

Same bhj, I found today much better than yesterday. Had my first dentist check up in nearly a decade because I don't have any problems with my teeth but I'm entitled to free dental care now. I don't mind dentists, had braces as a teenager, some teeth pulled and an operation and was never particularly painful or stressful. I liked the comfy chairs and nice cool wood decor and waiting room, nothing like my GP practice with its hard chairs and white decor. These things matter to me right now, never used to mind. My teeth are fine but they noted I've gridded my teeth in the past so did a mold for a night brace. I was surprised as when I was a teenager they told me I grind my teeth but didn't offer any treatment. I had a mold before but this was worse than I remembered as she pressed down on my gum, I pushed back with my tongue, but the goo went to the back of my mouth, had to breath through my nose and I couldn't speak. I think maybe she put too much goo on the mold. It didn't last long though and I bought myself a milkshake and did a bit of shopping in the market and charity shop then spent the afternoon in the garden. I actually find supermarkets more stressful than dentists. Tierra, how did your meeting go.

I’m not keen on the dentist after a bad experience when I was 14 but I’m still very good and go every 6 months. The drill is the worst bit for me.

My husband had a bad experience and hasn't been back since. The dentist did half the job, broke a tooth then said it would cost his parents to finish it and they couldn't afford it... Fortunately I've never needed a drill.

Ants! I'm always more paranoid in spring/summer. Sometimes to do with the heat, being in education so long and that's exam season, and also the ants come out. I don't think I've ever had real hallucinations, except ants crawling over me. When I was in hospital for encephalitis (brain virus) after guide camp and had nightmares/hallucinations ants were crawling up my arm where I had the drip in. I love animals and bugs in general I'll pick up and hold. Ants though I hate because they come in colonies and are tiny and can bite. Cockroaches are the other thing I can't stand. I remember we had cock roaches in our basement in one place we lived/stayed and I remember my dad stamping on one which both stank and it upset me. Ants are out now and came through the cracks in our wall when we were on holiday. I think I've got rid of them then I see one crawling across the floor. It doesn't help that yesterday I spent the day enjoying the sunshine, when I didn't have my sunglasses I was getting migraines visual disturbances. Fortunately it didn't turn into a painful Migraine (I did start to get a headake just before I went to sleep) but they were little black dots in the sky. I actually really enjoyed lazing in the garden in the afternoon but after my experience I find it hard to loose track of time doing nothing then not worry afterwards about what happened to the time. In the evening I found a red ants nest.

Oh no the thought of ants invading my home terrifies me. We had them in the last place we lived and had to pay someone to come and destroy the nests. Wasps ruin my summer even more, picnics are no fun with them flying around.

Yes, my sister is allergic to wasp stings so she panics when there's one around. Her arm swelled up when she got stung. I do love the garden in this place but I'll be glad to move. Lots of midges around too, we used to go camping a lot. I like spiders, we don't get rid off them as they catch and eat the flies and midges. Best thing we used as a wasp trap was an empty dirty ribena bottle, it's got down spikes so they can't get out. I did chose to add a Claus to the insurance in the new house which includes pest control including wasp nests. My mum gets rid of Ants nests by pouring boiling water down their nest, they all flea. The ants come through cracks in the wall and had nested in pot plants. When we first moved in we had slugs come into the kitchen and leave trails over the dogs food and bowl, they carry lungworm and other deseases so hated that. A friends dog died young of lungworm. When we first got the dog I was really paranoid something was going to happen to him, someone would either make a complaint or steal him, or break in and he escape and get into trouble. It never happened but I was always relieved to see him waiting when I got back. I thought about getting a camera but I know that can make you more paranoid, constantly checking your phone. My husband wasn't keen as his dad with OCD recently got cctv and is obsessive over it.

I'm off work again got sent home as losing my voice & got a very sore throat.
But I managed to get most of the washes done, hopefully didn't infect any of the patients!

I'm waiting for the support worker at the cmht to call as I've contacted them about wanting some kind of talking therapy as I have 2 issues that really upset me.

One is that I'm resentful over not being a staff nurse any more - it doesn't bother me all the time but comes to the surface to cause issues at work every so often.

The other problem is that I'm so sad that I will probably never be a mum.
I'm so broody but I couldn't cope as a single mum & at 41 time is running out to find a decent partner. I spent most of my 30s with mental health problems.
So I really need counselling to help me cope as it makes me feel suicidal at times.

Despite feeling unwell today & despite those 2 major problems I feel quite high due to the sunny weather & my holiday coming up in July. I've spent too much money buying clothes for summer!!

Good luck with councilling Tierra. My great aunt never had children... Never found the right man, not sure she ever wanted to though as I only knew her when she was retired and saw her a handful of times. she seemed happy and lived a very full filing and sociable life. I wasn't well enough to go to her funeral but apparently she loved monkeys and wildlife in general and was a collecter and a member of the national paperweight society. She did buy us all first edition stamps and got us melenium coins. So she was more able to focus on her hobbies. Hope you get through this difficult part in your life. Midlife crisis, before the golden years so they say.

Does anyone else have/had sleep issues?

Just realised one reason why I got so stressed in early pregnancy. I read far too many articles and forums. One of them was about vivid dreams in pregnancy being different to normal dreams as they felt real. I've realised this was written by someone who's never had nightmares/forgotten what childhood dreams were like. I've had nightmare as a child and my sister I shared a room with got them worse. I remember one night as a teenager where I rentered the same nightmare after waking so the next time I woke 8 sat upright against the bed frame until morning as I was too old to wake someone up because I had a bad dream. I've had a few dreams and nightmares in pregnancy but it's nothing new and definitely nothing like psychosis. In pregnancy I had a couple of sleep paralysis where I woke up and couldn't move or so my ears started ringing and I got a headake then I woke up. I read online and it was probably only a second or 2 and often people can only move their eyes and start seeing monsters. I'm pretty sure my sister had this as she sometimes slept with her eyes open and I had to check for monsters under her bed (even though she was older so I took the mic). I had more sleep issues when we stopped sharing a room. It's been good reading through my notes saying my biggest issue is sleep disturbance, meds really help for that. Sleep deprivation is taken as a given for pregnancy and with a baby, but like my midwife said, it's not good for anyones mental health and esspesally bad for me.

I slept well last night. How is everyone?

I don't have sleep issues, the only issue I have is needing to sleep too much due to all the meds!

Maybe i am having a midlife crisis- I definitely feel very broody whenever I see a baby.
It doesn't help that my best friend is pregnant again & my older colleagues (over 50s) at work are all young grandparents & forever talking about their grandchildren.

That must be irritating. You never know, your friend may chose you as the godmother then you can play with the baby then return to mum for the crying, nights and nappies... The part I'm really not looking forward to. I got broody when colleges had babies and I didn't like my dog being alone and bored every day. I tell him he's going to be the best big brother... Allthough my family will say I'm anthromophosising him. Maybe your counciling will help you to think positively about planning your future retirement. Or a career change, had a few people on my course over 40 and friends who have done non healthcare courses have had older people. There are lots of mature students thesse days, and they talk more about what they are studying rather than family. There are all sorts of courses out there. Money is an issue for my generation for the cost of them but there are loads of free or cheep courses that are more for interest than a career. I've done lots of research as I decided as a student I didn't want to stay in healthcare after hearing bitter conversations about how much better it used to be to work in the NHS and how much better the training was before it was a degree.... I thought noone is keeping them there... That was over 5 years ago, i know why there are not enough qualified staff anymore.

I used to get really fed up of 40+ year olds moaning about how easy our school exams are and how they had family and a career and all our generation do is drink, travel and eat avacardo. (there was that insulting article once) I love avacardo and it's all a social media facade. Friends enjoying recording our healthy treats which help relive anxiety while also studying, working part time and volunteering...

Now I know more people from the older generation I know that, while they do tend to moan more, they are struggling with loss of independence and almost everyone is struggling with their own demons.

I won't be retiring until I'm 68! So that's 27 years, a whole lifetime away!

In fact even older, my mortgage lasts until I'm 75.

So planning my retirement is not even on the horizon.

I have to be careful what job I do, being an HCA is fine for now as it (shouldn't be) too stressful.
As I can't cope with stress & I get paranoid really easily I have to choose carefully what job I do & can't work full time. I get over invested & obsessed with my work too.

Ah, fair enough, I get obsessive too. I've got colleges allready planning retirement at your age, thinking about pensions. To me a hca sounds very stressful, but if you were a nurse not so much. Also gets you out and socialising which other careers don't. I get pretty stressed about my (almost non existsnt) cpd folder. Always thinking ill save it till later. And I've been paranoid about colleges watching me... Do you like lilly allan? I didn't used to become her voice is annoying and rude but she's got some good songs and recently I've been liking her more. She's a really good songwriter. However I then watched an interview about her being stalked be someone with paranoid schizophrenia who thought he had written the fear and wanted to kill her. So I went off 'the fear' allthough its very relatable....I like 22, London Town and the alltime classic f* you. They are happy sounding sounds with serious lyrics. I esspesally like singing London Town in my head when I'm in London or other busy places.

Sleep paralysis sounds terrifying. I have sleepless nights when
I’m extremely anxious. The ei team prescribe me zoplicone for those times. I still have some but rarely take them because I don’t want to become addicted and also they don’t like to prescribe them too often so I try and save them for when I really need them. Tierra I feel for you feeling
Like time
Is passing you by and worrying about being able to start a family. 2 of my friends were in exactly the same position but then they both met the right person and had
a baby, one late 30s And the other 44 so don’t give up hope yet. We had family intervention today. We did a family tree where we had to map all our family members experiences and mental health problems. It was useful to see why certain family members are the way they are due to their past experiences.

That sounds interesting bhj. My sister was telling me at my great aunts funeral, which I decided against going to, they mapped out a family tree with my dad's cousins. Sounds very therapeutic, and while not a family intervention learning about different family members has been useful for me and my mum seemed happier after talking to my dad's extended family.

It was really interesting, it kind of helped me to see why my mum isn’t very maternal and it’s not her fault. Are any of you interested in the royal wedding? I’m trying to make it a special day for the dc’s but they’re just not interested 🤷‍♀️

haha, I had it on in the background, quite liked the music in the ceromony. I had a friend who took her kids to see it and they were so excited. That does sound good bhj, have you seen bojack horseman? I found it really depressing but my OH likes it. It's about a celebrity with was in a sitcom in the 90s, peeked young and is now depressed. The most recent series was relly deep, went into the bad mums life storey, by retelling an episode over a few episodes from his mums perspective using flashbacks when she got dementia.

No I haven’t watched that, sounds interesting though. Can’t believe the weekends nearly over already. Anxiety always sets in by this time on a Sunday when I know dp’s back to work and I have to try and survive another week.

I'm normally like that on Sunday but had a really good nct first class today, lots to keep me busy this week.

Bhj, hope you don't mind me asking I don't really understand your unbizare delusions of council workers and sirens. About 6 months ago, before I was on medication, when I was partially stressed, walking to work in heavy rain... I'd bought some food on my way in but dropped it. I sighed loudly /swore, threw my umbrella on the floor, looked one direction, thought I say 2 police support officers on the other side of the road, chucked my shopping onto the dry umbrella, looked the other way and sore a man who had just passed turn his back and walk quickly away. That made me angry and I turned back to see if the officers had reacted in anyway and they had dissappeared. Is that simular to your experiences? Don't worry if you can't awnser.... I'll be talking to a consoltant psycatrist on Wednesday, not sure I'll mention this as I don't want to obsess and I've felt more stable on meds.

I don’t hallucinate or hear voices. What I see is there, they never just disappear and people I’m with tell me they see it too. But my perspective on what I’m seeing is
Different to how other people see
It. I see a council van and
Instantly think they’re there for me. I think they’re watching me and following me, trying to intimidate me, they want to hurt me. Other people around me don’t share that belief, they just think it’s council workers skiving when they’re sat in there vans watching me.

I don't hallucinate or hear voices either, I think they had just walked round the corner but I started to doubt my perception as when I read about what psychosis was, it is typically hallucinations. I know people with your sort of paranoia, I sometimes read to much into what people might be thinking, it was including in my cbt course on general anxiety disorder.

Before the Aripiprazole was increased I didn't hallucinate or hear voices but I had unwanted troubling thoughts.
I was also paranoid about what others were thinking.
Also had some strange beliefs & saw illusions of faces on everyday objects.

Now I still feel I can control traffic lights but that's the only strange belief I have now. I know it's not a rational belief.

I phoned the cmht on Friday as I was feeling low & they have put me on the list for Psychology treatment.

That’s good you only have one strange belief, hopefully now your on the list for psychology treatment it’s something they can work on with you. They’re testing my blood to see how much clozapine is in my system then they may decide to keep me on the same dose or they said they can higher it as I’m only on half the dose I’m allowed to have. Still having the same paranoid delusion but hopefully coupled with the cbt it will change soon.

It's good to hear that other people paranioa is simular to mine. My big problems are thinking I'm different or special and no one else goes though the same thing. For the same reason the nct course has been helpful, meeting lots of other first time parents... When we talked about pregnancy symptoms anxiety was discussed a lot as being the worst. Allthough, noone in my small group has the exact same mental health issues as me, Its really good to know I'm not alone.

My doctors appointments went really well, consultant asked clear difficult questions in a calm way then just sumerised and clarified my previous notes. He's happy for me to take my medication as I've been taking it and he gave me lots of information including 3 quite detailed leaflets on anxiety, depression and sleep. The sleep one has been the best as I've read more on anxiety and depression than sleep. So learnt more from the sleep leaflet. I allowed a social worker student to observe under the condition I could ask him to leave but I didn't even feel paranoid enough to find the student discomforting.