will187
25-08-13, 06:07
Hi everyone. I have been viewing these forums for some time, and finally decided to register, as I really need to get some things off my chest, and to see if anyone can relate to what I am going through. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this.
Well, I suppose i should start at the beginning. When i was around 16, I had a pretty nasty bout of depression, which lasted quite some time. Nothing really special about this, just classic depression. I was put on Prozac, took myself off it, and made a pretty much full recovery.
That is, until last year. I am now 23, and the problems started when I was 22. I endured an extremely tough time, which included losing my job, and my girlfriend having a termination of pregnancy (it was a mutual decision due to not being able to support a child, and I'd like to point out that I have been with this particular person since I was 15, and we are still very much together) I have always thought of myself as a strong person, and I thought I could deal with all this easily. However, I started staying up abnormally late every night, and watching movies all night just to get through the time until my girlfriend got up for work so that I could see her again, and then I would sleep all day until she got home. I started getting increasingly lonely during these nights alone, and even begin using chat sites just to have someone to talk to.
There was one particular night, though, that I dont think I will forget, for as long as I live. I was struggling to think of a film to watch, until I remembered a conversation I had with my old manager at Blockbuster. he was telling me about the film Se7en, and how it was a really great movie, but that it messed is head up for days. I have always been susceptible to things like this, for example, if someone tells me that something will scare me, it usually will. I was in two minds as to whether or not to watch the film, but decided to man up and go ahead with it.
So i settled down and started watching. for the most part, apart from finding the film quite dark, and a little gratuitous, I wasn't particularly bothered> However.. When the killer was "caught", and the profile of his character began to emerge, I began to grow more and more uncomfortable. And then came the end of the film. There was a line which I felt really pushed me over the edge. It was when Brad Pitt(playing one of the detectives) turned to kevin Spacey(playing the killer) and asked, "do you know how crazy you are? I mean you must know that you're crazy right?" To which the killer replied with something along the lines of that he didn't expect a "mortal" to understand, and that he was doing "God's work". This REALLY frightened me.. I started thinking.. "oh my God.. imagine being that far gone.. imagine killing people and thinking it was ok... could I ever end up like that?" It was at this point that I started getting hot flashes and trembling legs, which I now know to be signs of intense fear and/or panic. But it wasn't until the end of the film, when Brad Pitt receives his pregnant wife's head in a box (sorry for the spoilers if you haven't seen this film, but in all honesty, I wouldn't recommend watching this if you are ANYTHING like me. haha) that i really felt upset. I started imagining horrible things, like my girlfriend with no head. I was really stressed out but decided to go to bed and cuddle up with her, and try to displace this as an effect that the film was SUPPOSED to create.
But things just got worse. These images didn't go away, and I actually started to get images of killing my girlfriend. It became difficult to hold a knife, or lift weights, because of the horrible and violent images that would accompany these things. I didn't sleep more than an hour or two on the settee every day for over a week. I became increasingly distressed, to the point that I was convinced that i was going to die. My obsession at this point was that I was going to become a violent psychopath, and I just couldn't let go of it. However, after some intervention I felt like I was ready to believe that it really wasn't going to happen. That the idea of doing something like that caused me such distress meant that I probably would never be capable of it.
However, after doing far too much reading about mental health online, I became attached to schizophrenia. I decided that the killer in the film MUST have had schizophrenia, or at least some kind of psychosis, to be so delusional. Then the panic increased again. I have always had a fear of losing control of my cognitive faculties, and while I could be sure that i wasn't a latent psychopath right now, what would happen if I developed schizophrenia? How do I know that I wouldn't then develop into the person I feared the most?
This caused me to degenerate to the point that I was (voluntarily) taken to a mental health hospital, for an assessment. I was tired, stressed, and confused, but I still managed to relate everything to the attending psychiatrist. He assured me that it was NOT schizophrenia, pro-dromal or otherwise, and taking into account my age (over the average threshold for first psychotic symptoms) and my family history (no history of any form of psychosis) that I was unlikely to ever develop it. he prescribed more prozac, and some zopiclone to help me sleep.
I found the zopiclone very helpful, and slept wonderfully for the full course (one week) I still didn't feel great, and the prozac certainly wasn't helping there. However, I DID make quite a fast recovery, to the point that I could function again. After a while, (about 3 months) I decided to take myself off the prozac, as I felt that the huge side-effects(GI problems, sweating, flushing, sleep disturbances) far outweighed any potential gains, which I believed to be anecdotal at best.
Now I'd like to point out that before this incident, i was completely sober. No drink or drugs. I had been sober for over 2 years, a decision I made because of what now seems to have been the beginning of OCD. I used to drink a lot, and smoke a lot of cannabis. I always had a high tolerance to both, and never had any ill-effects. One night my girlfriend and I had drank a few beers, and decided to have a smoke. It instantly made me feel horrible. I felt detached from the world and just STRANGE. Not like I had had too much or was "spinning out", just NOT RIGHT. It also made her feel similar, which makes me think it may have been some "bad weed". This scared me so much that within a week, I refused to touch even a drop of alcohol, and would refuse to be within 20 feet of anyone smoking cannabis. This continued for over 2 years. Even on my birthday, or new years, i would not touch a drop, and every day I would be analysing myself to see if I felt "weird".
However, the zopiclone made me feel so "drunk" that I decided maybe I could just try drinking again. I did, and while tentative at first, I quickly became comfortable with having a few beers to relax. This led to a huge boost in my social life, with me going out and partying with friends and getting very drunk. And while I would do things while drunk that I would never normally do while under the influence (e.g getting up on stage in a santa hat and "gangnam styling" my little heart out) I attributed this to a possible interaction with Prozac, and that I had not drunk for a long time. Sure enough, when I stopped taking the prozac, I started acting "normally" while drunk again. A little louder/more talkative, but generally calmer. I seemed to be making great progress.
That is my backstory complete, now on to my current symptoms, and the reason I have written this short book. haha
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After seemingly making great progress, I started to once again experience many of my old symptoms, and this led to panic attacks. I countered this with drinking to relieve the stress( not a great idea I know, but it worked) I found that if i was a little drunk, the symptoms stopped, and I could sleep soundly. This eventually led to me compulsively drinking every night if I could (nothing too excessive, just a bottle of wine or a few beers, and never in the day) so that I could sleep. And while this generally helps in the short term, recently, I have noticed new symptoms, and to be honest, waking up with a hangover every day kind of sucks.
My new symptoms SEEM to fit into the "OCD" spectrum, but they are really bothering me. For example.. I will hear random words in my head. Not audible, I know they are in my mind, but they are often not in my "inner voice". sometimes they are in the voice of someone I know, or someone from a TV show or movie, and sometimes they are random. Words or phrases like "equipment" or "washing machine". While these are certainly annoying, they can sometimes be sinister "kill them" (not directed at anyone, just random), or even worse, a split second idea that I could kill my girlfriend and get away with it (these ones tend not to be "voices" per se, more just like a concept) which can cause huge waves of panic and discomfort. I also get the same part of a song stuck in my head, only a few seconds, but on a loop, to the point that I feel like screaming. Or I will be on the way to see friends, and I will think of the first thing i want to say to them when i arrive. I will then repeat this sentence or phrase over and over, pretty much until I arrive and can actually say it. Another one is constantly feeling like I am smiling or going to smile for no reason, even though I am not....weird. If I am engaged in something, watching Tv, playing a game, with friends etc, all these symptoms pretty much disappear, although I am constantly awaiting their return and worrying about it. Also, if i am drunk, even though i might still get these symptoms, they really don't bother me too much and i drop off to sleep easily.
The problems start when I am sober. for example, I haven't had a drink for 3 days now, just because I can't afford it. While I don't feel particularly bothered by this, and I don't really have any cravings, it does make things more difficult. The strange thing is, after a long day of band practice (playing drums), like today, I am very tired. I actually dropped off to sleep on the settee with my girlfriend while watching TV. No symptoms whatsoever. I only slept for about 30 minutes and woke up feeling tired but fine. It's only when i actually lie in bed in silence and darkness that things get unbearable. The symptoms return, and I panic about them. Even though I know I shouldn't, I can't help it. To make matters worse, I have had a few Hypnagogic experiences in the last few days. 2 in one night, and 1 tonight. The night before last, I was just dropping off (I can always tell when because my train of thought starts to become nonsensical and random) When I heard a man's voice slurring something that sounded like "Homer" or "Homework". I jolted awake and was really freaked out, but managed to nearly drop off again, only to have another one. This time it was 2 loud footsteps and a loud, drawn out sigh. Again, i freaked out, but somehow managed to get to sleep. The next night was fine, but tonight, I actually had a tactile hallucination. I was once again just dropping off, when I felt someone very quickly run a hand over my chest. This was just too much. I freaked out, and got out of bed. And now I am writing this thread. While I know that my symptoms do SEEM to be some form of obsessive disorder(I don't seem to have compulsions, at least not physical ones) coupled with high anxiety, and depression thrown in there too, and that Hypnagogic hallucinations are common, and probably just an indication of an overly stressed mind, I still can't stop worrying. I can't remember the last time I had a Hypnagogic experience before these ones, so why now? does it herald a new chapter of "madness"? Am I really developing that which I fear the most?
I appreciate that this is a VERY long post, but I felt that at least 90% of it was relevant, and I wanted to get the whole story out there. If you have taken the time to read this then I am very grateful, and if anyone can offer and help or advice, so much the better. :)
Well, I suppose i should start at the beginning. When i was around 16, I had a pretty nasty bout of depression, which lasted quite some time. Nothing really special about this, just classic depression. I was put on Prozac, took myself off it, and made a pretty much full recovery.
That is, until last year. I am now 23, and the problems started when I was 22. I endured an extremely tough time, which included losing my job, and my girlfriend having a termination of pregnancy (it was a mutual decision due to not being able to support a child, and I'd like to point out that I have been with this particular person since I was 15, and we are still very much together) I have always thought of myself as a strong person, and I thought I could deal with all this easily. However, I started staying up abnormally late every night, and watching movies all night just to get through the time until my girlfriend got up for work so that I could see her again, and then I would sleep all day until she got home. I started getting increasingly lonely during these nights alone, and even begin using chat sites just to have someone to talk to.
There was one particular night, though, that I dont think I will forget, for as long as I live. I was struggling to think of a film to watch, until I remembered a conversation I had with my old manager at Blockbuster. he was telling me about the film Se7en, and how it was a really great movie, but that it messed is head up for days. I have always been susceptible to things like this, for example, if someone tells me that something will scare me, it usually will. I was in two minds as to whether or not to watch the film, but decided to man up and go ahead with it.
So i settled down and started watching. for the most part, apart from finding the film quite dark, and a little gratuitous, I wasn't particularly bothered> However.. When the killer was "caught", and the profile of his character began to emerge, I began to grow more and more uncomfortable. And then came the end of the film. There was a line which I felt really pushed me over the edge. It was when Brad Pitt(playing one of the detectives) turned to kevin Spacey(playing the killer) and asked, "do you know how crazy you are? I mean you must know that you're crazy right?" To which the killer replied with something along the lines of that he didn't expect a "mortal" to understand, and that he was doing "God's work". This REALLY frightened me.. I started thinking.. "oh my God.. imagine being that far gone.. imagine killing people and thinking it was ok... could I ever end up like that?" It was at this point that I started getting hot flashes and trembling legs, which I now know to be signs of intense fear and/or panic. But it wasn't until the end of the film, when Brad Pitt receives his pregnant wife's head in a box (sorry for the spoilers if you haven't seen this film, but in all honesty, I wouldn't recommend watching this if you are ANYTHING like me. haha) that i really felt upset. I started imagining horrible things, like my girlfriend with no head. I was really stressed out but decided to go to bed and cuddle up with her, and try to displace this as an effect that the film was SUPPOSED to create.
But things just got worse. These images didn't go away, and I actually started to get images of killing my girlfriend. It became difficult to hold a knife, or lift weights, because of the horrible and violent images that would accompany these things. I didn't sleep more than an hour or two on the settee every day for over a week. I became increasingly distressed, to the point that I was convinced that i was going to die. My obsession at this point was that I was going to become a violent psychopath, and I just couldn't let go of it. However, after some intervention I felt like I was ready to believe that it really wasn't going to happen. That the idea of doing something like that caused me such distress meant that I probably would never be capable of it.
However, after doing far too much reading about mental health online, I became attached to schizophrenia. I decided that the killer in the film MUST have had schizophrenia, or at least some kind of psychosis, to be so delusional. Then the panic increased again. I have always had a fear of losing control of my cognitive faculties, and while I could be sure that i wasn't a latent psychopath right now, what would happen if I developed schizophrenia? How do I know that I wouldn't then develop into the person I feared the most?
This caused me to degenerate to the point that I was (voluntarily) taken to a mental health hospital, for an assessment. I was tired, stressed, and confused, but I still managed to relate everything to the attending psychiatrist. He assured me that it was NOT schizophrenia, pro-dromal or otherwise, and taking into account my age (over the average threshold for first psychotic symptoms) and my family history (no history of any form of psychosis) that I was unlikely to ever develop it. he prescribed more prozac, and some zopiclone to help me sleep.
I found the zopiclone very helpful, and slept wonderfully for the full course (one week) I still didn't feel great, and the prozac certainly wasn't helping there. However, I DID make quite a fast recovery, to the point that I could function again. After a while, (about 3 months) I decided to take myself off the prozac, as I felt that the huge side-effects(GI problems, sweating, flushing, sleep disturbances) far outweighed any potential gains, which I believed to be anecdotal at best.
Now I'd like to point out that before this incident, i was completely sober. No drink or drugs. I had been sober for over 2 years, a decision I made because of what now seems to have been the beginning of OCD. I used to drink a lot, and smoke a lot of cannabis. I always had a high tolerance to both, and never had any ill-effects. One night my girlfriend and I had drank a few beers, and decided to have a smoke. It instantly made me feel horrible. I felt detached from the world and just STRANGE. Not like I had had too much or was "spinning out", just NOT RIGHT. It also made her feel similar, which makes me think it may have been some "bad weed". This scared me so much that within a week, I refused to touch even a drop of alcohol, and would refuse to be within 20 feet of anyone smoking cannabis. This continued for over 2 years. Even on my birthday, or new years, i would not touch a drop, and every day I would be analysing myself to see if I felt "weird".
However, the zopiclone made me feel so "drunk" that I decided maybe I could just try drinking again. I did, and while tentative at first, I quickly became comfortable with having a few beers to relax. This led to a huge boost in my social life, with me going out and partying with friends and getting very drunk. And while I would do things while drunk that I would never normally do while under the influence (e.g getting up on stage in a santa hat and "gangnam styling" my little heart out) I attributed this to a possible interaction with Prozac, and that I had not drunk for a long time. Sure enough, when I stopped taking the prozac, I started acting "normally" while drunk again. A little louder/more talkative, but generally calmer. I seemed to be making great progress.
That is my backstory complete, now on to my current symptoms, and the reason I have written this short book. haha
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
After seemingly making great progress, I started to once again experience many of my old symptoms, and this led to panic attacks. I countered this with drinking to relieve the stress( not a great idea I know, but it worked) I found that if i was a little drunk, the symptoms stopped, and I could sleep soundly. This eventually led to me compulsively drinking every night if I could (nothing too excessive, just a bottle of wine or a few beers, and never in the day) so that I could sleep. And while this generally helps in the short term, recently, I have noticed new symptoms, and to be honest, waking up with a hangover every day kind of sucks.
My new symptoms SEEM to fit into the "OCD" spectrum, but they are really bothering me. For example.. I will hear random words in my head. Not audible, I know they are in my mind, but they are often not in my "inner voice". sometimes they are in the voice of someone I know, or someone from a TV show or movie, and sometimes they are random. Words or phrases like "equipment" or "washing machine". While these are certainly annoying, they can sometimes be sinister "kill them" (not directed at anyone, just random), or even worse, a split second idea that I could kill my girlfriend and get away with it (these ones tend not to be "voices" per se, more just like a concept) which can cause huge waves of panic and discomfort. I also get the same part of a song stuck in my head, only a few seconds, but on a loop, to the point that I feel like screaming. Or I will be on the way to see friends, and I will think of the first thing i want to say to them when i arrive. I will then repeat this sentence or phrase over and over, pretty much until I arrive and can actually say it. Another one is constantly feeling like I am smiling or going to smile for no reason, even though I am not....weird. If I am engaged in something, watching Tv, playing a game, with friends etc, all these symptoms pretty much disappear, although I am constantly awaiting their return and worrying about it. Also, if i am drunk, even though i might still get these symptoms, they really don't bother me too much and i drop off to sleep easily.
The problems start when I am sober. for example, I haven't had a drink for 3 days now, just because I can't afford it. While I don't feel particularly bothered by this, and I don't really have any cravings, it does make things more difficult. The strange thing is, after a long day of band practice (playing drums), like today, I am very tired. I actually dropped off to sleep on the settee with my girlfriend while watching TV. No symptoms whatsoever. I only slept for about 30 minutes and woke up feeling tired but fine. It's only when i actually lie in bed in silence and darkness that things get unbearable. The symptoms return, and I panic about them. Even though I know I shouldn't, I can't help it. To make matters worse, I have had a few Hypnagogic experiences in the last few days. 2 in one night, and 1 tonight. The night before last, I was just dropping off (I can always tell when because my train of thought starts to become nonsensical and random) When I heard a man's voice slurring something that sounded like "Homer" or "Homework". I jolted awake and was really freaked out, but managed to nearly drop off again, only to have another one. This time it was 2 loud footsteps and a loud, drawn out sigh. Again, i freaked out, but somehow managed to get to sleep. The next night was fine, but tonight, I actually had a tactile hallucination. I was once again just dropping off, when I felt someone very quickly run a hand over my chest. This was just too much. I freaked out, and got out of bed. And now I am writing this thread. While I know that my symptoms do SEEM to be some form of obsessive disorder(I don't seem to have compulsions, at least not physical ones) coupled with high anxiety, and depression thrown in there too, and that Hypnagogic hallucinations are common, and probably just an indication of an overly stressed mind, I still can't stop worrying. I can't remember the last time I had a Hypnagogic experience before these ones, so why now? does it herald a new chapter of "madness"? Am I really developing that which I fear the most?
I appreciate that this is a VERY long post, but I felt that at least 90% of it was relevant, and I wanted to get the whole story out there. If you have taken the time to read this then I am very grateful, and if anyone can offer and help or advice, so much the better. :)