This is it, Im finally going mad, theyre going to take me away.

[nikkinik]

I truely feel I must be developing some sort of psychotic (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&ei=VfDqSZawFs-ZjAe74OWeCg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=psychotic&spell=1) disorder!?

As some of you may know Ive been suffering with agoraphobia and panic attacks for about 5 yrs now..

But last night I feel like things have gone to a whole new, and extremely scary level..

At 10pm me and my fiance started playing on the Xbox, it was only Lego Indiana Jones, not anything horrific! during this time I felt cold but clammy.. and on and off I did panic a little (as I have developed health anxiety too now - had it for just over a yr).. 12.25am we turn it off, and at 1am we're in bed. Im in bed with our son, my fiance is in bed on his own.
Other than feeling cold (had got a hot water bottle by now!) I felt ok.

I had a wash, brushed my teeth, then at 1.30am I tried to settle to sleep as I was finally getting tired.
I lay in bed, now freezing cold and starting to feel quite confused.. I get up, get extra blankets etc. By 2am Im feeling even more confused.. 2.30 Im getting a bit delirous.. seeing shadows, the curtains moving out towards me, jumping everytime I drop off to sleep, having weird visions as soon as I 'relax', and about odd stuff too.. and I know you will laugh(!), but really weird things about sausages walking down the street ffs (Id cooked sausages at dinner), about getting drop kicked.. there were little lego men in some of my visions! I just couldnt calm myself AT ALL:weep: .
I put the Tv on with subtitles (didnt want to wake my son), but I was only reading the middle words, words to the left and right were getting missed out, so I was confusing myself more because what they were saying made no sense at all :shrug: :wacko: .

I went into my fiances room and tried to sleep next to him, I couldnt, and by this time I felt sick too.. Id thought earlier - 'At least I dont feel sick. If I did Id be really worried..' then bingo!:lac: I go back to my bed to allow him to sleep. Im feeling sick, hot yet cold, panicy, afraid to the core because of my mental state, everything really.

30 mins later the visions etc are getting even stonger, Im feeling more delirious and confused.. I go and tell my fiance Im scared but am too embarassed to explain fully.. I try and rest with him but it doesnt help. I sneek off with the symptoms book!

Normally the book makes me feel better, it helps me be rational.. but this time under the section 'delierious' and 'confused' it said its a sign of something more serious and maybe a serious infection, and the person should seek immediate medical attention. Tbh Id felt on and off that I should ring an ambulance, I felt really petrifed, totally confused and disorientated and I wanted a) it to stop, and b) to get some help. I felt like it would never end.. I was up and down out of bed, turning the fan on, opening the windows, putting on layers, taking them off, figeting, not being able to get confortable, not being able to shut off my thoughts/mind :weep: ! I also wanted my Mum! :weep:

At 4am Id finally dropped off, I woke up again but was just relieved that Id finally managed to calm enough to fall asleep.. I remember being scared that by being awake it would start all over again, but luckily I wasnt too bad. At one point I wondered if Id ever fall asleep again with all this going through my head!

I know youre going to say it was playing on the xbox or something.. but Ive done it before and felt fine, Id also been ok during the day, Id managed to go out without much of a panic..

And If you say 'Ive felt that too' I know youre either saying it to make me feel better, or you just dont realise how bad things were.. it was TERRIBLE.

Im going mad, I must be.

I refused to talk to my fiance about it this morning, so hes now p*ssed off with me, he said 'I need to know what was going on so I know how bad it was' which kinda confirmed to me that things are bad, otherwise he wouldnt be scared too and he wouldnt be saying that.

I dont feel great today either, I feel worn out, weak, petrifed.. I cant face eatting (which I never do when Im really anxious), and Im totally in fear of it happening again, and of whats going on for it to happen in the first place.

Im so scared to go to bed tonight:weep:

Theyre going to put me in a mental hospital Im sure :weep:.. I have my son to take care of.. what will I do :weep: .

[yanksforever]

You're not mental. If you're scared to go to bed tonight, then it'll cause the symptoms to come back. Confusion and weird visions are symptoms I get sometimes too...the visions are crazy. I Once had a vision of someone dressed as a knight, chopping my leg off...

[starlight78]

I know your going to think that i'm just saying this but alot of people have strange peculiar visions and thoughts when they are very tired. Extreme tiredness can cause people to hallucinate and anxiety will make it worse..

I work with people with full blown psychosis and I can assure you that no-one who works in mental health would think that you needed to be in hospital. Its the sign of a very tired and confused mind.. I know its terrifying, but it wont hurt you. xx

[Stressed32]

Nik- I am so sorry. I am not going to say I have had all of that happen b/c I have not. But I will say that I have had some pretty scarey mornings which at one point made me scared to go to sleep at night b/c I did not want to wake up in the morning. I will also tell you that while I do not have those visions you spoke of, I did get these dejavu, feelings like I have been there done that that get worse when anxiety is kicked into high gear, often....had 2 already this AM. I do think your symptoms are anxiety, even though they may be weird. I say this because anxiety can cause chemicals to be wacky in your brain and then your brain makes you feel wacky. Try to relax and recognize that this is part of the anxiety and you do not need to fear it because it too shall pass.
In regard to your fiance, I have been married for 10 years and I would like to give you advice that you are of course free to ignore...tell him what is going on. You are about to vow to love each other "in sickness and in health". How can he support you and love you through times like this if you don't give him a chance to....he might suprise you and prove to be your biggest anxiety cure. Anxiety is a life long battle and he is about to become your life long partner. Don't shut him out...how would you feel if you knew something was wrong with him and he would not tell you?? Good luck and hugs to you.

Ps. you feel bad today b/c you did not get enough rest and your nervous system has pumped your body full of adreline. Stay away from caffine today and try to get a nap in.

[CJH86]

I get terrible hallucinations at night sometimes....id say i've had them a fair few times in my life, happens mainly when im stressed, or tired or my anxiety is bad. I definately know how bad they can be! I've even been to my doctor before about them and she hardly batted an eyelid over it believe it or not:shrug:.

Mine have ranged from completely daft and silly things (one of them was much like the sausage thing mentioned actually!) to downright scary visions which have made me physically scream. Nevertheless they are very vivid, annoying, disorientating and i dont like having them as i tend to fear sleep subsequently which makes matters worse.....i could write pages and pages about it.

Interestingly my dad who suffers from anxiety also gets them and i suppose that is why i've never really extensively pryed into why i get these, or worried too much that i am experiencing psychosis.....although i do think i am going mad at the time they happen, kind of similar to the feeling of a panic attack.

I also know other people who have experienced similar things once or twice as well....but there is this preconception/taboo about seeing things and hearing things automatically makes someone fall into the catagory of 'mad'. Actually the brain just plays tricks from time to time x

[Katiex]

I've had a similar experience happen, one night me and my partner went to bed and I felt fine, wasn't thinking about anything then all of a sudden I felt strange. It felt like I wasn't there, sort of invisible then my mind started to work overtime and I was having wierd thoughts about conversations I'd had that day, they were hapening all over an in my head but so real, not thoughts. I could actually hear the conversations and felt like was actually inside my head and thought I was going crazy and had voices in my head. I went downstairs to make a cup of tea and calm myself but I was scared to go to bed incase it happened again.

Its scary what anxiety can do to you. Please don't think you going mad.

Hugs x x x x

[nikkinik]

Thank you all for your messages, its put my mind at ease, thank you.

I did tell my fiance to read what Id written here, I felt too silly to say those things out loud ( esp about the sausages !! lol). I dont feel it went down too well though. I just needed a cuddle and some reasurance, but I just made him fed up (he admitted this to me), and he just sat looking miserable and told me how negative I am, and that he worries about me.. I can understand him worrying about me, if he didnt worry maybe he wouldnt care, but I just didnt want to feel that burden too, not on top of everything else. I was trying not to be negative too, but I was just petrified, it hadnt happened before, not to that extent anyway, and I was afraid.

Thank you again, I will try not to fear it happening, as I know it will bring it on again.

Hugs to all of you who have had this too, its really not nice is it! xxxx.

[Oceanblue]

Hiya Nikki,

You do sound very distressed and I hope you start to feel better soon.

I just wanted to let you know a little about my experiences of Psychosis, in hope that this could maybe help. I've also spoken to others who have suffered, although not exactly the same, the experiences are very similar in thoughts.

I have Bipolar, and had been through an extremely bad stage afew years ago, where I was hospitalised.

When you mentioned that you were watching the TV on Subtitles and things wasn't making sense. Well,.. I feel that in a Psychotic state everything makes sense but in a completely different light.

Things around,.. words, signs, pictures, Films, TV shows all make sense at the time to you, (only they are seen by you in a kind of surreal way, an entire different way and meaning), but nobody else around.

It's really hard to explain,...an example;

I was watching a film in the day room. I then believed the nurses had put this on especially for me to try and help me remember things, like my childhood and that this film was about me. The little girl in it was acting the role of me.
I then remembered that I had read a book (afew months previous to this time), and then believed my dad was the author of this book, and that this film was a copy from the book.
When my dad came to visit a couple of hours later,.. I was thanking him so much and saying that it's ok. I said thank you for looking after me and that I know you're not my real dad, but it's ok, it doesn't matter, you've been so good to me and helped me, I now know you're really my Psychiatrist.

My poor dad was nearly in tears, I remember he gave me a cuddle and I said, "Thanks so much for helping me Dr Royston".

My dad is my real dad and his name is not Dr Royston ! Only, I truly believed this.

More things that usually happen is that things you read, write, see, your entire surroundings are very surreal, (I can say this by looking back), only at the time they are very real, so real that you do and say strange things and no matter what people say, your state of mind does not change, even with certain medications, sometimes it just has to pass.
I had to be sedated afew times, because I was becoming too out of hand and having little staff at the time was difficult.

I was also grieving/suffering from PTSD, and I became obsessed with white, this is quite embarrassing,.. but what the hell ! I had to climb and walk on anything white, at one point I climbed up ontop of a bathroom :blush:. It had like stages of tile shelving and the ceilings of the rooms were really high, being an old hospital.

Pmsl,.. :unsure: tee hee, Oh jeez,.. gotta laugh now !! Well,... i've got to haven't I ? :roflmao: I'd completely lost the plot .

This stage of Psychosis went on for about a week, though I was in hospital for 4mths due to Depression, PTSD, Anxiety/Panic.

Another day I believed I was in hospital to die from a terrible illness, I believed I was physcially dying from Aids or something and I remember feeling in total devastation, wondering why nobody told me and was crying for my children. This was when my mind was at its worst. I was sent to a room on my own and nurses cleared everything out, curtains, sheets and wardrobe,.. I wasn't even allowed to the toilet,.. (had a pan to pee in):blush: and had to have a nurse sit there in the room with me for afew days and nights.
That time was unbearable.

Psychosis is very strange, really strange,.. and difficult to explain. I guess in another way, you could say it's like a bad trip. If you've ever been silly enough to mess about with them when you were a kid.

I hope that I haven't scared you in anyway,.. I just thought it maybe best to write afew things which happened to me whilst I was going through it, in hope that this could possibly help you.

I hope it has, take good care of yourself xxx:flowers: