Please Help

I need some help here. Not sure what to do. Feel like posting in the crisis thread, but don't think I deserve to call it a crisis. I feel kind of bad for even posting this, but I'm losing it a little.

You ever have that indescribable feeling? Like you can't breathe or move, or do anything. Not high but not low. It's mixed. Can't sit still but are so tired you can barely move. Angry for no reason. Want to punch something. It feels good to punch something. Or do some other form of SI.

Not really sure how any of you can help me. I've posted before about dreaming every night and about having a past psychotic episode. The last few nights I've been dreaming about having one again. I dream about running from the cops, from everyone, and everything. I dream about being hospitalized, held down, medicated. I dream about doing something that I know I shouldn't do... but I want so badly to do it. And then I wake up thinking it was real and am so confused. A crushing confusion. A deep, throbbing, aching pain in my gut, my chest, my head, everywhere. It's an awful sensation. And it's an awful dream, but for some reason I want so badly for it to become a reality. Why? How can I think this way? Feel this way? Want something so terrible? Everything was so good for so long and suddenly all I want is to do things I know I shouldn't.

I don't know why I'm asking for help. I don't think anything anyone can say will make it change. I'm lost, and I guess I'm just writing this so that it's not sitting in my chest like a shaken coke bottle about to explode. I know I'll regret writing this later, but right now I just need... something...

Anyway... if you're out there, please say something.

Breezewriter

You should post in the Crisis thread because you need the support. Hopefully others will reply. But it's nice to get things off our chest by sharing it with others.

I have not had that experience like you share, but I hope your feeling better today. How are you feeling today? The same, worse, better???

Sending hugs, if wanted, to you!

quietgirl2538,

Thank you. I knew you would be the one person to respond. Although, I fear it is out of obligation and I regret taking your time, which may be better used and deserved elsewhere. Please don't feel obligated to read on. Just skip to the bottom paragraph.

The last person who posted on the Crisis thread was someone who needed it more than me and they ended it with a very ominous post. I'm not sure how they are doing now, but I'm afraid it's not fair for me to overshadow their needs.

Am I doing better? Honestly I'm not sure. Part of me says no, but part of me feels very stupid for saying that. Do you ever feel terrible in some way, but function so well around others that you even fool yourself and are angrily unsure what your problem is/was to begin with? It happens to me quite a lot these days. It used to be that I would feel like I wanted to end my life and then I would go out into public and fake being okay, all the while still feeling miserable. Now I feel the same way at home, but go out into public and it's like I fake it so well that I suddenly notice I've fooled myself too. I can't discern how I feel and then I go back home very confused, which sometimes ultimately makes me feel even worse than before. It's especially bad with the rapid cycling or mixed states.

The dreams continue. Day and night. For the most part I don't talk about anything, but sometimes I foolishly have hope that if I say things a certain way, someone (my SO, my psychiatrist, you) might suddenly understand what I mean. And then nobody does. They don't respond, or they awkwardly pass over it, or change the subject, or just say they're sorry I feel this way... I would never truly wish these feelings on anyone, but I sometimes dare to imagine that, for just a moment, one of you could feel what I'm feeling, or see what I see in my dreams. Nobody has ever said, "I know exactly what you mean," or anything like that. I'm utterly alone... And then I think I'm just too sensitive, which makes me so disgusted with myself that I can't stand it, and breaking my hand on that wall over there suddenly becomes enormously tempting.

I guess I'm stuck... Stuck on some sort of balancing scale that is inches from being tipped to the side of disaster. The calm before the storm. The desperate, hopeless feeling that you get when you're about to throw up and you're not sure if it's better to give in or keep fighting it. Sometimes it comes and it sucks, sometimes you actually feel better. Sometimes it feels so awful that you beg for it to finally just happen, but instead you writhe on the floor in discomfort for what seems like an eternity of torture. Right now it's the last one.

While I write feeling deeply emotional about this, I can understand that others might not see or feel what I'm trying to convey. These are just words. I get that. And I don't want you to feel bad and feign understanding if this doesn't make sense to you. If you read this far, thanks for at least trying.

quietgirl2538, I read your own thread the other day but did not have a chance to respond. I deeply hope that you are all right today, and I genuinely wish that I could take your burden so that you do not have to feel it. I want you to know that you have someone thinking about you.

Best,
Breezewriter

Breeze,
I want you to know that irl, I am as real as they come and I am that way online too. I am responding because I want to and am thinking about you too. Responding to your post comes naturally to me. Just ask my few friends irl, or even my therapist (I know you can't really ask them, but believe me, I try to be a good and honest person, authentic in my dealings with others).

I do actually understand the feelings you share. I'm not at all saying that this is a diagnosis, but what you are explaining sounds like when I had a mixed episode. There are different levels of severity. I've experienced the one that isn't so bad and the one that almost took me completely, as in I gave up on life. But I am just sharing what I went through as it resonates with some of what you share.

Today I saw the therapist and I feel 100% better. My issues remain but I feel stronger in how I will be dealing with them because I got some help along the way. I am unable to trust even my closest friends with my problems like how I shared today with the therapist.

I fake feeling well too. I've told a few people, "I'm depressed." and the two people I told just ended the conversation and it was very awkward for me and I regretted mentioning that to them. That's how it happened to me.

When I log in, I am in "work mode." I start to work and do my job and if I reply to anyone it is genuine. Hugs! Because I know how it feels to accept others kindness with guilt mixed in with it. That's how I describe it. I don't want to be a burden, so if I do share with another person, I feel like others may just feel obligated to be nice. But I am not like that because I don't like people being that way with me either.

I am much more open about my bipolar issues here because I am anonymous and we all suffer in similar ways, so we can be there for each other. People here understand me better than all my friends and family combined. Only the therapist and the pdoc understand, but I only see them every 3 months. So I have turned to Psych Forums for some understanding because you guys "get it."

As for the Crisis thread, it's there for you as well. You sound like you could use a kind word or two. You are important too.

From your sharing here right now, I'd say maybe you're not doing as well as you would like. We can chat here under this thread. And if anyone wants to join us, please feel free to do so. I don't want you to feel so alone. You aren't alone.

You ever have that indescribable feeling? Like you can't breathe or move, or do anything. Not high but not low. It's mixed. Can't sit still but are so tired you can barely move. Angry for no reason. Want to punch something. It feels good to punch something. Or do some other form of SI.

may be triggering? As thinking about it is a little for me... So read with that in mind.

This sounds like me when I was hypomanic (at least that's what my Dr. said I was?)
I felt like I was moving in water or honey and everything was moving so slowly but at the same time rushing by so fast all around me and in my brain. I felt like I was running wildly in slow motion, and could not explain it to anyone!

I also got worse like this when I was taking trazidone, I would have such vivid dreams that I would think things had happened in real life when it was only a dream, I finally ended up having hallucinations while awake! After my Dr. took me off trazidone my dreams became "normal" at least from my perspective. And i stopped hallucinating.

Have you changed any meds recently within the past few months maybe? Or do you live where the days are getting shorter this time of year? The days getting shorter used to mess with my sleep so much that I would get manic. Now on my current meds I avoid the real mania but still my sleep gets messed with really bad and that makes me stay awake for a whole night...

I hope you can find some answers. Sometimes just hearing someone else had similar experiences has helped me break away from my internal obsessing over why i feel this way and get to a better place inside. I think its because i feel less alone or unusual and that comforts me a little. Most of all I pray, and I mean a lot, being able to talk to my best friend 24-7 that is how prayer is for me. Not the stereotypical say your prayers before bed or meals but really talking to God, just like I do to people on this forum or in person, just saying whatever I need to say and getting everything out.

quietgirl2538,

I truly do appreciate you. I look back and really hope that I did not offend you about the whole obligation thing. It certainly wasn't intended that way. My apologies if it did.

I understand the part about opening up to someone and then feeling awkward and regretting mentioning it when they have a terrible response or don't respond at all. I didn't expect the irony of it happening in this same thread (the other people not answering part, not you having an unpleasant response)... But seriously, I'm really glad you're feeling better. That's great.

I have had many mixed episodes. Most of the time that's what I have, actually. Sometimes it feels like my baseline, and it just spikes more noticeably from time to time. Sometimes I think the meds just dull the bipolar in general so that I'm not constantly completely losing my mind, because there are these glimmers of the way it was before. Then is spikes and I wonder what the spike would look like if it wasn't dulled by my meds. I daydream about going off them because I'm achingly curious about what it would feel like. You'd think I would take the memory of misery and hold that as enough evidence to stay on them. For the most part that has worked but it's more and more tempting all the time to go back, to give into that strange urge.

That's the part that I think you, and others, would have the most difficult time understanding. The part about fearing that torture and desperately wanting it at the same time. I don't talk about it at all. NEVER with my SO or my friends. Only a slight consideration of bringing it up or a passing remark to my pdoc. This is the first time and place I've really outwardly explained it. It would be devastating for my SO if they found out. And I have this deep fear of revealing too much to my pdoc because I have been burned before and I don't want to get hospitalized. I just about lose my sh** any time there is a remote suggestion of inpatient care uttered from them. I come away from those appts pouring sweat and mapping the hallways for a future escape attempt. Perhaps it is irrational, but I feel that way nonetheless. I wish any of my therapists/counselors or shrinks would have understood like yours, but I strongly doubt they would have or ever will. And that's not a blind doubt, it's after careful evaluation of their demeanor and my level of trust.

Yet, even with that desperate fear of being hospitalized, sedated, and/or cuffed, I keep craving the rush of the flight and of physical pain. Maybe that's the manic side talking... All I know is that I first wrote this post because my dreams that are supposed to be nightmares are turning into something that I want. They're turning into daydreams. They're becoming something that invades daily life to the point where I somehow want to go back to being completely suicidal and running from the cops/search party. I want to freak out my psychiatrist. I want to do something that will get me hurt or killed. I want to SI. But I don't know WHY. Not a clue. I don't want to want it, but I can't help it.

I see someone reach into their jacket pocket and I get excited that they might shoot me. A cop drives by me and my adrenaline skyrockets. A traffic sign says DUI patrols are out and all I can think about is some drunk hitting me. My SO has to snap me out of it when I'm ignoring them to play out some random vision of peril in my mind. Sometimes I don't even realize that I'm not avoiding something dangerous, I just walk right into it without thinking. But right now I'm like, hell yes, come attack me and I'll kick your a** before you kill me. I was in a mall the other day with some friends and some guy in the food court above us opened fire on a person they were angry with for some stupid reason. In my mind I was thinking, sweet, this is my chance! I'll run up there and tackle him so others can get out to safety, but then he can shoot me in the struggle! I'm mortally wounded, he is detained, and nobody else get's hurt. Win! But my friends pulled me out the door as they evacuated the building. I had to struggle to contain my frustration.

I genuinely appreciate the kind words but that was not my mission in writing my original post. I don't deserve them. It's not really what I want or need. I guess I wanted answers, an explanation. How can you scream, "Don't look at me!" and "Please, see me," at the same time? I hate attention and this kind of thing oozes attention and public drama. But those aren't the things I want, it's the pain and running, and internal drama. It's playing out the extreme inner struggles so that they are real and not just unwarranted hallucinations and delusions. I just can't help feeling like I'm going to explode if something like what I have described doesn't happen. One thing keeping me from suicide is that it seems too simple and easy right now, and if someone or something else killed me, it would be easier for my family. Guess I'm a coward in that regard.

Maybe a part of me deep down just wanted someone to talk me out of all this...

Anyway, thanks again for caring.
-Breezewriter

Psychmember2,

Thanks for your response.

I get hypomanic too... And I agree, it is a lot like you described.

I've been having these dreams long before I started taking any meds. They just get worse when I'm having serious fluctuations in mood. And I've been taking these meds for a few years now, without changes. Actually, I started them right after an episode that included non-drug-induced delusions and hallucinations, which have gotten better.

I do live in an area where the days are shorter now, but I have never noticed such a correlation.

I'm glad that prayer works for you. I have never been a religious person and I don't go to church or anything. Things have happened in my life that made me hate whatever powers may be for quite a while. But I would like to say that I have somewhat of a relationship with God now. I pray too, from time to time. I always pray thanks when things are good, because sometimes it seems like good doesn't happen often... But then I guess part of my problem is that when it's bad and I pray for myself, one minute I'm praying for it to stop, and the next minute I'm praying that all the emotional pain and suffering is taken from others and given to me, so that they don't have to bear it anymore. Either that or I pray that something bad happens to me instead of some other person who doesn't deserve it... Martyr, fool, masochist, guilt-ridden? You can judge. I don't even know... I truly do mean the best for others though...

My prayers usually don't get answered regardless. Talking to God can be hard when all you need is answers and all you get is silence.

Anyway, thanks again for your reply. I do appreciate it.

Cheers,
Breezewriter

breezewriter wrote:My prayers usually don't get answered regardless. Talking to God can be hard when all you need is answers and all you get is silence.

Anyway, thanks again for your reply. I do appreciate it.

Cheers,
Breezewriter

Hi Breezewriter,
I know a lot of people feel this way about prayer, I have at times myself felt like there was no answer to a particular prayer, but then I would realize that sometimes I wasn't seeing the answer because I was just expecting what I wanted to be the answer instead of realizing there was another answer being given.
Past experiences definitely can cause people to question God and faith, but the bad things that happen aren't caused by God, they are caused by people who may claim to be good godfeering people when they are really not.
Its definitely good to pray in thanks, and to pray for help for yourself and others. Maybe try praying to God that you would like to know what his answers are. If you really do want to know he will send someone to help you, in person or online.
I hope things will get better for you soon, I will keep you in my prayers. Feel free to PM me if you want.

No offense taken about you feeling it may an obligation reply from me. I just want you to know that.

Today I feel better, but yesterday afternoon, I took a nap and that helped me a great deal.

When I get manic, it's always a mixed episode. And a few times it's with psychosis. I used to just deal with it by myself and just didn't say anything to anyone not even the pdoc or therapist.

TRIGGER WARNING

That was until I attempted to take my life. I ended up in the emergency room and they kept me there a few days. Since then I am sternly told to not wait so long that they need to switch my meds and sometimes it takes a long time for them to work. During that time, I'm on suicide watch. My husband takes away all my pills and I have to get them from him.

I had one terrible episode where I became psychotic for a long time. When I took abilify, the symptoms went away. Abilify worked really fast. I was in a psych ward and they wrote down on my folder, "homicidal." I felt such shame. I had gone in because I was also suicidal.

END TRIGGER WARNING

Even these days I cannot lie about me being so happy to be on meds and so glad they keep me stable. I feel as if I have stability but I still have to deal with side effects. And yes, I'll admit here like I admitted to my therapist, I want to get off my meds. I want freedom and I want to feel hypomania or mania. What I don't want is Deep Depression. What truly keeps me taking my meds is that my husband and my kids need me to be stable. They need me and that is what keeps me from getting off them. I already forgot how terrible I was without meds. I was very sick. Please keep taking your meds and if you haven't already done this, please contact your pdoc and therapist (if you have one), and tell them what you're experiencing. They will help you. The pdoc can assess your meds and maybe add others or change them. Something that will help you. I want you to feel better. I am stable and I still have those feelings of wanting to go off the meds, but I won't do it. I told the therapist and she sort of looked scared because she doesn't know how it really feels what you and I feel in regards to wanting to go off them. But she worries because it could turn into a disaster for me and for my family. I have 3 kids and my husband.

I will admit that I do have a difficult time understanding how you fear torture and want it at the same time. But I can "listen" and be here for you.

I've been with my same pdoc and therapist for 12 years now. We've established a level of trust and I'm lucky and I'm also grateful for their kindness and understanding (as much as they do understand).

Before my first hospitalization, I experienced psychosis in different ways for a long time, months. I didn't know that's what it was. I was hallucinating and hearing voices and my dreams were dark, I woke up to two of them and I could see them with my own eyes right in front of me. I was so scared. My dreams didn't turn into daydreams like you share. But it was something that needed treatment, as I later learned. I'm only talking about my episode.

I know you don't want to be hospitalized but as a fellow sufferer, I strongly suggest you seek some type of help.

I hope others who go through the same thing as you will reply. Sometimes we just don't know what to say or some other reason that keeps us from posting a reply.

I believe you when you explain that you are conflicted with your feelings. And I don't think you're a coward at all.

Talk here, vent all you want. Hugs!

Psychmember2,

Genuinely, thanks. I'm about to say some things, and I don't want you to think I'm upset with, or attacking, you. I appreciate that you're trying to help.

I know a lot of people who feel that way, and your way, about prayer too. You are also not the first person to say all of this to me. I have contemplated this stuff deeply, and I have asked for help to see what the answers are, as you suggested, but I still come to the same conclusions.

One example that exceeds them all is my mom. She got cancer. Young. My sibling and I were teens. Old enough to know what was happening, but still kids. It was extreme, painful torture for her. It was emotionally devastating for all of us. She suffered. We suffered. A lot. We were good people. My parents taught my sibling and I to be selfless. My mom was religious and prayed often. More often than praying for herself, she prayed for other people. That's just who she was... The cancer battle actually started several years before, and she fought long and hard. Ultimately she didn't just die from being consumed by cancer, which we had just found out was inevitable in 6 months to a year. She died because the main tumor ruptured her organs and she bled to death internally. The docs had previously been concerned about clotting caused by another drug, so they had put her on a blood thinner. The blood thinner made it so her body couldn't stop the bleeding, and we were told that she wouldn't survive surgery. They put her on the highest possible dose of pain medicine and she was still in agony. Her body rejected one of the blood transfusions. She fought for a couple days before she finally bled to death. I was told it was one of the worst possible ways to die.

So, please tell me how could this woman, who I (and the few hundred people who attended her funeral) can assure you was a kind, genuine, god-fearing person, have died such a gruesome, painful, prolonged death. Why would God let that happen? Maybe he didn't DO it, but he let it happen. This all-powerful, all-knowing God, let a wonderful, innocent person go through torture. And if he "needed to have her come be an angel" then couldn't he have let it be quick and painless? He let her suffer. He let all of us suffer. If we were supposed to learn something from that, not only was it a sick way to teach us, but I also missed the grand message, so what positive purpose did it serve? If he deserves no blame, then what "non" God-fearing person does, as you suggested? Nobody we know would wish her harm. And if there was such a person out there, God made that person, so why did he make them so evil? Or, why didn't his love, our love, trump that hate? If you blame the Devil, isn't God supposed to be stronger than him? I have so many questions that nobody can answer. There-in lies my battle with faith...

After my mom died the hits just kept on coming for our family. For me, they began long before her death, and they have continued since. I used to be a culprit of extreme black and white thinking. I used to believe very strongly in karma. I also thought that if I was given a terrible day for seemingly no reason, but tried to handle it with grace and resilience, I would be rewarded with a good day eventually. Conversely, I felt that if I did something to screw things up, I would be punished with a miserable one. I thought every day was hanging in the balance, a test, and I was being judged. There was a lot more to my thinking than that, but you get the gist for now. I was let down time and time again. There were moments, alone in my home, when I was literally down on my knees, crying, screaming, begging for some aspect of my torture to stop, but it didn't. I asked that my mental and emotional pain would be replaced by something physical because I was so exhausted and I hated not having anything real to show for my suffering. Day after day I struggled to survive. I asked God what I did wrong. I asked him to help me see the good, to help me understand. He didn't. If he did and I missed it, could he not have done a little more to help me see? When someone is in the pit of despair, and bears such burdens that they can't even move, is it their fault for not seeing a way out other than death?

I say the black and white stuff in the past tense because eventually there were good days. It took a very, very long time to get to them, but I found them. I got help, and meds, and they made a difference. Really bad things still happen, aside from the illness, but not as many. It's not as bad but I still have some of that black and white thinking. It's because I still feel like proof exists, and ironically, the same proof applies to my belief in a higher power. So what do I thank God for? Do I thank him for things being so bad before that I am more numb or immune to it now? Do I thank him for my unconquerable soul? Invictus is my mantra, so perhaps I do. But mostly I thank him for the good days because I fear that he'll take them away again. I have myself to thank for my strength and resilience as much as I could thank God. What about those poor souls who have been through as much as I have been through and did not have the strength to keep going? What about a friend I had in college; did he fail the test of faith? Was he unworthy of a happier life because he could not see the answers? Did God make him kill himself or did he just not do anything to stop it? What about his distraught family?

I know you can't truly answer any of these questions, so it's okay to not even try. Honestly, don't. Because I can guarantee that any answer you give me will be followed by another question. I don't mean to sound cynical. I genuinely just don't understand and am so confused. Religion is full of double standards and contradictions. I'll continue to believe and pray. I'll continue to try to be virtuous and altruistic, even though I constantly fear that my attempts at altruism are somehow looped back to personal gain (i.e. dying to save another person). I know I'm far from an angel, especially when I can't stop thinking about pain in such a twisted way. But I'm not going to hold my breath for answers that never come.

Perhaps God is each of us. Perhaps this "being" is just an outward projection of our soul and the magical energy within us, and we use God to define and describe it. Maybe all of our beliefs are true in our own universe, and when we die we will see exactly what we each individually perceive. Maybe that is the only hope that many of us have... So I'll just sit here, looking deep within myself, waiting for the storm to blow over, or otherwise destroy me. That's really all I can do.

But I hope you find your own answers, my friend. Maybe he will show you things he has not shown me. Because it is important to you, I will pray for you too. Genuine prayer. A sincerest vibe, a most heart-felt wish, that you stay safe and happy.

Cheers,
Breezewriter