Posted by Camille Dumont on January 29, 2005, at 14:38:00
In reply to Re: PSYCHOTIC *THEMES*, posted by pretty_paints on January 28, 2005, at 12:10:26
> Lovely surprise to visit the board and find that people had! Camille Dumont, I was very interested by your posts. Could you tell me more about your symptoms or whatever it is that you think/know you suffer from? Do you have a diagnosis? How about meds? (if you don't mind answering that is!!).
Not at all. In terms of diagnosis lets just say that its a bit blurry and has evolved over time. It went like this (in chronological order)
- Adaptation disorder (whatever its called ... the thing that is less than depression and temporary)
- Major depresssion
- Major depression with psychotic features
- Chronic depression with psychotic features
- Major depression and schizoid personality disorderMind you I'm a bit guilty of not being really honest with the p-docs. It took me a while to have the guts to admit what I saw and even now I've never dared to mention the whole violent urges type thing. I'm afraid that if I do talk about them the doctor will not realize that even though I get these urges there is no way I'd act on them and I don't want to end up in the hospital and / or forcibly medicated.
I think I do have depression and SPD and from the results of MMPI-2 I have lots and lots of imagination and when you put pressure or stress someone with SPD they may slip into lalaland and start to see things and hear things just as if they were psychotic even though you still know what is real and what is not real. I've also had depersonalization episodes but I can control and stop them at will now so its not much of an issue now.
Its also very much linked to how tired I am. If I'm sleep deprived it gets very bad. The hallucinations will pop up near me every 5 minutes or so. Its very annoying and I have a hard time reading because my brain will twist the words I see ... usually in a very cynical way. For example, I once saw a sign who said something like : save the earth, think of your children, recycle. When I first saw it I read : save the earth, recycle your children. I couldn't help but visualse a small compost heap with little kiddie shoes around it. Of course it was so weird that I looked twice and the words went back to how they should have been. But it can be annoying when I'm at work.
Usually the hallucinations are so strange that I realize that they can't be true. But then again, I've also wondered about the fact that maybe I'm hallucinating tons of stuff but don't realize that they are not true if they appear "normal" and what not. Maybe I only notice the "strange" and "weird" visions.
In terms of meds I've had a few unfortunate run-ins with atypical APs which did take away the visions but also took away 90% of my mind ... and Zyprexa gave me petit mal seizures so I now refuse to take anything called a mood stabiliser or antipsychotic. I quit Effexor 300mg cold turkey and I'm still on a small dose of Celexa (20mg) which prevented me from feeling the Effexor withdrawal.
I really think its just my personality and my imagination. And I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather keep my imagination even if it means that the visions stay. If I sleep enough and have a lifestyle thats not too stressfull given my personality disorder / type then they remain at a tolerable level and I can work and take care of myself. I see them more as a part of me than a disease / pathological symptom.
poster:Camille Dumont
thread:445024
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050129/msgs/449766.html