Diary *Possible TW*

At often times it seems like I have been with the symptoms more than I have been without them. I do not remember exactly what was the first symptom. Although I remember hearing his voice often and some other seemingly random things at first, obscenities being shouted at me. At the start I remember seeing flashes and lines on people's faces. Often I saw shadowy figures or objects moving from the corner of my eyes. I was too scared to tell anyone. I thought I was losing my mind or if I wait for a while maybe it will go away?

It sometimes feels hard to determine what is real or not real? I think being aware that these are symptoms and practicing reasoning, helps me to determine what is reality. Currently my mind is stuck in some embarrassing delusions involving doorknobs wanting to communicate and even saw some facial features on them. Thought process and speaking seems disorganized.

Why are reality checks sometimes confusing when it seems like you might be in psychosis 24/7.

A delusional thought that has troubled me for a long time is that other people can implant thoughts in my head. It makes me question that are these thoughts that I have, are they my original thoughts or did some other people implant these thoughts in my head

It gets confusing at times because of the delusion. It seems like the logical side of me fights with these delusional thoughts in my mind. But it still feels too much and the delusional thoughts feels strong

But other people can influence our thinking pattern, can't they?

Sometimes I am not very sure if all the thoughts I have are mines and if I am me. Or if all the thoughts I have are implanted in me by other people and I am carrying everyone else's thoughts. It makes me question my sense of identity

@NoneTheWiser I think trauma does make it complicated. I feel that my abuser implanted thoughts in me. Thoughts about not telling anyone about the abuse he carried out

I have disorganized thinking and sometimes go completely off topic and start mumbling without really realizing it. I almost automatically start making connections that if that is because someone else planted a thought in me which led to my own thinking becoming disorganized

Thank you. Your reply did make me feel less alone ❤️❤️

*TW just incase*

Some things feels really mushed up and confusing. It has been taking me a while to understand conversations. It seems that I am going at my own pace to comprehend and process conversations being made with me. That pace is slow

A voice that I have heard for most of my life, I do not specifically like that voice but I have heard it for so many years that it almost feels like something consistent in my life and I have started to care for that voice

That voice and another voice have been arguing alot lately. That voice keeps saying that she will burn herself, which has been making me feel worried. I would like the arguments to stop and I would not want the voice to do anything that would harm her

I realize that voices are not real but I do not want to hear arguments. I have heard that voice for so long and I do not want her to say that she will burn herself because I care for her and it worries me

I have been trying to listen to music to drown out the voices. It has started to seem like the singers in the music have taken up the tone of the voices I am a hearing and are arguing?

I also did something that I am happy about. When I was sleeping, I woke up because of hearing doors banging, sounds of window glass breaking and laughter. No one was actually there, so I went back to sleep and ignored all the voices. I did not let them keep me up all night

I am not responding very well to meds, that is something I think I am pretty sure about. I am not sure if it is because I am getting resistant to them or if my doctor has not really found the combination or dosage of meds that works for me

Every month I visit my doctor. She asks me how I am doing and what symptoms I am experiencing. Sometimes there is blood work involved. Based on what I tell her, she increases or decreases a med or adds or subtracts a med. It makes me feel like being experimented on

I had an appointment with my doctor today. I was meant to see her on Thursday. She told me about treatment resistant schizophrenia signs. She told me that early childhood onset of symptoms have a chance of worsened prognosis and the fact that I took so long to get help. For most part of my childhood, I ignored the symptoms and was just scared. I only started looking for help and got diagnosed much later at the end of my teens. She said that schizophrenia was left untreated for most part of growing up and that potentially worsens things

I regret some things now. I think being in psychosis so many times without meds somehow fried my mind

@NoneTheWiser Thank you for the hugs ❤️

Yes, I think so too that meds can be really tricky. They sometimes do not help and worsenes things and sometimes they do help but at a cost or side effects. I think maybe because humans biology is so complex

I have changed my doctors in the past. I asked the very first doctor I saw that if she knew any support groups for people who go through psychosis. I was thinking of joining a support group in my area. She said that I should not join the support group because I should only stay with people who do not go through psychosis. What she said felt upsetting

I think with time I am either learning to cope better or becoming used to it or maybe a mixture of both. I have only been hospitalized once in this year. I think that is maybe an improvement

Your words of encouragements and understanding meant so much to me. Thank you lots and lots ❤️

@NoneTheWiser I do think feeling a sense of community offline helps alot too. I really believe that just being there for someone or having someone be there for you can make all the difference even when they or you do not have all the answers. I really believe that 'silent' support can mean so much

I think it is a form of both acceptance and tolerance. The first couple of years I started seeing shadowy figures or hearing things, I was scared out of my mind but not so much now. Still trying to work through some events in childhood buti try giving it time

I hope you are doing well too ❤️❤️

*TW just incase*

Positive symptoms- Seeing shadow figures again. No face, just human shaped shadows. They seem to move really fast from the corner of my eye. Voices speaking in broken words, no full sentences. Tone gets loud sometimes. Some of them command auditory hallucinations, telling me to take a glass from the kitchen and break it on myself. Very distracting. No delusions for now. Disorganized

Negative symptoms- Do not want to speak much. Speech still very flattened out. (My doctor said to practice speaking with facial/tone expressions in front of a mirror so I can learn to create facial expressions and speak with expressive tone because they do not naturally occur even though I feel emotions in my heart??)

Cognitive symptoms- some problems with attention

What to believe when all voices say it was your fault and you somehwere believe that too

*TW just incase*

This is to hold myself accountable

I wish I had a hold on the voices. Why do I give into them? It gets too much and I give into them. This is where I should hold strong. This is where I should not give into them. This is where I should use coping strategies, but sometimes it is too hard

I gave into particular command auditory hallucinations. Regretted it so much soon afterwards. The nurse at the ER was really kind when taking out the broken glass shards out of my hands and cleaning them. She did not say much but her actions felt like she cared, even if I have a problem with physical touch. All she said was "everything will be ok" and I think that is all I needed to hear to feel a sense of safety inside me

@hillsideblues Sending you good vibes

@mytwistedsoul Thank you. It really means alot ❤️ My dad has been supportive and helped me carry some things that felt heavy because my hands are bandaged. That also helped

@hillsideblues I'm glad your father is supportive and has been helping you. How are your hands doing today? If you don't mind my asking of course :)

@mytwistedsoul It is ok today, I think they will heal with time. Thank you for asking ❤️

I am glad that my dad is understanding, my mom is not so much which is why I do not visit her very often because she would make fun of me

I hope you have been ok too :)

@NoneTheWiser I reallyyyy appreciate that ❤️

@NoneTheWiser ❤️ Thank you. It means so much. Wishing you a good holiday too ❤️

Feeling scared again of seeing things again. When the shadows are very close to the wall, it looks like they are inside

When they are very close to the wall* Because I am not sure

@NoneTheWiser I am not sure because they sometimes look like a part of the wall if too close to it and suddenly seeing them frightens me

I do think it is because of the holidays and seeing some family and relatives that gives anxiety. I try to keep my emotions in check

I hope your holidays are going ok ❤️

@NoneTheWiser I am glad that your holidays have ended up getting better. You do deserve better times ❤️

My mom cannot seem to hold herself back from commenting. She said that it looks like I am swatting invisible flies in air when I am having psychosis. She always calls having psychosis as me 'being in my zone.' I do not really like her word choice for it

I stood up for myself this time and told her that what she said was hurtful and makes me feel self conscious when she says that it looks like I am swatting invisible flies. To this my mom said that I need to lighten up and learn to take a joke. So it also made me feel a bit confused

@hillsideblues Well done! It's wonderful and so incredibly brave of you to stand up for yourself. I'm sorry to hear what her reply was. When something is said or done that hurts someone, it isn't a joke. It is confusing when people invalidate us this way.

@mytwistedsoul @NoneTheWiser It means so much to me, bless you both ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I have been spending most of my time in my room lately ever since I came back. I spend time in my room when my abuser visited. When he is around it feels really hard to pretend that all is ok and that he did nothing to hurt me. There is alot of struggle with flashbacks and a constant state of taking pauses and grounding myself

It also feels confusing sometimes. Most things feel confusing. They either are confusing or maybe I confuse them or maybe my mom is right and I am slow

i have seen shadow people or figures (whatever they may be called) since I was around 10 years old. I now understand that the shadow people are not real but that does not make me feel less afraid. I will never call them by their names because I do not want to give into what is not real

*Possible TW*

Auditory: Lots of nonsensical voices speaking in sentences that do not make sense. One voice sometimes comments on all that I am doing. I hear both internal and external voices. Internal is very less now, meds helped with that. Internal seems like they are coming from specific sides inside my mind. They are not my thought processes or my thinking. I do not have a control on what they say. I recognize my own internal voice. I can think about apples and I can make my own internal voices say "I like apples." I do not have this control over the other internal voices that are not mines. They say anything they want. External voices are more than internal and seem to come from outside me. Persecutory ones are common. They talk about all the things I fall short in and name calling. Some speak descriptions about some awful things. Some commanding ones that want me to do certain things and I feel pressured to do them sometimes, jusy to make it all stop. Few times someone said that they are a spirit?

Visual: Shadow people since a very long time and seeing human looking shapes. Sometimes visual hallucinations talk to me and I get confused that if I should respond to them talking to me or not. Sometimes I feel obliged to reply to visual hallucinations talking? I held a door open for a visual hallucination to get out of the room? Some fugures following me around and objects like tables or chairs moving or floating, but I only see them from the corner of my eye. There is also seeing faces inside objects like walls, door knobs. Seeing flashes of light in my room and golden or yellow colored lines on people's faces since I was a kid. This has only happened thrice till now when I was talking to someone and I started seeing their teeths grow and fill up the whole room

Tactile: Some linked to certain memories, usually happens during flashbacks. I think these could be linked to the ptsd. A reason I was hospitalized once was because I was convinced that worms were inside me and that no one was really believing me. I could feel the worms under my skin and attempted to get them out. Now if I get sensations of things crawling on my skin, I do not react to it. More commonly have sensations that my skin is being stretched across my face and sometimes organs turning

Delusions: When I was younger, I really believed that my teacher could hear whatever I was thinking. I tried projecting some of my thoughts at my teachers to see if she could really "hear" them. When my teacher did not react to my thoughts, it gave me some confort that it is not real. I was delusional that someone had a chip inserted inside my head and they were controlling my thoughts. With that chip they also could insert thoughts in me. Made it hard to figure if all my thoughts were mines or if all of my thoughts were inserted by others through that chip in my head. Earlier this year, I was delusional that my food is poisoned and once thought my meds at the hospital were poisoned? For a period of time, I was kind of convinced that I was "cured" and needed no medication or therapy and I was ready to stop taking meds, until my doctor said that me thinking that way is also a delusion. Paranoia is still very common that if my doctor is giving me the right meds and if something 'bad' will happen

@mytwistedsoul @NoneTheWiser I was not sure where to say this and I hope it is ok to say this here. I hope you both have a really positive next year ahead. I see how much warmth and understanding you have for everyone. A big heart and thoughtful for everyone even when you are going through difficult times. It is seen and appreciated. I hope you receive even more support than you spread. Bless you ❤️

@hillsideblues This so nice of you, thank you.

Few current ways to cope that work sometimes. Still learning better ways

Auditory: Talking back to the voices really helps. Sometimes I get intimidated by the things they say. Having a conversation with them makes them feel less intimidating. Saying out loud that they are not real helps too. Listening to music works sometimes. It helps to distract me from the content of what the voices are saying and to move my focus more to the music lyrics. When I am not sure if the voices are real or not, I play really loud music. If the voices were real, then the volume of the voices would have drowned a bit due to the loud volume of music in my ears. But if the volume of voices has not changed at all even when I am playing music at high volume, then I know that those voices are not real. Have to practice alot of positive affirmations and self talk that I am not the horrible things that the voices say that I am. It can be easy to get into a negative mindset so positive self talk is important. Not sure what to do when the voices describe some gruesome things and that scares me because I do not want to listen. I need to be more assertive with myself and not do what I am told to do by command hallucinations. I am able to sometimes but not so much the other times

Visual: Not sure what to do about shadow people. They seem like a part or my life but startling sometimes and makes it difficult to sleep. I cannot sleep with the lights off. Seeing gold lines on people's faces is ok sometimes. I can manage seeing that. Maybe I should not interact or talk back to visual hallucinations because I feel really stupid afterwards. Which is ironical because in the moment talking helps me. Until the self conscious feelings comes along afterwards. It is scary to see the bad ones. Keep on telling myself that it is not real really helps. I know some things that cannot be real. Lines on faces, shadow people, objects floating or human looking figures showing up in my room or following me etc, all this cannot be logically possible. I can use logical reasoning here. So I know that it is not true. I am not very sure about more mundane things. Like I saw so many lady bugs in my room yesterday. It is hard to use logical reasoning here because lady bugs can be logically present but not sure if they are actually real or not real. For things like these I have to ask someone to tell me

Tactile: Grounding helps with the flashbacks and touch sensations. It is very hard to practice grounding and sometimes nothing works at all. Tapping myself is helpful

Delusions: Still not sure how to cope with this. Even if my doctor say that it is not real or anyone from my family tells me it is not real, it still feels so real to me. I cannot get it out of my head. Hearing it is not real from others helps to reassure me sometimes. Even if I logically know that it is not real, the thoughts keep coming back on their own and it is like the thoughts are their own individual and not a part of me and my own internal thoughts

@NoneTheWiser Thank you. You are always too kind. I hope you are doing ok ❤️

@NoneTheWiser I understand ❤️ Thank you for being there. It is really appreciated. You are really thoughtful and kind ❤️

I am not crazy or need to be put away contrary to some hurtful words

Some things have been confusing me lately. There has been some difficulty feeling that I am not very sure about

I was doing my laundary work and after folding all my clothes, logically I had to put them inside my cupboard. Instead I put my folded clothes inside the oven. I thought the oven was my cupboard. I did not realize that I had put my clothes in the oven until later when I went to take something from my cupboard and saw my clothes missing

It was disorienting and almost embarrassing now

Thoughts in no particular order (could be overthinking)

It has crossed my mind alot of times that if to write here or not to write here. The doubt is there because of how self conscious I feel and worried about harsh judgements. Then I think about the good writing here has done for me in giving me a place to say things and the supportive words of some very kind people here which truly means alot to me

The self doubt seems to mainly come from fear of judgement and fear of being misunderstood or considered something that I think I am not. It feels isolating sometimes when I am living in my own delusions and reality and some fear of being laughed at if I open up about it

Then there is a friend who distanced herself from me. We were not best friends but I think we were good friends. I think it was because of my mental health that made things difficult. I would get distracted by the voices very easily mid conversation with the friend. I still think that I get distracted easily without realizing because voices are almost continuous and it is hard to not listen

When I am in the middle of a psychosis episode, the things I experience feels very real and genuine. It depends on the intensity of it. Afterwards when I look back at it, I feel very embarrassed at myself. I had opened up to the friend about something that I was feeling very embarrassed and upset about. She started distancing herself from me after that

I have noticed that some things seem to worsen with time and it effects college for me. I do not like taking any of my medication. It makes me feel sleepy and empty like. There are still some delusional thoughts that my doctor is conspiring against me and prescribing me poisoned meds. It takes so much from me to tell my mind that they are not real thoughts

Fear of judgment has made me isolate myself a bit socially. Being frequently hospitalized made me isolate myself a bit socially. There are worries that I will say something wrong or I will say something strange without realizing. My dad told me today that yesterday when I was talking to him over dinner, I was saying my own made up gibberish words that do not exist, in between of communicating with normal words that make sense. I did not really realize that I was speaking some gibberish words until my dad told me today. I know things are wrong with my brain. Maybe it was because I think I am or I was having an episode

There has been fear because sometimes my hands do involuntarily jerking movements. It does not happen frequently but sometimes it happens. I will be holding something and suddenly drop it because of the involuntarily jerking motion or sometimes my hands sway. Thankfully it does not happen very often but it makes me nervous about going out

I seem to experience these things more when I am hallucinating more

I recognize that some insecurities and fears that I have are because of some words my mom has spoken about me over the years. I was never really the "perfect" child or the "smartest" child that my mom had wished for

I will take this as detoxing my mind of overthinking thoughts

@hillsideblues Hey :) I hope you don't mind my intrusion. I admire the way you give so much of yourself here. The kind - gentle words you offer. While going through so much of your own stuff. You are so strong

You're doing great talking. I know how hard that can be. Boy do I - lol. The fear of judgement. Worrying that Noone understands. Yeah - I can really understand those

Noone is perfect - even the people who wish we were perfect kids. They contributed to making us who were are. We can't be blamed for what we couldn't help. They should have molded us with gentler hands and words. Maybe then we wouldn't be the way they see us. Ok lol I'm seconding guessing my words so - um - post and panic

Idk - I'm sorry if I missed a dnr

Be gentle with yourself and your thoughts

@mytwistedsoul Thank you for your incredible kindness and gentle words. I see you being kind so many here. I do not know much but I find your kindness here inspiring. You have such a true kind soul within despite going through your own ups and downs. I truly really wish good things for you

Things have never been good between me and my mom. When I was a kid and still learning the alphabets and numbers, she would say that she wished her child was smarter and quicker but instead got me who was slow. There were comments on ny actions and behavior that she considered as strange. I suppose it is what it is

I am sorry, I did not mean to dump all that on anyone

@hillsideblues Thank you - I'm not sure that I see myself that way but thank you

I'm sorry you had to hear things like that too. You're right - it is what it is - it doesn't mean she was right though. And - well - forgive me if I overstep - but you are all the beautiful things that she is not

Please - don't be sorry for speaking your truth. This is your space - to say whatever you want or need to

Be gentle with yourself and your thoughts

@mytwistedsoul

"Healing does not have to look magical or pretty. Healing is hard, exhausting and draining. Let yourself go through it. Do not try to paint it as something other than what it is. Be there for yourself with no judgement"

-Unknown