- I remember thinking two months in advance that I had a special connection with someone and was 'channeling' information. I think a lot of that was 'woolly', now.
- On the day the breakdown started, I went to the bank and had a personal meeting with a manager, during which I laughed and laughed and laughed, for no apparent reason; I was just undergoing some kind of hysteria. I then went home and collapsed, more or less, lying on the floor in my living room, before going to bed.
- I stayed in bed for about two weeks, during which time I stopped taking my medicine; since I felt very well., I was happy and thought I didn't need my medicine. However I soon started to have perceptual disturbances (thinking my body very small/large), and hallucinating, thinking an apocalypse was going on outside.
- I then turned into the full breakdown, frightening fears and hallucinations and delusions.
The point is, that retelling my story, I had missed out the first step listed above. My version of the story in my mind had always been that I had a breakdown from stress, then stopped taking my medicine by happenstance, felt fine, stayed off it, and got ill without realising. But why was I already showing signs of being ill? I remember feeling kind of light-headed, like a type of mania - why was that happening? I was going through a lot of stress, to do with work; somehow this must have broken through the capability of the medicine I was on - yet I also feel that the medicine was ceasing to work for me, like a kind of toxic reaction? I don't know. Why did I start to get 'unhinged' a few months before I collapsed from mental exhaustion?
Although I have been otherwise stable and without symptoms except for apparent paranormal sensitivity and mental disturbance, it seems I am still susceptible to full schizophrenic symptoms, given sufficient stress. That complicates matters. Rather than being someone who has come through schizophrenia, I am someone who will always be at risk of a schizophrenic breakdown.
PS This is a big deal for me, that I apparently could be subject to further breakdowns. I had looked on the second break I have had as a freak occurrence, forgetting that I was already "going off the rails" a little... I need to think about this, and analyse it to find the truth of it. It's unsettling to realise that I was wrong and am potentially still in danger of further illness, and should remain on medication (contrary to my preferences). It may be that I can live a normal life without medicine, but will always be in danger of another breakdown from stress - but that's true on medicine or off it, stress is a universal danger for people who have schizophrenia.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment