I wanted to describe some of the problems I've been having recently, in the way of an update on my mental health.
On Invega, I was doing really well for quite a while, not hearing things, and not hallucinating at all, and not having delusions. I had them ocassionally, but it was mild in comparison to the way things used to be before I was on medication. I did well before Invega, on Risperdal, so I've been getting better for quite a while now.
Then recently I started having some symptoms pop up more than usual. When my boyfriend left, things culminated in a lot of stress. I've also been really stressed by my job (which I now no longer am at) and that was adding to the problem. So I began to have some symptoms, like the following:
Hearing people say, "You'll walk home" every time someone was actually saying, "you're welcome", because I had said, "thank you" for something. In my mind, because of particular delusions I have had for a long time, this phrase refers to the walk people would take to a concentration camp when people would be forced to go there, in a time that existed in the future, in my delusions. So this is a frightening thing, when someone says, "you'll walk home". It's still happening a lot right now.
Hearing people tell me to "die" and "do it" and "kill yourself", and things like that.
Seeing the word, "razor" flash on the TV screen when I was trying to watch a TV show, leading me to think I was being directed to slice my wrists.
Mild things, like hearing my name called a lot when there's no one there, or seeing something out of the corner of my eye that's not really there. These are not major symptoms, but they are indications that my mind is not working as well as it could be.
Depression, thoughts of suicide, and self harm, and shooting myself in the head particularly as that is my mode of choice when it comes to suicidal thoughts. Thoughts of guns and gun stores, and desires to go to buy a gun and shoot myself.
Seeing hand motions that people make and thinking that they are symbolic messages being made to send particular ideas to my mind. For example, my therapist was talking to me, and she touched her neck and I thought, "she's telling me to slit my throat".
These are things that led me to go into the hospital.
I would like to mention that I don't have these things happen most of the time. Most of the time, now, I'm steady on my medication, and even though that medication has caused me a lot of distressful weight gain, that medication has absolutely saved my life.
So when these things do happen again, I can tell that some deterioration is going on, and I need some adjustment to the medication. Which is what I got done in the hospital.
I stopped taking Seroquel and went back on Abilify, in combination with my Invega, to fight the psychosis. Hopefully, once I get on a higher dose of Abilify it will work better than it did the last time I tried it (it didn't work then), and hopefully I will eventually be able to go off the Invega which caused me to gain so much weight, and my symptoms won't all return because of it. That is the ideal possible situation, which seems rather unlikely in reality, but I can hope.
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On Invega, I was doing really well for quite a while, not hearing things, and not hallucinating at all, and not having delusions. I had them ocassionally, but it was mild in comparison to the way things used to be before I was on medication. I did well before Invega, on Risperdal, so I've been getting better for quite a while now.
Then recently I started having some symptoms pop up more than usual. When my boyfriend left, things culminated in a lot of stress. I've also been really stressed by my job (which I now no longer am at) and that was adding to the problem. So I began to have some symptoms, like the following:
Hearing people say, "You'll walk home" every time someone was actually saying, "you're welcome", because I had said, "thank you" for something. In my mind, because of particular delusions I have had for a long time, this phrase refers to the walk people would take to a concentration camp when people would be forced to go there, in a time that existed in the future, in my delusions. So this is a frightening thing, when someone says, "you'll walk home". It's still happening a lot right now.
Hearing people tell me to "die" and "do it" and "kill yourself", and things like that.
Seeing the word, "razor" flash on the TV screen when I was trying to watch a TV show, leading me to think I was being directed to slice my wrists.
Mild things, like hearing my name called a lot when there's no one there, or seeing something out of the corner of my eye that's not really there. These are not major symptoms, but they are indications that my mind is not working as well as it could be.
Depression, thoughts of suicide, and self harm, and shooting myself in the head particularly as that is my mode of choice when it comes to suicidal thoughts. Thoughts of guns and gun stores, and desires to go to buy a gun and shoot myself.
Seeing hand motions that people make and thinking that they are symbolic messages being made to send particular ideas to my mind. For example, my therapist was talking to me, and she touched her neck and I thought, "she's telling me to slit my throat".
These are things that led me to go into the hospital.
I would like to mention that I don't have these things happen most of the time. Most of the time, now, I'm steady on my medication, and even though that medication has caused me a lot of distressful weight gain, that medication has absolutely saved my life.
So when these things do happen again, I can tell that some deterioration is going on, and I need some adjustment to the medication. Which is what I got done in the hospital.
I stopped taking Seroquel and went back on Abilify, in combination with my Invega, to fight the psychosis. Hopefully, once I get on a higher dose of Abilify it will work better than it did the last time I tried it (it didn't work then), and hopefully I will eventually be able to go off the Invega which caused me to gain so much weight, and my symptoms won't all return because of it. That is the ideal possible situation, which seems rather unlikely in reality, but I can hope.