Author: gentlydented

There are flesh eating bugs in the air!

Once upon a time, about four weeks ago, I had a schizophrenic episode. There was a bit of a dauntingly massive stressful issue, that I handled just fine. As the drama was winding down, I began to feel flesh eating bugs crawling on my skin. Now, throughout the course of my life, I have felt bugs fill the air and water. The beginning of this schizophrenic episode was nothing new. What was new, was the intensity and duration of the sensation my skin was being eaten alive. I took to wearing long sleeve sweaters and hiding under blankets. I started taking Ativan, which helps calm me down in times of high mania and/or schizophrenic episodes. Then I started taking more Ativan on a continuos basis when I started to physically see the bugs eat away at my flesh. To say it’s disturbing to witness my skin disappear is to put it mildly. What makes it worse is I know it’s all in my mind.

My doctor felt the episode would pass, as all of my episodes had done before. There was really nothing to do but wait. I’m already on three anti-psychotics and I’m on a high dosage of all three. Bipolar episodes are a different beast than schizophrenic episodes. I’ve been having manic, depressed, and mixed episodes my entire life. They’re old hats that have become familiar. In a way, the flesh eating bugs was the same old story. Sometimes I can’t take a shower because of the paranoia of bugs in the water. I have covered myself head to toe because the air is attacking me with bugs. It was like my brain didn’t have the energy to come up with a new way to betray me. That is what hallucinatory schizophrenic episodes feel like- my brain is betraying me. I know what I’m experiencing visually isn’t real but I see it none-the-less.

The episode did pass and I’m feeling more like the sane person I know lives in me. I feel normal again. Well, normal until the next episode strikes. Who knows when, what type, and why that will happen. Okay, most of the time, the why can’t be pinned down (other than the obvious- that I live with a mental disorder). However, the when and what type isn’t certain. I try not to fall into the trap by playing the guessing game and simply enjoy the times of sanity. It’s what keeps me going when I’m in the middle of an episode.

 

 

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I used to dream I could fly

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For the first couple decades of my life, I dreamt on a regular basis that I could fly. Someone mentioned to me that to dream you could fly meant that you believed you could do anything. For me, that was true. I honestly felt I could do anything. Slowly, as the years passed, the dream of flying became more and more infrequent. Then one night, I dreamt that I was shot while flying and the magic that made flying a possibility disappeared. I was 23 and no longer believed I could do whatever I set my mind to do.

I was mentally sick. I have always been bipolar but not once in my childhood did I think my mental illness would hinder my life in a meaningful way. Then I had a massive episode as a young adult and my life altered course. I began to live in fear of what my illness was capable of doing to me. A fear that meant I wasn’t going to conquer the world in the way I had envisioned. Life was handing me issues I didn’t know how to deal with. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, flying was no longer in my dreams. Mental illness or no, I did something I never took in account. I grew up.

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My first friend, Krismutt.

One Christmas morning in my childhood, Target’s Krismutt was waiting under the Christmas tree. He was a gift from Santa to me. I hugged Krismutt and he said “Hello.” Not in a fun cute imagination way that children are prone to experience but in a voice as clear as day that came from the stuffed dog. He was not the first inanimate object to talk to me but he was my first friend. I had yet to hear the term “auditory hallucination” but at the age of seven, I knew the voices I heard weren’t normal. There was nothing to be done about the voices so I had fun with them.

I was never lonely as a child. Not with Krismutt around. He was always there to tell me a joke or give me advice with the troubles life had granted me. We would stay up late at night going over the problems of the day. I kept his talking to me a secret. I figured out that his voice, along the other objects that talked, were all a creation of my head. They sounded real and definitely not like they were in my mind. We spoke telepathically. Me with my thoughts and Krismutt with his voice. I never told anyone about my stuffed animal friend. I was afraid he’d be taken away and then I would be told I was crazy and/or I would be made fun of. I was already an odd duck, no need to burden that fact with sharing my best friend was a dog who spoke to me.

To keep Krismutt hidden, I never took him to slumber parties. Spending the night at a friend’s house was difficult. I enjoyed the company of my real human friends but I missed Krismutt’s company. As the years moved along, no one questioned to my face why I was still cuddling with a stuffed dog. Soon enough I was a 22 year old who counted amount her friends a 13 year old inanimate dog. Shortly after turning 22, I had a massive episode and it became necessary to began taking medications. The medication stopped Krismutt’s voice. I mourned the loss of a childhood friend but trying to live as normal of a life as possible, I had to say “goodbye.” It was difficult but my health is more important. To this day, I think of Krismutt with great fondness but I have no regrets in my treatment plan. Sanity is worth fighting for.

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