Chapter 9

Hello again friends, i'm back. Not for a good reason though. Last post that I put out was in March, so about 3 months ago. A shit ton has happened since, and I feel I need to write about it, as this experience is something that has never happened to me before, so it was quite terrifying. At the end(ish) of my last post-Chapter 8, I said "Goodbye Dube, I hope to never see you again."

Turns out my brain said a huge fuck you, and in fact, I did end up in the Dube Center for Mental Health again. Weeeeee...

So it began at the end of March I believe. It all started with me hearing things. It wouldn't be super harsh stuff, at this point it was more just hearing radios, phones ringing, people arguing, then a bunch of other random noises. When this first started to happen, I just pushed it away as nothing. Then it kept happening again and again, and it got more frequent. I started to hear my name being yelled, and heard stuff like "Get Out". I then started to get scared of everything i was hearing. Everything felt so real, and I was so confused with what was happening. Also, remember a bunch of blog stories ago where I was talking about this sensation of something being inside me? Like it starts in my legs, and goes up from there? Yeah, that was happening quite often again. Coincidence? Who knows. So I had been hearing things, and also having these feelings in my body again. Only one explanation made sense to me. Something/someone is following me. The night that I realized this, was also a scary night. I had so many things going through my mind, I was scared and couldn't move. I remember I was pretty thirsty, but I couldn't leave my room to go get a drink. I was so scared. This thing was around me, and I got a very dark sense from it. After finally being able to calm myself down, I tried going to sleep. Only a couple minutes after, I heard a bang coming from my closet. My initial thought was "its here to kill me". I started bawling my eyes out from being so terrified of it (I sometimes refer to this thing that was following me as "it"). I don't remember how long it took me to calm down, but after this and many nights after this, I couldn't sleep without my lamp on, and my dog in my bed.

The next day is when the paranoia set in. I was okay during the day at the start, but come evening, I was terrified. It started by me just watching TV, when I heard my big garbage bin outside move. Not just move a tiny bit, but like it moved across the sidewalk to the gravel road. I thought this was weird because I hadn't moved the bins that day, they should still be lined up along the fence. I checked out my window thinking it was maybe the upstairs people whos bin moved, but they were in the same spot. It wasn't windy that night, so I decided to go outside to check the bins just in case. I opened my front door and started walking up the steps. I got up about 3 steps, heard a noise, and ran back in as fast as I could. I went back to my couch and couldn't move from terror. I sat there crying for a bit, then realized I have to take my dog outside to go to the bathroom. How was I suppose to do this? I physically could not get off my couch, it felt like somewhat of a safe spot. This thing was outside waiting for me, it wanted to hurt me. It took me a while, but i eventually called a few help lines, not knowing what else to do. One offered to stay on the phone with me while I took my dog out, so I figured this would be the best option, as I felt more safe with other people around, even if it was just on the phone. After I got back inside with my dog, I was feeling a bit better from talking to the lady on the phone. I felt safe enough to go to my bed by myself (with my dog of course).

So from now on as you can imagine, I was having constant paranoia, just waiting for it to come around and cause some shit. Life was scary, as I was still hearing things like footsteps around the house, window tapping, my name being called. I was still going to work, even though it followed me there too. It followed me everywhere, I had no escape. I was stuck in a psychotic nightmare.

As if this wasnt enough, I started having some hallucinations. One night, I thought a mailbox was running towards me. I started to run back inside my house, till I took a second look and it wasnt moving anymore. Then I realized it was a mailbox and felt pretty dumb. This incident definetly isnt as scary as the next hallucination expierence. So i was taking my dog outside one night, and when I got up the steps outside i saw a man walking past my house. This man was wearing all black, and had a hood on, so I couldnt see his face. He was dragging his feet a lot, so it was kind of loud, which threw me off. I continued to walk to my backyard, despite the fear. He kept walking, and when I got into my yard, he continued past my house, which was some relief. I kept watching him over the fence just to make sure. He got a couple houses down, then turned around and started walking back to my house. I started freaking out, so I grabbed my dog, and got out of the backyard. When we were almost in my house, my dog started smelling something by the fence, so we stopped for a second. I looked back to see the man again, and he was standing still in the middle of the street staring at me with one arm up pointing at me. I froze for a couple seconds, then ran back inside trying to make some sense of this. I really couldn't think of an explanation for this, other then being hella weird. This made my paranoia 10x worse, as it was the first time I have seen some form of this thing that is following me.

Finally it was time for my psychiatrist appointment. I had written everything down of what happened to tell her. I got put on a anti-psychotic, and made a follow-up appointment in a week i believe.

So I started taking this medication hoping for the best, but the worst continued. Constant paranoia, not wanting to leave the house, having to tip-toe around my house and open doors very slowly just in case. It felt like I was looking for a murderer in my own home 24/7. One night I started hearing foot steps from upstairs (Nobody was living up there at this point). Shortly after I heard footsteps in my hallway outside my bedroom door, then it sounded like they were coming from right beside my bed. Then it touched my arm. I was frozen still not knowing what to say or do, if i should run or not. I had no idea, I couldn't make sense of anything that was happening.

I didn't know what this "thing" looks like, or if it even looked like anything. Because of this, I would start thinking that this thing following me came out in many different presences, like sometimes in other people. If someone looked at me weird, or said anything I didn't like, I would automatically think that they were a part of whole situation. Like they wanted to help make my life a nightmare. They had become this thing following me. Its really hard to explain.

So I went to my follow-up appointment, and my psychiatrist wanted to try uping the dose once, but if it continued to happen in a couple days, I should go to the ER. So of course, my luck, it continued to happen. I called my doctor in the morning, and she told me to go to the ER. I packed a few things up, got a ride, and admitted myself there. I got there mid-afternoon on a Thursday, and saw a doctor and psychiatrist late that evening, or early the next day. I slept all day Friday, as I was pretty drugged up. I finally got admitted into the Dube center late Friday night.

This was my shortest stay, as I was only there for a week. I really don't remember much of the first half of my stay, because you know, they got the good drugs so they don't have to deal with psychotic behavior. Since I don't remember all of my stay, I am just going to talk about some key points from when I was there.

So when I was first being admitted, we were in a conference room in the Center. There were some people walking by that I saw, but one girl looked at me a very strange way, kind of like she was confused to see me. This thing following me had come out in this girl. It was here with me in the psych ward. I tried to avoid this girl as much as i could, but this was sometimes hard, as it turns out she was staying in the room next to me. One time in a group session, she came and sat next to me. I froze up and stopped talking/moving. I thought "this is it, this is when it's going to hurt me". Clearly that didn't happen, and after a while i calmed down.

So I was put on a new medication, another anti psychotic called Haloperidol. This medication has some interesting and weird side effects, so I am just going to name some here

-Difficulty speaking or swallowing

-Loss of balance control

-Stiffness of the arms and legs***********

-Restlessness or need to keep moving (severe)************->The online list had the (severe) written beside it, I didnt add it in

-Trembling/shaking of fingers and hands**************

-Lip smacking or puckering

-Puffing of the cheeks***********

-Rapid or worm-like movements of the tongue

-Uncontrolled movements of arms and legs*********

The side effects that have stars beside them is stuff that I experienced. At the time, I didn't know of any of the side effects, so all the stuff that was happening with my body was quite strange. The side effect I experienced the most is being very restlessness/need to keep moving. I couldn't sit still for more then 30 seconds without getting angry or upset. I couldn't watch Netflix on my phone, or even scroll through social media. Trying to sleep was also quite the struggle. I blamed all of this on boredom. Now there isn't much to do in the psych ward, so not a lot to keep me busy. I had this restlessness from when I woke up, to when I fell asleep, so getting through the day felt like torture. I needed to get myself out of here. Whenever I would have meetings with my doctor, I pretty much begged her to discharge me. I couldn't handle this feeling anymore-and still at this time, I didn't know all these feelings were side effects from my medication, I still thought it was just boredom. I would think to myself "How the hell did i survive 6 weeks straight here the first time, or two and a half weeks here the second time". I was suppose to stay longer at the hospital because my doctor wanted to monitor me for longer (we changed the dose in the middle of the stay). I begged her and told her I would be fine, so she finally agreed to discharge me.

With the dosage change in the middle of my stay, that is when all the psychotic symptoms stopped. I wasn't hearing anything, I had a lot less paranoia, and stopped having hallucinations. I felt a lot better about being home by myself. Now I wouldn't say this paranoia is 100% gone. I still have some every so often. I feel like the thing that was following me is still real, but its just not bugging me right now. So another hard thing to explain.

Anyway, back to these side effects I was experiencing. So I thought that once I got out of the hospital, the boredom would be gone, and everything would be fine. "Fuck you"- Brain.

I still was very restless, and would get very upset with myself because of what was going on. After a few days of this, I stopped the anti-psychotic I got put on (Haloperidol). I never thought before that it was my medications causing this until that day. I went and did some research on the drug, and found all these side effects. Everything made sense! Not sure why I didn't do any research on this certain drug earlier, as that's what I usually do when I start a new medication. But then again I couldn't even sit on my phone for 10 seconds.

I can't think of anything else that is that significant that happened in the psych ward. I have been out of the hospital for about a month and a half, and things seem to be going okay. I have started a new treatment called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). I started two weeks ago, and i have to do 4-6 weeks worth. I have to go to the TMS clinic 5 days a week (Monday-Friday) to receive treatment. It usually takes 30-45 min everyday.

What is TMS?- Its hard to explain, so here is what the brochure that I got from the doctor says

"TMS is a neuropsychologic technique that allows the induction of a current in the brain using a magnetic field to pass through the scalp and the skull safely."

So pretty much a magnetic current gets sent through my head to the part of the brain that has the chemical imbalance (that cause mental illness), and by some scientific way, the current does some shit and fixes the chemicals in my brain. BAM, NO MORE DEPRESSO (well, hopefully).

So I go to this clinic, get my vitals taken, and get to wear a funny hat. They measured out where the current should hit on my hat, so they know where to put the probe on that passes the current. When the current gets passed, there is a clicking sound (kind of like a hummingbird), and I feel a lot of pressure on my head where the current goes through.

So lets hope this whole thing works.

Anyways, this is probably my longest post I have written, so sorry about the long read. I guess I had to much to say haha. I really do appreciate every person who takes time out of their day to read these, or even share them on social media!

Alright, I think that's all for now. Not sure when my next blog post will be. SO BYE.