Posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 17, 2007, at 10:56:51
In reply to Anxious about replacing Seroquel with, posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 16, 2007, at 18:25:43
Thank you Phillipa and Blueberry,
I don't think I was very clear for my reasons for being on an anti-psychotic/mood stabilizer.
about 4 mos back, I was having a lot of intrusive thoughts. The world was one big trigger: I would hear an argument, or even raised voices and would be catapulted back to some traumatic childhood incident. Call it a flashback. Most unpleasant. Another variety of intrusive thoughts came in the form of ruminative thoughts about what a loser I am, and how come I can't solve my own problems, why I deserve to be punished. Another form of intrusive thought was that seemingly innocuous scenes from everyday life would seem like a proposal to commit suicide. For example, I would be crossing the street and my mind would automatically leap to the "what if you didn't make it across before that speeding truck passes?" I would open my kitchen cabinet and the food processor would trigger scenes of bloody horror.
My reaction to these thoughts is first to fight them and try to talk reasonably to them (the food processor is our friend, it saves us the trouble of having to use a morter and pestle to make pesto. we LOVE pesto. etc.) Eventually, though I would just be way too edgy to leave my home, or even to walk around in my home (I'd imagine seeing mousies or spiders in all the dark corners). I'd just crawl into bed and wish to die.
Some time later I'd crawl out and emerge in a state of depersonalized feelings and dissociation. I'd walk around as if in a dream for the next few hours or days. Completely spaced out. Not recognizing my face in the mirror, not remembering important conversations. Sometimes I felt so "un-real" that I would pinch myself or worse to "feel" again. I would act strangely around my friends, because I didn't really feel connected to anything that we were talking about. I'd be in this strange kind of hyper state of pretense to be who I *thought* I was. All the while getting more and more scared because I couldn't actually feel who I was, and I didn't know which parts of my identity were relevant.
You can imagine my relief when seroquel took those intrusive thoughts away. I rarely have these dissociated/depersonalized episodes nowadays. When I do, they are not as surreal as previously.
Also, I think the seroquel made my moods more stable, I wouldn't go from crying to laughing hysterically and back to crying again, for example.
Thanks for reading,
-Ll
poster:Llurpsie_Noodle
thread:722975
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070113/msgs/723181.html