Haven’t you heard the phrase: what other people think about me is none of my business? Stop being so paranoid.
That was a tweet I received this morning from someone who had already said she wasn’t going to say anything else to me. While I know that she has a point, I also think it’s too simplistic of a perspective. I can’t just stop being so paranoid. Believe me, if I could, I would.
Paranoia has been ingrained in me. When I would be sick and staying home from school, I would be afraid to go outside (to go to the doctor or go with my mom to pick up my medicine) and I would be afraid to go by windows and doors. I was always afraid that the truancy officer was out there waiting to cart me into court for missing school. Part of why I had to quit going to high school was that when I would walk down the halls, I would hear other people talking about me and I would know they were judging me. Even though they weren’t, I still felt that way. The first time I explained it to a psychiatrist, they upped the antipsychotics. That helped, but that’s not an option anymore.
Paranoia is something that I come by honestly. My mother, too, has always been paranoid. Hers manifests in the form of little men following her around and writing down everything that she does. She didn’t tell me until I asked (as a teenager) if this feeling was normal. She said yes. My dad, who isn’t paranoid, said no. We both had a reality check.
I know that my life isn’t the stuff that most people would look at and critique or anything. On some level, I know that the paranoia is ridiculous. It’s the same way that I know that my obsessions and compulsions aren’t realistic and that my hallucinations aren’t real. But there’s that level of my mind that I can’t seem to conquer; the level that tells me that all of my thoughts about it being unrealistic aren’t true and that I have good reason to think people are judging me or are out to get me.
I don’t know how to fully get rid of the paranoia. The only way that helps now is to sleep, but sometimes that doesn’t help. I’ll end up having dreams that I’m being kidnapped, raped, or murdered. I’ll wake up screaming, agitated, or crying because (by the end of the dream) I will have died or gotten so upset that I just feel so horrible.
I can’t go back on the anti-psychotics. It isn’t an option. The Geodon reaction (seizures + pseudoparkinsonism), the Abilify increasing my dreams instead of helping, and the Zyprexa sky-rocketing my weight. I would have continued the Risperdal, but the more I took it, the more I like it was having the same effects that the Geodon had had. I also realized, after I quit taking them, that I quit gaining weight when I went off of the pills. I even began to lose it. So, in order to be more physically healthy, I knew I had to stay off the pills.
I know I’m nuts. I’ve been fairly open about that part of my life for a good long while. This is why people who know me in real life don’t generally take my insults and stuff too seriously. This is why they don’t chastise me. They know that if I could keep it under control, I would. They know that I have been trying since I was a kid to be normal. They know that I’m more than just this angry paranoid girl. Unfortunately, people on the internet don’t always realize that.
