This post was written in February and is the introduction to a series based on my recent experiences as a Schizophrenic woman struggling with her illness.
"So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deut. 31:6
The signs were there---for a long time. Irrational fears. Forgetfulness. Losing the ability to use logic. Obsessions and terror about things like head lice and identity theft. The internal pressures in my brain were building up to a great implosion. And on August 1st, it happened.
It started with an email from Google that an unauthorized person was in my Google account. So I ousted him and changed the password. A little while later, I checked, and he was gone. Then another note. I repeated the process...and then he came back almost immediately. It was like he could see my new passwords as soon as they were posted. I panicked. Hyperventilating and sweating I racked my brain for a strategy...but came up with nothing. I went to my other email site and found it FULL of security breach alerts...from almost every site I frequent. I finally shut the computer and laid on my bed in the darkness, eyes wide and terrified.
The next morning I emailed my friend who owns a computer shop in town. He's my repair guru and over the years we grew to trust each other and I enjoy doing business with him. He listened to my panicked description of the problem--and said something unexpected. "Cynthia, shut the computer down and do not touch it for a week. Your marriage needs your attention and you are too wrapped up in this."
I was dubious...I mean, wasn't that dangerous? But I agreed to listen to him. But I couldn't help myself. The next day I went onto my Kindle Fire. This guy was everywhere. I knew what town he was from and what device he was using...but that was IT. He, on the other hand, appeared to know what color underwear I was wearing. I was terrified. I couldn't breathe. And then he spotted the Kindle I was on and began his attack on me there. I shut it down. Only to get onto my smart phone the next morning. I realized that he was working on wifi....he should have no access to my text messages. For a day or two that went okay...but they (now he was joined by an Oriental woman...I felt quite sure) caught on to my strategy and began to intercept my text messages also. Soon it became apparent that they could see me and hear me as well.
It had the flavor of an international data breach. One that would topple governments. Much more was at stake than my bank account. (oddly, they never touched any of my finance accounts or even Amazon. ) I did not know what they were really looking for but knew that it was something nefarious. And I was scared. My fear knew no boundaries. It was all consuming. I couldn't put my cell phone down. I had to keep on top of them or Lord knows what would happen.
I knew I was sick. It took a couple of days for me to realize it. But finally it dawned on me. I needed help. I talked to my husband and we agreed to follow the med protocol the hospital always used on me when I was admitted and it had always worked. But even so...I needed more help. I called my psychiatrist's PA whom I see every couple of months. She increased my medicine dose and added Abilify at my request. Then she told me her boss wanted to meet with me in a phone session. I was scared of him. I had never met him but in my mind he was frightening.
The morning of my conversation with him, I showered in case he did a video call. My hair needed help. When the phone rang, a gentle voice said "Hi honey, how are you doing?" He was nothing like I'd anticipated. I told him I needed more meds... that I was in hell. He wanted me to wait until next Monday (which was about 5 days away) to increase the med since it can take that long for an increase to kick in its effect. I managed to talk to him fairly normally and wondered if he could possibly guess how severe my suffering was since I masked it so well.
Then. On Thursday....things got completely out of hand. I looked at my cell phone in disbelief ...message after message flashed on it ...An emoticon with an evil, satanic leer grinned at me...There was now an entire team of these sadists out to destroy me. I was overcome with fear.. But . Yet. Something....wasn't right. How could any person do all this so quickly? No one could type that fast. No. it had to be something else. I knew it. It was demons. I called my friend Jim and told him a little of what was happening. He started to speak truth to me. "Cynthia. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is King. Only He can help you. He is the most powerful." I decided to go to Jim's house and show him my phone. So his caregiver and my friend, picked me up and drove me there. I turned my phone on to show him...and stopped in stunned amazement. There was my email. Circumspect and normal. No demons. No icons. No threats.....just ...email.
A thought began to tentatively bubble up to my surface consciousness. What if there really WAS no one there? What if it is all my sick mind? It was an astounding thought. HOW could my brain manufacture security alerts etc, that were so believable? Wow.
I am a freakin' schizophrenic.
I mean, obviously I knew that...but the incredible power of my sick brain had heretofore eluded me. So. I took a deep breath and put down my cell phone. Later I went to sites I had not dared to open while I was on the run from THEM. Now, I began to breathe a little easier . But then I thought of my laptop....abandoned for the entire week. And the terror began to tingle down my spine again. That was where my Google account was...probably by this time they would not let me reclaim it as rightfully mine. It was lost to these shadow people. I decided that I would take it to Tommy (my computer friend) and would do it in his presence...so if anything weird were to happen, he would know what to do.
On Friday I emailed Tommy, and sadly, he had had a death in the family and would not be available. He suggested I call his shop and get together with one of his employees. No. I took a deep breath and opened my laptop. I signed on and went to Youtube. (a Google site)...no problems there. Then I went to Gmail. I clicked on my account -- in amazement that my password worked-- and saw that all was well. No mention of an intruder. I saw my password change on August 1st but otherwise...nada.
I was relieved and I confess, gobsmacked (as my friends over the Pond say). I have no idea how this began or if there ever was an intruder. I still am nervous. I was on my cell tonight with a friend and suddenly all my windows shut down...inexplicably. And terror grabbed me by the throat. I am gun-shy and I suspect I will be for awhile. I still have thoughts of "THEM" and think that maybe they are laying low for a while just to make me get careless and then they can finish me off once and for all.
This afternoon my husband came to my room and said, "I want you to know that I am impressed and I am PROUD of YOU. This is the first time in 30 years that you have admitted you are sick and realized that you need meds. You trusted me enough to let me tell you what meds to take and you took the initiative and called a doctor and came up with a plan. I am impressed." Those words made this whole hellish experience a little more tolerable. Worthwhile. Those words mean a lot to me. My husband is not one given to compliments...to me, anyway...and hearing them brought tears to my eyes. My illness has brought all kinds of hell to my family and a lot of that hell was caused by my belligerence and refusal to cooperate with anyone's attempts to help me. It's not so much the schizophrenia that was the problem. It was my stubbornness. Before I had always let the tide of insanity carry me out to sea in a great swooosh. This time I fought back..not with the doctors or my family but against the illness itself. I fought back with the only weapons we have which almost always will work: prayer, medications and being honest with my health care professionals.
The last two psychotic episodes I've had were different. They were FILLED with heart-stopping terror. I never want to experience that again. But I know I probably will. Maybe now, however, my approach will be different. Thank you to my husband and daughter who did not let them lock me up and throw away the key as they were advised by my doctors to do. Yes, I damaged our relationships. Things are not the same. But I appreciate them on a whole new level now.
After I closed my Google page and was totally befuddled by all this..I looked at the email that was open on the screen. It was one of my daily verse emails. And it seemed to me to be so appropriate. A perfect ending.*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*See the verse at the beginning of this blog.
I played the following song over and over in the past week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_v3i2k6Psc&list=RD-EINvnCqgjc&index=6
No comments:
Post a Comment