Miracle or Madness?

 I know that I have been  quiet. I've been trying to make sense of my brain which seems sometimes, to have taken leave.   Is Eric right? There's nothing here in my cyber world, other than that which my sick brain has PUT there?  That is just so hard to believe.  I mean, when   your eyes are looking at something that you have never seen before and there is no doubt in your mind that what you are looking at is indeed real--and then someone tells you, "no.  It is not real"  what do you do with that? Do you willingly place it on the scrap heap of delusion and adopt a third party's assessment of what is real and what is not, when to do so is to "deny thyself and refute thy name"? Would doing that buy me any peace at all in this strife-torn house?  It would certainly be nice to be able to do that.  But it is not so easy to deny thyself when every bit of evidence is corroborated by my senses--by the very things I use to determine in every sense, what is real and what is not.  I mean if I throw that out--turn it on its head--what am I left with? What is real? Is anything real and trustworthy?  If you tell me that I have no sensibility by which I can say, "This is real" and "this is not" then  you are throwing me into some deep, stormy water without a dependable craft in which to stay afloat.  

But on the other hand, when what I feel is real, is displaying some very scary capabilities to wreak havoc and destruction in my life, it is tempting to say to it, "Hah! you are not real and therefore  you have no ability to touch me or  harm me." which gives it (them) the license to do what they will at potentially great expense and harm to me. Its very power and terror comes from its true potentiality and "reasonableness."  It could be real.  I pray to God that it is not but must keep alert to signs that it is.  It is this last sentence that has my husband and daughter in an uproar.  They lean to the position that I should believe NOTHING that my brain or senses tell me. And because I have been unable (and maybe unwilling) to do that, they are angry.  I really wonder what they would do if roles and symptoms were theirs instead of mine?

On another note, I saw an ad for a Bible which is "Filament enabled".  It is an NLT study Bible with large print and a pretty cover and access to an online treasure trove of study resources. I don't know if you've heard of the Filament Bible.  It is a Bible that interacts with the reader online by presenting every type of resource one could want, including even a collection of worship music (and I am hoping: hymns).  My daughter ordered it for me because (due to nonsense. I confess), my credit cards are in the process of being replaced and I'm waiting for them in the mail.  I'm so excited by this Bible because I have been HUNGRY for more of God and more of his Word...but have been at a loss as to topic or method of study.   I think that my first study in this new Bible will be the book of Ezekiel. HE saw things that no one would believe either.  I heard someplace that Ezekiel was schizophrenic.  I know that the line between prophecy and SZ is a narrow one.  I believe that prophets as well as those with SZ are privy to sensibilities that stretch the borders of the ordinary man's grasp and faith. And I think that were a person with SZ to see a field of dried  up human bones, he would be much less challenged - than a normal person would be-to believe what he was seeing should he see flesh appear upon that dead army and he would be more willing to call forth breath for those long dead.  God pushes mankind WAY out of our comfort zone and the psychotic mind is much more comfortable in the territory of the miraculous than is the average man.  And I think, therefore, God has a special place in his heart for those of us who find Reality a question and an effort.

Well, I didn't cover any of the things I had intention of writing about but perhaps that is just as well. Maybe next time.

The Breakdown of my Breakdown. Pt 2 of my discussion of what I've recently been through.

 The last post was written prior to my most recent issues....This post picks up a month or so later.  Things were unraveling in every part of my mind, and life.  The thing is that I could not admit or comprehend my state of fragility---or the extent of the disconnect going on in my brain.  I'm afraid I can not give much of a coherent breakdown of my breakdown.  There were struggles at home and I went from appointment to appointment looking for a hand too draw me from the abyss.  Honestly I do not have any clear memories of that time.  All I can tell  you is that it was desperate, scary time.  The "Shadow People" were still monopolizing my thoughts and time.  Nothing was safe and I felt that I would never escape their strangle hold on me.

Long story short: I was admitted to the psych floor at our local hospital.

And then,there in the hospital, once again, I bent to pick up a piece of paper on the floor and there it went.  My hip bone slipped out of the rubber cuff that holds it in place...just three months after having the surgery done the previous time.  This time I had to wait about 3 days on the ortho floor with my hip out of place and in enormous agony.  

I'm realizing as I write this that I'm mixing up the facts and timeline.  I really don't have a clear idea of how this whole thing transpired. But the upshot is that I got a new hip joint and from there was shipped over to BHU (Behavioral Health Unit).  And I was truly a mess.  But true to form, I hid it pretty well (at least I THOUGHT I did!  Now that I was away from my triggers on line..my paranoia turned to my more immediate surroundings.  I was certain that a group of nurses, aides and one person from administration, were actively seeking to have me admitted to a unit for people with dementia.  I went from extreme to extreme emotionally.  It was a miserable time for me.  I was filled with fear and panic.  I could not confide in anyone for fear they were a part of my group of hate-filled nurses and staff.  

After I was cleared medically following that hip replacement, I was transferred to BHU only to discover more of the hateful staff there.  My doctor there was one of the head docs in that department.  He was a Chinese man and I sometimes had to ask him to repeat himself so that I could understand what he was saying. He (correctly) diagnosed the problem as paranoia and delusional thoughts...both, symptoms of my original diagnosis as Chronic Paranoid Schizophrenia.  And as these two or three weeks in that hospital I was able to look back on my years of sickness, even encompassing years where I was "well" and "symptom free."  I was able to see how, throughout my entire life since age 16, I was constantly ensconced in one or more areas of serious struggles with paranoia.

My doctor there said that in cases like mine where it has gone without being dealt with early on, it can be hard or impossible to get the delusions and fears to go away.  Rather, the focus must be on  my response to the crazy situations my brain drums up.  When the doctor and his team of interns and  residents told me on Monday that I was going to have to leave on Wednesday since my insurance had decided I was ready to be discharged, I cried that day and had a terrible anxiety attack. But a staff member helped me using herbal remedies to calm me down.  Lavender oil and chamomile tea.   It worked. On Tuesday I was in good shape.  Most of the hospital stay I spent in my room but on Tuesday,  I attended all the groups and was more active.  Pain blew me out of the water and pretty much made sleep impossible on the night prior to my discharge today but for the first time in a long time I had an inkling of peace.

When I contemplated coming home to a computer and cell phone full of malevolent forces my stomach dropped inside...my throat closed in fear.  But I made some rules: I would only be online for short times and would look for other ways to stay busy.  I would only look online if there was someone here with me who could be the reality test for me.  Well I broke all those rules.  I got involved in putting out some fires and recovered my Google account as well as a secondary email address that had gotten messed up.  

It is with complete amazement that I witness how intricately my brain works and how much smarter it is than the rest of me :)  Incredible that it could create such believable scenarios with perfect detail.  I have found that logical questions are helpful to restore reality to my mind. And when I ask these questions, much of the fear subsides.  I do think that someone is definitely  playing hankie pankie with my accounts.  There are some sites that he has joined and it seems he is also making use of my YouTube account. But even knowing that, I'm okay.  I will ferret out all these problems and deal with them one at a time.  And I know just the right person to help me with that. That is not my concern tonight.  I have other things more profitable to think about.

I know this post does not really reveal the guts of what happened to me at the hands of this illness. But it's all that I'm capable of explaining right now. Maybe later there will be some light thrown on the dark areas of confusion and fear...but for now this will have to do.

"Do Not Panic Before Them"-- My recent Decline: PART ONE

 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.*

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*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