Tag Archives: psychotic breakdown

Entering The Long Haul of Summer and Avoiding People

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Another Independence Day has come and gone.  We are now into the middle of summer. From now until usually mid September has traditionally been a tough time of year for me.  I have usually been moodier and more short tempered during the heat of summer.  I am usually good for one psychotic break down during the summer, usually in August or September.  I have had breakdowns in October before too.  But the two times I went to a mental health hospital were both in September.  So as far as the calendar goes, I am beginning to trek into traditionally troublesome times.

I have been avoiding people, at least in person, for the last few days.  I have been doing so well for so long that I don’t really want anything upsetting this winning streak I’m on.  I don’t sleep as much as I used to, but I usually stay up all night until sunrise and sleep until noon most days anymore.  That way I still get some sunlight during the day and get to enjoy the quite and solitude of night as well.  Been spending most of my days reading articles online, watching science videos on youtube, talking to friends and family on the phone, and messing with computers.  I don’t have much of for a social life, but that is by design.  I can’t stand most small talk.  I find talking about the weather, politics, and other people draining, boring, and even physically painful.  I can’t stand talking about mundane and stupid crap I can do nothing about.  Makes me glad I’m an introvert who learned how to keep himself occupied a long time ago.

Looks like I’ll keep this routine up for the next several weeks.  I don’t want to go anywhere and I don’t want to interact with anyone, especially if all they do is complain and moan yet not do anything about their problems.  I’m through listening to petty complaints.  I have enough issues of my own.

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Relapse and Feeling Vulnerable

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Been having some truly down days for the last week.  Finally had a breakdown a couple days ago.  I hate those.  Seems to be the only way out of those is to just rant and rave to an empathetic person, namely my parents.  I am thankful I didn’t have said breakdown in public, otherwise I’d be in jail or dead.  It saddens me to read stories like the one about the kid at Georgia Tech getting killed by police while undergoing a breakdown. Now I know most people don’t care about the mentally ill, I get that.  It’s tough to relate to problems you can’t see or imagine.  But it does scare me that this kid could have been me if past situations were a little different.  Now I don’t hate police officers, I have a couple in my extended family.  I know they have a difficult and thankless job.  But I just fear them.  I fear people with power.  I’ve seen people with power abuse it too many times.  Makes me fear that power is supposed to be abused and that normal people respect those that abuse power more than those that don’t abuse their power.

I guess that I am still depressed and fearful.  I know it’s not manly to feel fear and depression.  It’s seems like it’s not manly to feel anything at all.  My breakdown wasn’t helped any that I finally had to deal with internet trolls on my blog’s Facebook page.  I didn’t write back to them, I just blocked them.  Seems to be the only real effective way to deal with fools and bullies online.  Seems to me that Facebook brings out the worst in people.  As much as I love science and tech, I truly fear for our species when mind reading tech is perfected.  I fear this far more than I do AI our automation taking millions of jobs.  Maybe we won’t solve our current problems.  I just fear what the average person is capable of anymore.

Avoiding Social Problems and Long Lonely Nights

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With the exception of my parents and a couple close friends, I have essentially put most of my social interactions on hold for the last several days.  I have also avoided most social media.  Anymore I essentially sleep during most of the daylight hours, do my grocery and outside shopping at night, and stay awake during most of the overnight hours reading online articles, watching youtube videos, and reading.

As odd as my schedule is, it seems to be working.  I had some problems several days ago but fortunately they were short lived.  Unfortunately with my schizophrenia it can sometimes be weeks of calm stability mixed in with minutes of anxious crisis.  I am glad that my family and close friends can endure my breakdowns without taking them too personally.  I do have this nagging fear in the back of my mind that someday I’m going to end up having a psychotic breakdown in public someday and win up in prison or shot.  I hope this is just a symptom of the paranoia aspect of my illness and this never happens.

Been feeling pretty decent since the weekend overall.  I don’t really socialize with anyone in my apartment complex or even really in person much.  But as much as I’ve had to deal with rude, angry, and dumb people over the last several months, maybe a break from human interaction is in order.  Dealing with dumb and rude people is tiresome and tedious.  I don’t see how normal people can do it day after day, year after year.

As I’ll be up for the rest of the night, I’m going to make a trek to the all night deli and pick up some good Chinese.  If I can’t sleep regularly I just as well keep up healthy eating.

Mental Stability With Schizophrenia Is Tough and Other Thoughts

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I have been mentally stable for weeks now.  It is a welcomed relief to not have to fear having mini breakdowns everyday or risk having major setbacks because of relatively minor problems.  I may have given my readers the idea that taking medications and going to regular counseling sessions are enough to stabilize the mentally ill.  If only it were so.

Many, if not most, mentally ill people are worse off than I am.  A significant percentage of homeless people are untreated mentally ill people.  Just today I read an article about a homeless lady from Oregon who recently died from hypothermia.  She was homeless because she fell two months behind on her rent at a low income housing complex.  No one informed her family members she was being evicted or having mental health problems.  This lady, like me, had schizophrenia.  Like me, she had been a model resident in her complex for several years before the mental health problems came back.  I sometimes find myself afraid that something similar could happen to me.  I have some setbacks, I get in trouble in my complex, I get evicted, and no one bothers to inform anyone who could help me out.  I have also seen statistics that one fourth of people killed by police officers are mentally ill people having psychotic breakdowns.

This is one of the reasons I am paranoid about cops.  I appreciate that they have a brutal and often thankless job but I am still afraid of them.  Some may say “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.”  If only that were true.  I have had plenty of experience of authority figures, coworkers, peers, and even my own parents just telling me off over things I wasn’t guilty of.  I used to get yelled out for being too sad and even too happy.  It was like I was supposed to have the emotions of a pile of garden tools.  I’m not unemotional.  I have strong feelings and opinions, especially when I don’t share them.  I have enough white noise and hallucinations going on in my mind even on good days that getting in my face and yelling at me doesn’t calm me down or motivate me.  If anything I want to severely hurt anyone who raises their voice to me.  The Marine drill instructor, alpha male jock, kick ass and take names approach does not work on me.  It never has and it never will.  It only makes me more angry.

I am scared of people who yell and scream a lot.  I am scared of people who love violence.  I am scared of people who think violence and war will solve all problems.  I am terrified of stupid people in large groups.  One of the reasons I hate socializing is that I don’t like being vulnerable or dealing with the unknown.  I have to admit that somedays I don’t want to leave my apartment simply because I am afraid of people in general.

I am not really a misanthrope.  I genuinely love intelligent conversations that are calm and non argumentative.  I have yet to have an intelligent conversation with a dog or a house plant.  And I imagine it will be a long time before a computer can be a worthy substitute for human conversation.  I don’t hate people, I just can’t stand it when they do stupid and cruel things.  Now I know that people are no more cruel and stupid then they were in past generations.  If anything they were probably dumber and less compassionate before mass media and universal education.  I just hear about stupid and cruel actions more just because I am more connected than past generations.   Years ago, for me to hear about a homeless mentally ill person dying of hypothermia, it would have had to happen in my hometown.  But as it is we are more connected now than ever.  That isn’t going to change.  If anything we are going to get even more connected and involved in the lives of complete strangers living all over the world in the coming years.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am convinced that one of the reasons people will fight with others is because we can’t see where the other person is coming from.  I think it was a lack of open communication and intermingling that lead to peoples and nations in past ages to fight wars against each other.  Personally I would rather do business with a foreigner or have dinner with him than fight him in a war.  In all honesty, people have far more in common then they know.  It’s this fear of the unknown that keeps peoples apart.  It is my hope that in coming generations these barriers will continue to be broken down through mass communications and trade.  It’s kind of tough to go to war against a country when you are doing a lot of business with a potential foe.  Perhaps in future generations they can say that it was the internet and international trade that led to the end of massive wars.  I may be a dreamer but I am definitely not the only one who can see a better future than what we have even now in January 2017.