The First Time I Experienced Psychosis.
Subtitle: The First Time I Took Psych Meds.
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I tried to kill myself in the summer 1992 by taking a bottle containing several hundred aspirin. I was living at home with my parents and younger brother in Amherst, NH, and was unemployed and obviously extremely depressed. I had left a job of two and a half years in Virginia about a year prior, due to depression, and had come home in 1991, seen a couple of therapists, but taken no psych drugs. I was 26 years old, physically healthy at 6 2 and 190 pounds, a college graduate, had passed the CPA exam, had worked steadily since graduating college in 1988 except for the year since I had moved home. It seems looking back that I was a troubled young man, but really nothing exceptional.
My mother drove me to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, NH the morning following the attempted suicide, where I was given some type of charcoal intended to soak up the poison in my stomach by the ER staff. I vomited a couple of times but felt decent except for a ringing in my ears. Admitted to the ICU, I was kept for two or three days (much to the disgust of one particular nurse on my unit, who made her contempt for me quite obvious, possibly due to what she felt were a lack of symptoms.) A psychiatrist talked to me and we agreed that I would be admitted to the psych unit at CMC. I am not sure when I began my medication regimen but I can assume it was the first day. Up to that point I had never in my life thought that cameras or other people were watching me or ridiculing me. In fact I remember a childhood friend of mine apologizing to me after his buddies had made fun of me on the school bus in high school: I was so closed off that even when the ridicule happened I didn't notice it. But at CMC I noticed right away that I could hear something that was going on in the room directly behind mine: There were some young medical people there and I quickly deduced that they were discussing ME. I couldn't see them, could only hear them and their cruel discussions of how boring their assignment was and what a loser I was. Since this was the first time I had ever been psychotic, I naturally assumed that this was really happening. Knowing that there had to be a camera in my room I realized that the most likely observation point was the sprinkler head right over my bed. After listening for a few days to the putdowns I tore out the sprinkler head from the ceiling. The only result was more meds, in all likelihood, since I could still here the staff that I believed was monitoring me.
And I have had recurring fantasies of being watched by cameras consistently throughout my use of psych meds. Something that had never happened to me before use became a constant theme in my life after beginning the prescribed regimen of pharma cocktails. I've used alcohol to excess (though never illegal drugs such as weed) off and on since I was 19, but I've been consistently psychotic since beginning to take prescribed meds following that first suicide attempt so many years ago.
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I tried to kill myself in the summer 1992 by taking a bottle containing several hundred aspirin. I was living at home with my parents and younger brother in Amherst, NH, and was unemployed and obviously extremely depressed. I had left a job of two and a half years in Virginia about a year prior, due to depression, and had come home in 1991, seen a couple of therapists, but taken no psych drugs. I was 26 years old, physically healthy at 6 2 and 190 pounds, a college graduate, had passed the CPA exam, had worked steadily since graduating college in 1988 except for the year since I had moved home. It seems looking back that I was a troubled young man, but really nothing exceptional.
My mother drove me to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, NH the morning following the attempted suicide, where I was given some type of charcoal intended to soak up the poison in my stomach by the ER staff. I vomited a couple of times but felt decent except for a ringing in my ears. Admitted to the ICU, I was kept for two or three days (much to the disgust of one particular nurse on my unit, who made her contempt for me quite obvious, possibly due to what she felt were a lack of symptoms.) A psychiatrist talked to me and we agreed that I would be admitted to the psych unit at CMC. I am not sure when I began my medication regimen but I can assume it was the first day. Up to that point I had never in my life thought that cameras or other people were watching me or ridiculing me. In fact I remember a childhood friend of mine apologizing to me after his buddies had made fun of me on the school bus in high school: I was so closed off that even when the ridicule happened I didn't notice it. But at CMC I noticed right away that I could hear something that was going on in the room directly behind mine: There were some young medical people there and I quickly deduced that they were discussing ME. I couldn't see them, could only hear them and their cruel discussions of how boring their assignment was and what a loser I was. Since this was the first time I had ever been psychotic, I naturally assumed that this was really happening. Knowing that there had to be a camera in my room I realized that the most likely observation point was the sprinkler head right over my bed. After listening for a few days to the putdowns I tore out the sprinkler head from the ceiling. The only result was more meds, in all likelihood, since I could still here the staff that I believed was monitoring me.
And I have had recurring fantasies of being watched by cameras consistently throughout my use of psych meds. Something that had never happened to me before use became a constant theme in my life after beginning the prescribed regimen of pharma cocktails. I've used alcohol to excess (though never illegal drugs such as weed) off and on since I was 19, but I've been consistently psychotic since beginning to take prescribed meds following that first suicide attempt so many years ago.
posted by joe sweeney at 2:55 PM
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