paranoia Archive

These are my nightmares.

I have them a few times a week. Sometimes every night.

Sometimes they are just feelings. No dreams. Just waking feelings of fear.

I did not know nightmares were abnormal for adults until I started reading about it. Apparently a very small percentage (under 3%) of adults report more than 2 nightmares per week, or even year. Maybe that’s wrong. It is from wikipedia. But now it makes sense when I have told people about these, how no one seems to share the experience.

A few months ago, I saw someone who was not there. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a woman with long hair and a long dress leaning over the bed. She was not frightening or threatening in any way. I gradually realized that I was seeing her features more clearly than I should be able to, given how dark the room was. Then she faded away. I am as certain that I was awake then as I am ever certain that I am awake.

Trigger warning for description of psychotic hallucinations, mentions of drug addiction & alcoholism

Schizoaffective Disorder, a fusion between Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia, combines the symptoms of both. I was diagnosed with it three years ago after a lifetime of Bipolar I with psychotic symptoms. I could say the results were shattering, but in a way the diagnosis was a relief: to have a name for the paranoia, the white vans following me whenever I left the house, an explanation for the voices, the dialogue constantly critiquing my actions. The schizophrenic break came that terrifying summer after graduating from an MFA program with no prospects and huge debt, but perhaps I should begin at the beginning.

triggers: suicide mention, delusion, paranoia, hallucination, mania, depression, historical abuse of mental health patients and queers

I am somewhere in the more manic fray of things. And I am paranoid. Probably delusional. It’s so much easier said than actually believed. I can say “It is delusional to think that everyone is against you, that even the people closest to you are hiding deep and damaging secrets, that everyone is only pretending to like you when they are around you…” But to truly believe that these thoughts are wrong is a gift.

Trigger warning for discussions of dissociation, depersonalization, hallucination, society treating mental differences like shit, abuse and trauma, and reactions to trauma, etc.

I dissociate. Depersonalize. It’s sort of like when everything becomes so intense that everything I am, takes one step (or a few) back from my body.