Welp, I renewed my domain name and subscription and whatnot with WordPress today. 

I’ve been writing at least once a week for this blog since 2022.

Part of me says why stop now?

Keep bitching and moaning.

So here I am.

And here goes another pointless entry…

I realized after a week of twice daily Haloperidol that this last episode was very much like the last 20-25 years of my life.

And it was in fact, a psychotic episode.

I was very disorganized, angry, and depressed.

I was a mess and I couldn’t think straight.

I was exhausted but I couldn’t sleep that well.

I was paranoid as fuck.

I was super fucking angry but not at anything very specific, just at everything and nothing all at the same time, and mainly at myself.

I started to overeat but I caught myself, and I really wanted to overeat more, but I stopped myself from doing it this time.

It was all the literal hallmarks of what I used to go through.

But I couldn’t see it when I was in the middle of it.

I tried to place it but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t tell that it was a classic Keren psychotic episode.

I was hearing more auditory hallucinations but it was more disorganized thinking and paranoia than anything.

It just felt like I was annoyed and confused with everything.

It just felt like I was so fucking depressed that I couldn’t shower that often but once a week for several weeks to a month.

That may seem gross to some but dry shampoo, a washcloth and sink goes a long way when I’m feeling depressed.

I knew I was in some sort of episode but trying to pinpoint it was very difficult.

But it really was quite a classic psychotic episode of mine.

My hallucinations were acting up, yes, but my confusion, and the way I was interpreting things wrong was the bigger issue.

And disorganized thoughts and disorganized thinking processes is a core symptom of mine, and that’s exactly what was happening.

I think the biggest thing I noticed, in retrospect, is my agitation, my jumpiness, and my ability to become triggered extremely quickly and at seemingly nothing that big at all.

At people just trying to make conversation with me or in general.

And also with the way I would twist people’s words very easily – my paranoia was quite literally out of control for a while there in the middle of things.

My agitation was a huge hurdle for me this past month.

And it was not at anyone but myself.

Sure I get mad at other people but I usually get more sad with other people than anything, thinking they’re going to leave me, stop loving me and abandon me.

I get angry with myself, not really at others.

But I do get annoyed with people.

I mentioned this in a past entry, but I have self harmed several times this month, after not self harming for a solid six months before this stint.

And not for six months prior to that, and six months prior to that.

My self harming episodes were coming few and far between until this last psychotic episode surfaced.

Then it’s like they were clustered together in some fucked up teamwork.

My agitation and confusion really, has been rampant for people, places and things the last several weeks which seems to turn to self loathing rather quickly.

Instantly really.

I had punched the doorframe to my bathroom this month too.

I had yelled at the top of my lungs a half dozen times at myself.

I have thrown my phone down on my coffee table (which is my tell tale sign of being annoyed at life).

I have been super jumpy at the same time though too.

For example, a couple of the folks at my therapist’s office have phones that make notification sounds that I’m not used to (obviously).

And instead of just accepting them as a background noise, they make me literally jump out of my seat.

I clutch my chest and laugh afterwards because it’s such a silly reaction, I can’t believe I did that.

Practically every time.

And the funny thing is, Bruce does it too.

So both of us are reacting to the odd, loud noises.

It doesn’t help that their volume is usually turned way up.

That’s probably the biggest culprit.

But, geez, I tell you what…

That shit makes both of us jump up so quick!

At least we’re good sports about it.

I laugh, he comes up and licks my arm or hand.

But I have been surprised that they haven’t been triggering me into frustration or sadness, so that’s good that they haven’t been going into that.

Because I have been getting triggered easily.

Just with folks trying to make conversation with me.

But some of them have crossed boundaries in my opinion.

I have to tell y’all about this.

There was this woman who was sitting in the art room in my therapist’s office one day last week and she started talking about how she’s an addict.

I said (for some stupid reason because it encouraged her conversation) that I’m a recovering addict.

I say that because I don’t like this woman.

She shows up every once in a while and just talks and talks about herself.

And this experience was more of the same.

She was going on and on about herself.

And once I said I’m a recovering addict that opened the fucking flood gates.

She suddenly went into all of these meds she’s taking.

Dosage, mg’s, brands, types, times per day, etc..

Details you would normally never give a stranger.

(even though we have met about 25 times, she introduced herself to me that day, just before this conversation, shaking my hand and everything, and I told her we had met 20-some-odd-times before and she looked flabbergasted at me)

So that’s how this started.

I was unimpressed.

So I told her please stop going into her using details, it’s triggering for me.

She looked floored, like how could that be?!

And she didn’t really stop.

She kept on.

Told me she’s on two different benzo’s and the mg’s of each per day.

And I realized with that, that she’s high as a fucking kite right now.

That’s why nothing is registering and she’s not understanding that she’s being selfish and self centered.

She’s in active addiction.

Bitch needs a fucking meeting.

And you don’t talk using details like that in NA meetings either.

That’s one of the first rules.

No one wants to hear it.

It’s triggering and unnecessary.

But I bet this lady has never been to a meeting.

Not that NA is the only way, but it is helpful, it’s a tool.

It was very helpful for me when I needed it, but I did buy into the black and white thinking for a while, and the world is full of gray.

That’s why I left the program.

But I still read my blue book/basic text every now and again.

It’s good shit, inspirational.

Anyway that’s a valid fucking trigger, but the other triggers have been smaller and more innocent, seemingly.

Like someone was talking about car accidents in this trauma book they’re reading, a book that I just bought too, and they kinda brushed them off as not being that traumatic.

And then, on the way to my next vein ablation Tuesday, I was so jumpy and triggered at all of the brake lights, I had to have been frustrating to my Dad, who was driving.

I was sitting in the passenger seat, clutching my chest and hands constantly at all of the brake lights that kept popping up on the highway because we had been talking about car accidents the day before, and I’ve been in several really bad ones in the past few years.

In fact, that’s why my back is messed up and my nerves are pinched and discs are bulging in my lumbar spine – from a bad car wreck. 

I have permanent physical damage from being rear ended by someone going 50mph and hitting my back end that hard, while I was stopped at a stop light.

Fucked up.

I didn’t even see them coming.

I just got the shit hit outta me and then I hit the lady in front of me, which accordioned my car.

And then the asshole who hit me was drunk or something, and drove off right away.

Hit and run.

Super traumatic.

That was just one accident that year.

And someone had, just in passing, only commented on car accidents in this book, and it brings all of this shit up for me.

And the same someone said in jest or whatever, not seriously, “it’s not like they had a gun to my head” in the same conversation.

I should’ve said something.

That that’s super fucking triggering.

Because I instantly got a tight chest, and started panicking.

I had a flashback of the time where I did, in fact, have a gun pointed directly at my head, and was looking down the barrel that was pointed at my face.

Automatic PTSD flashback.

Like I was right back there, in that moment and it was happening all over again.

And that was just a few of the things that happened this week.

But things like this were happening often the past several weeks.

I keep getting triggered left and right, from side-off comments and seemingly just selfish, one-sided conversations.

People are so unaware of what they’re saying it’s amazing.

I think my paranoia was feeding into all of my triggers too.

I know it’s still lingering.

I was anxious for my appointment and my anxiety and paranoia feed into one another too.

They definitely do.

Especially while on the highway with my parents on the way to my procedure.

At one point I turned to my Dad and told him do you notice how jumpy I am?

And he said that he did.

And I tried to tone it down after that. 

I didn’t want to project anything or do anything that makes anyone else uncomfortable, but I just get so worked up about driving nowadays.

It’s terrible.

Everything anyone is saying or doing I’m taking so directly to heart right now it’s maddening.

I think it’s fading as this episode fades but damn.

Another thing I know that’s been setting me off is the fact that I found out this last weekend that Bruce is in kidney failure.

After all of the time, money and concern with his bacterial infection or parasites or whatever the river infested him with, we still don’t know because he’s still fighting off that too.

I don’t want to talk about it anymore than that right now.

But that’s happening too.

He just turned 11 at some point this month, I don’t know what day he was born on though.

So that’s beyond stressful too.

Beyond stressful.

It’s been a hell of a month.

– Keren