My anxiety has been out of control ever since the airbags randomly deployed in the Pilot at the end of March.

I’m talking pretty much daily panic attacks.

I’ve been using my TouchPoints constantly.

I’ve been taking my Clonazepam and Propranolol pretty much daily or every other day.

The Propranolol a few times daily for sure.

I don’t know what else to fucking do besides that and breathe.

I feel like my anxiety is out of control right now.

My heart doesn’t stop racing unless I’m asleep.

And the anxiety has been making me exhausted, so I’ve been sleeping more.

Taking naps.

Sleeping past 9am.

Exiting my worries with sleep.

I feel like I can’t think straight this week.

I’m all over the place, yet fatigued.

I went into the office here at my apartment complex today – today is Monday.

Mainly because I wanted to make sure that the new ladies in the office got my cashiers check.

They fired everyone who worked here.

Everyone.

And I had turned it in on Wednesday, a couple of days before they took over the ownership.

I didn’t want them to try and pull a fast one and say they “didn’t get it” – even though I have a photocopy of it and the stub.

But they seemed nice enough.

They told me to come back on Friday, after they had gotten everything into their database.

However, she didn’t reassure me that they had gotten it.

I was expecting her to say something like “Oh, I’m sure we have it”.. but she didn’t.

So, that’s mildly concerning. 

Some reassurance would’ve been nice, ya know?

(edit: I went in on Friday, and they did get it, thank fuck)

I don’t know…

I think I might have to move in October, when my lease is up.

I talked to one of the maintenance guys the new owners let go of, and he told me to google the company.

I haven’t yet.

I’m scared to.

He said they have terrible reviews from both residents and employees everywhere.

Google.

Better Business Bureau. 

Great.

So now, on top of having to get a loan to get a new-to-me car, I’ve gotta move in the fall.

And have my benefit renewal in the middle of it, and hope for the best for all of it.

Fml.

I hate being so stressed out like this.

It’s the literal worst.

But, I do just feel like moving would be the best thing at this point, when my lease is up.

I don’t know why.

But my gut is telling me to move, and has been since I saw the “for sale” signs up around the lot at the end of 2025.

So, maybe I should listen to that.

Every time I don’t listen to my gut, things go wrong.

I’ll have to see how the next few months pan out.

But best believe I’ve already put in some information requests in at some other complexes in town, and have been asking around.

It’s just not sitting right with me.

The way they took over and fired everyone.

They said one thing, yet did the opposite.

I don’t like that.

Well, it’s like my Dad told me; “This, or something better”.

I like that.

I feel like my brain isn’t catching up with the day today though.

I feel like I’m behind and I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s the lack of a car.

Maybe it’s from coming down again on the Paliperidone.

I cried again today.

I’ve been crying a lot lately.

It’s pretty tiring.

I had the biggest urge to self harm today.

It was over something silly and stupid.

But I held my hands on my head, on the area where I normally hit, and I just held them there and kept crying.

I kept saying “No. No. No. No” to myself.

“Don’t do it” and the like.

I didn’t do it.

It physically hurts when I don’t self harm.

Self harm gives a wave of release.

When I didn’t do it, I was extremely uncomfortable for about fifteen minutes, but that slowly faded.

And I was glad that I didn’t do it.

One thing to be proud of in the midst of everything at least.

But the rest of today I’ve been in incredible physical pain.

With all of this stress, it feels like my pain levels have doubled since mid day and tripled throughout the past month.

My knees are extremely sore.

My legs are getting more and more stiff.

If my shoulders don’t hurt, my lower back does.

I’ve had a headache most days of the past two weeks.

I might have to go back on that daily migraine medication, the Topiramate.

I haven’t had a migraine lately (knock on wood), but my headaches have been fairly constant.

Tylenol helps, but doesn’t knock them completely out.

I’ve got a doctor appointment with my general practitioner here in another couple of weeks.

I may restart it before then.

I may not.

I could always wait to talk to her too.

She did tell me that if the headaches start back up, to just restart it.

So, I may just do that.

I’ll give it a couple more days.

See what happens.

I just feel… like I have too many choices ahead of me today, right now.

Like I have too much currently going on.

I feel weak – I have no energy.

I’m tired all the time.

I thought coming down a step on the Paliperidone was going to “wake me up” a bit.

But it’s done the opposite.

Maybe it’s just the stress though too – it’s tough to tell.

I’ve just been so stressed lately.

I fell asleep with my TouchPoints on again last night.

They’re really quite helpful for sleep.

I had to do two of the 30-minute rounds, but I was half asleep when they stopped the first time.

The ones that I have are only on for 30-minute increments, they’re specifically made for sleep.

Which is honestly the perfect amount of time with them.

It helps snap me out of the doom loop.

Enough to get to sleep at least.

It’s now Wednesday and I heard voices for the first time in a couple of months last night, Tuesday night.

Which was the day after I wrote the first part of this entry.

It’s odd because I know stress is my number one trigger.

It’s so frustrating.

And I knew they weren’t gone forever.

That’s fucking impossible, of course.

I knew they were going to show up soon – with all of these stressors.

I was laying on the couch with this show on that kept having this dramatic “WOOMP” type sound, and it was kinda loud.

But it didn’t shake or vibrate the couch or floor or anything, it was just a heavy bass sound.

I had watched a few episodes the night before and had to turn the volume down quite a bit because my upstairs neighbor is a whiner, and I didn’t want her to hear and then complain to the office.

So, last night, the same show was on and it kept making that dramatic “WOOMP” noise in transition scenes.

So I turned the volume way down.

Suddenly I heard my “upstairs neighbor” talking on the other side of my door.

“The tv is too loud, you need to turn it down.”

“You’ve got the volume up way too high and you have got to turn it down.”

“Turn the tv down.” 

“Your tv is too loud.” etc…

That repeated for about ten minutes.

I had to get up for a moment from a laying position, into a sitting position, to make sure I was hearing this correctly after a few minutes.

For about five to ten minutes, I believed that she was on the other side of the door, telling me to “turn the tv down”.

Suddenly a male voice – who was not familiar, comes walking past my bay windows talking to her, telling her to shut up.

My blinds were shut, but as he was talking, I could tell he was passing in front of the windows.

He said that my volume “isn’t too loud, and she can’t hear you if you’re just yelling at the door, being loud as fuck.”
“Did you knock?” he asked.

“No, but she can hear me.” she said.

“No, bitch, she can’t hear you, you’re standing out here, yelling at nothing and bothering me, her tv is not too loud, I can’t even hear it.” he said.

“I can hear it, it’s too loud.” she said.

“What do you have super hearing?! I can’t hear her tv. Shut up” he said to her.

She told him “mind your own business. She needs to turn her tv down.”

He said “Bitch, you need to shut the fuck up already.”

At this point, in my head, I just said “shut the fuck up”, in general – not to one specifically, because the voices always react to that phrase.

Always.

They usually start telling me to “shut the fuck up” after I think that.

That’s how I know they’re voices – well, I’m pretty sure they’re voices.

She started telling him to shut the fuck up, and told me to “turn the fucking tv down”.

(Her, reacting to me saying the phrase)

He told her to “shut the fuck up”, that “no one cares”.

(Him, reacting to the phrase to her, not me)

This went on for a bit.

She then told him and me that she was going to “call the cops”.

He said “do it! Call them! They’re not gonna do anything about it, but be annoyed at you.”

They kept going back and forth for about 20 minutes with the same type of banter, same topic, same type of argument.

Over and over again.

Just hollering at one another, basically.

She was the only one hollering at both me and the male voice.

The female “upstairs neighbor” kept saying that she was going to continue to fuck with me until I turned the tv down, basically, and that I was invading her peace.

And then the male, unknown voice kept defending me.

So curious.

This type of thing has never happened before.

Every single time I would think “fuck you” in my head, they basically took it out on oneanother – and she was the only one taking it out on me, in a similar way they did the first time I had thought it.

But like I said, she was the only one addressing anger at me, he wasn’t.

At one point, I looked out the peephole.

I was tempted to step outside, but I don’t like giving them that much “power”, ya know?

I don’t like them to know that I’m phased or something, I can’t really explain it.

It’s complicated.

But, I changed the tv show and he said “See, she changed it. I don’t hear anything, I’m telling you, call the cops, they ain’t gonna do shit.”

(I thought, so he could hear it? If he knows I changed it, he can hear it – but voices aren’t logical, so that’s when it really clicked that they are voices)

And she just kept being persistent that I needed to “turn the tv down”, and that he was wrong, she could hear the tv.

I had therapy this morning and Hannah said that she thinks the therapy process/theory of “IFS”  fits really, really well with this situation.

That my “parts” were trying to protect me.

That the male voice was all the work I’ve been doing to stay neutral with self loathing thoughts, and all of the progress I’ve been making in therapy.

And even though the one part, the female and familiar “upstairs neighbor” was scary and degrading, in her own fucked up way, she’s still trying to “protect me” too, according to IFS theories.

But the male voice, the one defending me was obviously trying to protect me from the other one.

And when I said “fuck you” in my head, to make them respond, and make sure they were voices, the “upstairs neighbor” lady would lash out at me and him.

He would only lash out on her.

So curious.

I told Hannah that if I hear voices when I walk Bruce, or if I hear them another night or two, I’m probably gonna go back up on my Paliperidone a step.

At least for now.

I suppose I could take my Haloperidol too though.

Maybe that would be better now that I write that.

I have bloodwork Thursday, at noon, to test my high Prolactin levels again.

If they’ve come down since going down on the Paliperidone, that means the medications – the antipsychotics, are what’s causing the high Prolactin levels in the first place.

Then my doctor will leave me alone about getting a brain MRI.

I really, really, really don’t want to do a brain MRI.

With high Prolactin levels, there’s always a chance it could be a pituitary gland tumor.

So, I understand my doctor’s caution.

But I’m 99.9% sure it’s from the medication, and not a tumor.

So, tomorrow I have that bloodwork, so I can’t take anymore antipsychotics until then so I have a proper blood draw result.

But last night, after I changed the tv show and looked out the peephole and saw no one there, I put on my TouchPoints, and turned the volume down a bit more.

I just focused on the TouchPoints, and focused on what the tv was saying and tried to check out of the voices conversation.

It probably went on for a total of about 40-50 minutes, the whole situation.

As I tried to focus on other things, because I knew they were voices, I ever so slowly drifted off to sleep.

And I woke up around 2am on the couch, took my Synthroid, and went and got into my bed and fell asleep quickly.

And I didn’t hear anything at that time.

And I didn’t hear them when I walked Bruce, when we got home from therapy.

So, that’s all good things.

But, damn, do the voices get my heart pounding.

I told Hannah today, I’ve woken up the past couple of weeks feeling like I’m in straight up fucking danger.

Like there’s a lion stalking me, and my every move.

She said that we already knew what my stress levels can do, and that this situation just concretes that realization.

And, she’s right.

Stress really fucks me up.

It’s now Friday, and I have been hearing voices while I walk Bruce this week – always in the evening, not in the morning.

Yesterday I was walking and people were outside, and everytime I heard their voices, the conversation was directed at me – what I’m doing, thinking, feeling, etc…

So, my mind was twisting whatever they were saying – one was on the phone, another couple of folks on a patio together, into horrible commentary about myself.

Which happens a lot I’m realizing.

That’s just how they show up some of the time.

I felt a little better yesterday – a little more clear headed, but then I woke up today, Friday, and I feel that heavy “fogginess”, lethargy/sleepiness, and high anxiety again.

And it makes me feel helpless.

I can’t think straight. 

It’s annoying as fuck.

I took a half of a Haloperidol yesterday, after my blood draw, hoping to get all of this to settle down.

But I just don’t feel all that well today.

I don’t think it’s from the medication, it feels like how I felt earlier this week, right before the voices showed up.

I can’t think right.

I’m hoping they don’t pop up again tonight.

But I’m not gonna hold my breath.

– Keren