I’ve been hearing shit this weekend still.

Just like last week, most all of the “neighbors” are back.

Fml.

The “third floor neighbor” voices are here again.

I saw a random guy – probably the new third floor neighbor’s son, go up to her apartment, and I haven’t seen him come down yet.

So the voices started to run with it.

“Why is she always out here when we’re smoking?” the male voice says.

(I saw him smoking a cigarette on the way up)

“I know she’s not talking to me.” he said, with attitude.

(As I talk to Bruce)

“She’s just outside with the dog. She’s talking to the dog.” says the female voice who’s my “third floor neighbor’s” voice, for sure.

The male voice; “she better be.”

She tells him to “knock it off”.

Again, one attacking me.

The other defending me in a fucked up way.

But this time the sexes are reversed.

It’s now two days later and I had “neighbor” voices that were again, familiar, “following me” last night around the complex with Bruce.

I fucking hate that when it happens.

It was this guy I know and his daughter, “following me”.

They were talking about how “she’s staring at us”.

And how “She’s watching us and she needs to stop”.

When all I did was glance around when I walked by their place.

I’ve been feeling the past few days as if I’m being watched all the time.

As if there are multiple eyes – thousands of eyes on me, all the time.

I hate that too.

I can’t stand this shit.

I’m so over this episode, but it’s not stopping, it’s not letting up.

My Dad asked me today how my protein levels are, curious about my health…

And I told him that just yesterday (Saturday) I decided to get back on track with my functional medicine diet.

I’ve been eating a ton of comfort food lately.

And that’s gotta get reeled in, now.

I’m doing three protein shakes a day for the next four days – so five days in total.

Try to reset my system, basically.

I’ve been eating a ton of junk the past two weeks and I’ve gotta stop.

I told my parents that I’ve gotta do things that I can control, and hope the rest works itself out.

I gotta focus on what I can do.

What I can take control of.

I should be walking more too, but maybe I’ll work on that later this week.

Thing is, my knees are fucking killing me.

My legs are fucking killing me.

I’m tired.

I can’t sleep at night and I’m exhausted during the day.

I fell asleep at 2am again last night.

I had my TouchPoints on and kept waking up the second that the 30 minute cycle was done.

I ran through them easily four or five times.

That’s over two hours.

I started them around midnight because I couldn’t fucking fall asleep.

I had taken tons of melatonin and even took an extra muscle relaxer. 

That almost always puts me out.

But last night it woke me up even more.

(it’s now the next day again, today is Monday now)

Last night I fell asleep around 1am.

Still shitty.

I still just laid there, trying to decompress.

Trying to sleep.

I took a half of a muscle relaxer and then two of my beta-blockers, trying to lull myself.

And they just woke me up more.

This happens with psychosis.

I try my hardest to do things that I know usually make me tired as fuck, and they just end up doing the opposite when in an episode.

Everything’s opposite when in an episode.

The darkness comes with voices and an extra bout of energy.

The daytime makes me tired and I just want to sleep.

The light makes me foggy feeling.

And it feels like everyone has their eyes on me.

The darkness makes me uneasy and paranoid.

I took a nap yesterday and ended up asleep for two and a half hours.

I took extra melatonin and some other stuff to help me dive into sleep and it just woke me the fuck up.

Then I slept in until almost 11am today.

I couldn’t wake up.

I was trying – my alarm was going off for hours, and I just slept through it for the longest time.

I’m just trying to keep myself together this week already.

I have a neighbor on the other side of the building who’s in psychosis too.

At least, I think he still is.

He was arrested the other week, and is back now.

He was like me when I lived in Denver.

I haven’t interacted with him in quite a while, and when we do he just gives me a short wave anyway.

But I’ve been hearing things from the folks that live on that side of the building.

That he’s scary.

That he’s yelling things out of his window and is convinced that the folks who run the complex are busting into his place without his permission.

I told another neighbor who was talking about it today, that that was me when I lived in Colorado.

That I was just like him.

And that you just need to listen to him, verify what he thinks is happening, and ask him “what can I help you do about it?”

My neighbor was receptive to that – he said that makes sense.

I told him, otherwise, you’re just adding fuel to the fire by denying him of his observations and reality.

When deep in psychosis, there is no reasoning with me, or him.

There’s denial, or acceptance.

And denial is gonna get the cops called.

Every. Time.

It’s never going to help him to deny his reality.

Not when he’s that deep.

I’m tired of being thrust into that world.

It’s exhausting.

I second guess everything.

I can’t trust what I’m thinking.

If I can even think, that is.

I can’t trust what I’m hearing – and I’m hearing everything.

I feel useless.

That I serve literally zero purpose in this life.

Half of me wants to end it today.

Cut the suffering out.

That’s not a new feeling, that’s an everyday occurrence anyway.

It’s just amplified right now.

The Niacin and the Paliperidone aren’t doing their jobs.

My episode is too strong for them.

Everything is amplified, really.

My pain levels.

My anguish.

My frustrations.

My annoyance with myself.

It’s now Tuesday and I decided to go back on the Topiramate.

Fuck it.

I need all the help I can get right now for these mood swings.

Besides, I keep getting fucking headaches.

I cried most of the day yesterday.

I cried while I was writing the part just above this.

I cried this morning too even – well, this afternoon, because I didn’t even wake up till close to 11am again.

I also found out today that my primary care office has me scheduled with an NP in another week, and not my regular DO who I’ve seen for the last almost two years.

I’m so upset.

I really needed to talk to her, not the NP.

I emailed them to see if I could see Dr Rocha this visit, and then go to the NP next time – since no one told me while scheduling that that was the case.

I doubt they’ll let me.

I’m so fucking lost feeling right now.

I feel like my world is caving in.

I’m trying to put on a brave face but my neighbor can’t drive me to therapy tomorrow and I have to do telehealth.

I know, I know, be grateful that I can do telehealth, but I don’t get out of the house at all anymore, and going there is always like, Brucie’s and I big adventure for the week.

I have an appointment with Dr Zoch tomorrow too, in SA.

My parents are driving me down there.

Brucie can’t come, they do procedures there, and he’s not technically a service animal.

So I guess that’ll have to be my one thing this week.

Fuck man.

I need to take a Clonazepam, but I don’t have many left and I called the nurses office at my clinic today to ask her what I should do.

I don’t want to call in a new prescription for it too soon, and get it taken away, but I need it at the same time.

So I left her a voicemail asking her to call me back and talk about it.

Told her I have almost half my RX left and I don’t know what to do.

I know it’s a privledge to get them in the first place, and I don’t want to break my psych NP’s rules or trust, so I don’t know what the fuck to do.

I took two Propranolol instead just now and then took a Topiramate like I said.

I feel so broken.

I feel like a burden.

I feel like a waste of resources.

That’s where I stopped writing yesterday, it’s now Wednesday.

I’m about 30 minutes away from my parents picking me up for my pain management appointment.

I’ve got to do something about my knees.

They’re on fire.

I can barely bend my legs anymore.

I can’t get up from a sitting position without standing in the same place for about a minute before being able to walk.

And even then, I limp the first 10 steps or so.

It’s unbearable.

I’m easily at a 7 on the pain scale everyday.

I don’t think the nano PRP injections were big enough for my knees in January.

It helped a bit with my left big toe.

Even though my left foot still aches incredibly everyday because my gait is off.

It’s mainly on the outside of my left foot – it feels so tight, all the time.

It feels like I’ve walked five marathons everyday, just on that foot.

I don’t want more medications, but I’m hoping to go up on my muscle relaxer for the time being.

And I’m going to ask my pain management doctor what else we can add to alleviate some of this horrorshow.

I can’t walk long distances.

When I try to walk over about 1-2 miles a day, my knees blow up.

When I was walking for the vein ablation, post procedure instructions, my knees were just fucking killing me.

So I had to stop.

I was alright for the first two procedures.

Then the achiness set in and I couldn’t do it anymore.

Not like I did for the first couple of weeks.

It’s like my body rebels against me in all of these different ways, and it’s maddening.

I feel like my life is falling down a bottomless pit.

And there’s nothing to grab onto to stop the plummeting.

I’m tired.

I’m just… tired.

I’m sick of having to deal with all of this bullshit.

If it’s not my mind, it’s my body.

Most of the time, it’s both.

I had therapy this morning and we talked about how good I was doing for a couple of months, and how everything has been shit lately again.

I told Hannah, I knew this was going to happen.

I knew shit was gonna hit the fan again, I just didn’t know when.

And lo-and-behold, here we are.

It’s now Friday.

And I’ve got a few updates.

They’re gonna let me see my DO on Monday, my primary care doctor.

But I’ll have to see the NP in follow up appointments.

I’m going to ask Dr Rocha if it’s possible to just see her, and not the NP.

I don’t want to see the NP.

But at least I get to see her on Monday, so that’s good.

I had to send another email and begged ten to let me see her.

Told them I’ve had a horrible month and really, really need to see her, not the NP.

Another update is that my psych NP is going to call in a Clonazepam refill for me on Monday.

He was supposed to do it yesterday, but I literally just got off the phone with the nurse there, Andrea, and she said she messed up and never “released” it to him.

She said she made a mistake and apologized.

Said it was her fault I didn’t get it filled yesterday, and that I’d have it on Monday at some point.

I told her it’s totally fine and I have some left, I wasn’t trying to rush them, and Monday works great.

So that’s amazing.

When I talked to her yesterday she said to just call them when I’m going through things like this, just so they’re aware I’m struggling.

She said Alex, my psych NP, gets it and he trusts me, and knows I’m being honest, and needs them, and would rather me take the Clonazepam than excess Propranolol and mess with my heart rate.

Which is awesome and totally different from when I was using, and in active addiction.

I have credibility now.

And that feels pretty good.

I had told her everything that’s going on and told her that I didn’t call because I felt like a burden.

She said that she “totally gets it” and I’m “not a burden” and that I “need to call her when I’m feeling like that”.

So that felt good too.

The last update is about my pain management appointment with Dr Zoch. 

We’re going to do another round of nano PRP injections – both knees and left big toe.

That appointment is on Friday, May 29th.

And he put me on Pregabalin, a super low dose.

I had tried it before, back in January of this year, but I only took it for like three days, and threw it away because I felt like it wasn’t doing anything.

I told Dr Zoch I feel like I didn’t give it a chance, and I’d like to try it again.

He said some folks swear by it.

That some folks really like it, and say that it really helps them.

So, we’ll see what happens.

Today is day two on it.

He said if I hate it, I can just stop it.

Oh, I do have another update.

This is the last one.

My functional medicine nutritionist told me I can up my Niacin a bit for the hallucinations last night.

So I’m trying that.

I took 1.5g’a this morning, and I do that, with my regular doses the rest of the day, for a week.

Then I up my morning and midday dose to 1.5g’s, with a regular 1g at night the second week.

Then the third week it’s 1.5g’s, 3x day.

So, yeah,

We’ll see.

Hopefully that curbs the voices again.

I heard the “third floor neighbor” again last night and this morning.

They talk about me and what I’m doing.

There have been a couple of wins this week.

But all in all, I’m still struggling.

– Keren