My left eye won’t stop twitching.

It’s been about four days of off and on twitching.

My heart is beating out of my chest – through the twice daily 120mg’s of extended release Propranolol. 

I’m trying to breathe, but my lungs won’t let me.

They’re constricted.

I don’t know what to do.

I seriously feel like I’m failing at life this week.

It’s Monday and I feel like a fucking failure.

I can’t do anything fucking right.

It’s now Tuesday.

I had PT yesterday morning and my left knee today is fucking killing me.

He had me do this “total gym” squat thing – and I haven’t done a squat in years, for good reasons.

My left knee cap was literally popping in and out of place.

I stopped after three squats.

I told the gal, the assistant or whoever she was, she didn’t introduce herself, I told her my knee cap was popping in and out of place and I couldn’t do any more and she said “I can see it”.

Like, why are you making me do these if you can see my knee cap popping in and out of place?!

I don’t feel comfortable there anymore.

I mean, I haven’t felt this bad in my knees for years.

It’s swollen up to high hell too.

I don’t know if I should even continue with PT in general, let alone there.

I know it’s probably for the best that I do though, but I need to find a different practice.

I bet that it’s gonna get worse before it’s gonna get better, right?

Hopefully?

Because I literally feel sick today from it.

I feel like I have the flu because I’m in so much pain.

I can’t even do my at home exercises.

It’s throbbing if I lay down.

It’s throbbing if I sit.

It doesn’t matter what I do, it’s just throbbing regardless.

I woke up this morning, drenched in sweat.

And I know it’s from my pain levels.

It’s obnoxious.

I just walked Bruce and had to limp the whole time.

Is it worth it?

I don’t know.

It’s now Wednesday.

I had Hannah this morning.

And Life Skills class.

And I do feel a touch better after all of that.

Not a lot, but a little bit.

I still, overall, just feel defeated.

For a few reasons right now.

I still feel like a disappointment, and I still feel like a fucking failure.

She told me about a PT place that’s better equipped to work with people who deal with chronic pain issues and also struggle with mental illness.

Her husband runs a PT clinic and is a physical therapist himself, so they know all the good spots.

So, I cancelled my appointment for Thursday at the old place, and called my doctors office and got a referral set up for the hopefully better PT office.

It’s the same company that Hannah’s husband works for, but a different branch or office or whathaveyou.

So, I’m glad for that at least.

In Life Skills this week, we started talking about how beliefs shape who you are, and how they shape what your world looks like.

Hannah had a great example.

A mom and daughter were discussing black bears, the daughter was talking about how they’re cute and harmless, (jokingly) and the mom was talking about how they’re dangerous and destructive.

At the end of their visit, they went their separate ways.

The daughter’s phone started showing her countless videos, pictures and articles on cute, harmless, black bears.

The mom’s phone started showing her countless videos, pictures, and articles on dangerous and destructive black bears.

The next time they met they started in on discussing black bears again, and both had dug in deeper into their opposing beliefs – until they realized what had happened.

The algorithm had taken advantage of them, like it takes advantage of all of us.

It does an amazing job of separating us even further from one another.

It’s the perfect example of what’s been happening with politics and religion in the US lately.

People are dug into their beliefs.

And the algorithm digs all of us in even deeper, showing us what we want to see, even if it’s invalid and/or factually wrong.

And it doesn’t matter what side you’re on.

It does it to both.

It doesn’t care, it’s a computer.

It’s there to separate us.

To alienate us and make us feel even more alone than we already feel.

Because the bulk of us feel alone.

I know I do.

It was a great example though.

And I talked about, in Life Skills, how my beliefs are basically in two separate worlds.

I have my psychosis beliefs.

And my “real world” beliefs.

And they’re both real to me – they both happen to me.

They completely shape my view of the world too.

They alienate me.

They absolutely make me feel more alone.

I talk about being alone a lot in therapy.

It’s one of my bigger, core negative feelings.

I’ve worked on it with EMDR therapy before too.

We need to work on it more though, because the feeling is definitely still there.

To sort of switch topics, another thing we talked about today, but in therapy, was the difference between my anxiety and my paranoia.

They’re super muddled to me.

And Hannah said it’s that way because I was undiagnosed for so long.

Because they’ve been intertwined for so many years, it’s complicated and difficult for me to see the distinctions between the two.

That it’s still complicated to try to tell the difference to me.

But after reading the wiki entries above, it does make a bit more sense.

It seems like paranoia is more centered around a belief of “me” being the center of attention – which I feel extremely often.

And anxiety is more of an almost distrust of what the future holds – which I have just as often.

And they both play hardcore into psychosis symptoms.

But I thought it was curious how they made the distinction between fear and anxiety.

How anxiety is basically anticipating a future threat, while fear is an emotional response to a present threat.

Very curious distinction.

They’re extremely close, but slightly different from one another.

By the way – my left eye is still twitching.

It’s been a couple more days and it’s still fucking twitching.

It’s stopped here and there.

But it’s still twitching.

I’m so tired.

I’ve been exhausted the past week.

I don’t know if it’s from adding the Abilify or what.

I wouldn’t think it would be – 5mg isn’t that much.

And I feel like I would’ve felt this way last week, when I started it, not the second week I’ve been on it, ya know?

I dunno.

Maybe it’s from all the stress I’m under right now.

Like I said earlier, I just feel defeated.

I’m in a lot of pain this week too, and I just feel like a fuck up.

I’m trying to let these feelings go, but they’re not moving.

They’re like a wave pool.

It’s contained, yet continuing to crash on me over, and over again.

Relentless, violent and painful movements of the same repetitions.

And it’s showing no signs of stopping.

No one’s in the mechanical room to slow the pounding of the waves.

I’m still hearing voices.

The Abilify hasn’t taken them away.

I figured it wouldn’t, because I’ve been on it in the past and it didn’t take them away then either.

It just sorta mellowed me out.

Which I’m not feeling yet.

It’s now Thursday and I just looked at my phone calendar.

I put things all the time that are life events, and have them repeat every year, for forever – so I remember from year to year.

I told my ex husband I wanted a divorce today, in 2019.

It’s been seven years since I sat on the couch in that condo, told him that I wanted a divorce, and listened to him call me a “cunt” and slam the door to go smoke a cigarette.

He didn’t even try to fight for me.

I knew he wouldn’t.

When I saw that reminder, I had a feeling of, like, almost a helium balloon where my heart sits.

Like, my heart feels light.

It’s an odd, but welcomed sensation.

It literally feels like my chest is 20lbs lighter.

And I know that’s because my life right now could be much worse.

As shitty as I feel right now, it could be a shitton worse.

I could still be married to that dry drunk (or drunk again, I don’t know, and I don’t care) piece of shit.

It’s a small sense of pride in myself for leaving him when I did.

Even though I still stayed too long, I still did leave him.

I admitted that I made a giant mistake, owned that, and dealt with that.

Leaving him was huge.

It was the best thing I’ve done for myself besides get on antipsychotics and be in therapy with Hannah the last four years.

I was already in my “big break” by that time, and had been in and out of the hospital twice in the past few months just before I left him – once for suicidal ideations, and once for an attempted overdose.

I had actually just found the records in my google drive the other day, when I was looking through it.

When I found the records, I didn’t recall the suicidal ideations visit, but I did instantly recall parts of the attempted overdose visit.

I remember pounding on the door at the hospital – for how long, I have no idea.

I remember cops standing around the doors at one point.

I remember being in hospital clothes and pacing and yelling at the top of my lungs.

I remember at one point, my ex husband coming in and telling me something about how I have to calm down “or else…”, but I didn’t give a single fuck, and I do not remember what the “or else” part was about.

Then I remember getting super tired.

I can’t remember how long I was there for.

But, my ex husband denied my mental illness constantly.

He would tell me that I’m using it as “an excuse”.

That I wasn’t really going through what I would tell him I’m going through.

He would just gaslight me into a puddle of nothing.

I’m just grateful I left him when I did – that I saw a way out of the madness.

I had completely forgotten about those hospitalizations too – totally forgotten about them.

I know there was more too, because that jogged my memory of some of them.

There were at least two more times while I was married, because I was in and out of the hospital in Montana a few times too, before we moved to Colorado.

The hospitalizations I just mentioned were while I was in Denver, leading up to me leaving him.

And I know that’s when my “big break” was going into full effect.

Because when I moved out of that condo, about a month or a few weeks later, and into my apartment on 20th Ave, I was hearing “neighbors talk about me” every day since the day I moved in.

And I’m still convinced the episode started when I was in Montana.

While I would hear my ex husband berate me while he was wasted, right after we got married.

And I think the tipping point was this one time when he was drunk – I’m not going to tell the story, but I think that time was the catalyst for me.

That was the breaking point for me.

Because I don’t remember much of Montana.

I remember picking up Brucie for the first time, a couple of vague hospitalizations, my appendix surgery day, a few things about work, and that.

That’s all that’s really there and I lived there for five years or so.

So, I think that was the straw that broke it.

Anyway, enough of that time of my life.

He’s not worth my energy.

That was back in 2016, 2017 or so, that catalyst memory.

Not too long after we were married, so probably summer or fall of 2016 honestly.

And I had been coming in and out of psychosis since 1998 or so.

The first time I remember people “talking about me” and them not knowing what the hell I was talking about when confronting them was when I was 15 – so that would’ve been 1998.

And then my “big break” must’ve started around 2016, 2017.

And it lasted until the fall or winter of 2022, spring of 2023 really – so easily six solid years.

And even though I’m medicated, I’m still in and out of psychosis, and it’s now 2026, so that’s 28 years over all, and so far.

But, to have 24 years of being in and out of psychosis, unckecked, unmedicated, that’s a long fucking time.

For 24 years I was mismedicated, undermedicated, misdiagnosed.

That’s a long time to try to explain away my maladaptive behaviors on just being “bipolar”and “quirky”.

That’s a long time to bounce back and forth between psychosis and reality and not realize it.

That’s a long time to not understand my surroundings and misinterpret them.

That’s a long time to push people away.

It didn’t happen overnight, ya know?

It took years.

It was a very long process.

Man, I got off on a tangent, didn’t I?

That’s what happens when anniversaries come up I suppose…

Gets ya thinking.

It’s now Saturday and I’m beat.

I’ve been cleaning my apartment slowly over the course of the last few days.

I’m almost done.

I cleaned practically every inch of this place.

And that’s a rarity for me.

I usually just surface clean and do a shitty job at that.

I just don’t have the energy for it.

And I didn’t have the energy for it this week, I was just sick of the fucking dust.

So that gave me enough motivation to clean.

I have to do it in stages, over the course of three to four days.

Especially with my back and left knee the way that they are right now, I can’t push it.

I do a few things each day.

Try to spread out the really tough things like vacuuming, sweeping and mopping.

It’s annoying.

But it works. 

I had two doctor appointments yesterday and had to drive down to San Antonio for them.

They rescheduled my rheumatology appointment to 11:20am from 5pm – which I was grateful for.

And the doctor was out of the office so I had to see the PA, which I was also grateful for.

I didn’t have to see his punk ass.

We talked and I told her about my possible pinched nerve in my back, and the PT fiasco, and how my left knee is killing me.

She felt the swelling and felt my hands and noticed some swelling in my right middle and ring finger – which have been sore lately.

I told her my right thumb has been sore, and has been sore for a few years – I usually tell them about that when I’m in there, and I told her that there’s now a bump I’ve just noticed on the middle joint of it, and had her feel it.

She said it’s most likely a bone spur – fucking great.

The rheumatological bumps on the hands are really rare for folks like me with seronegative RA.

So, not fun that it’s most likely a bone spur.

But it probably explains the stiffness and soreness that I’ve been feeling there lately.

I also had a follow up ultrasound for my vein ablations yesterday, at 2:00pm.

But I got there super early, at like 12:45 or 12:30 or something, and they got me in right away, which was awesome.

It went well, all of the procedures I’ve had so far have been successful, so that was great news.

The only downfall is that I have one “accessory vein” that’s fairly big that needs sclerotherapy, which is when they inject a foam into the vein to close it off.

I knew I had one vein that they wanted to watch, and I’m sure it got bigger because the other veins were now closed off and the blood has to find new pathways.

So, I suppose I should’ve expected it.

But hopefully the discoloration on the top of my foot will go away with this – hopefully.

I’m still feeling down.

Still feeling like a royal fuck up and a disappointment.

I hate feeling like this.

I’ve been having “thought loss” issues a lot lately.

Ever since I’ve been coming out of this last episode.

It’s where my mind just goes blank.

I know everyone gets this right.

You’ll be in mid conversation and suddenly your mind just goes blank.

In therapy this week it happened three times.

Three times in an hour.

That’s frustrating.

It’s been happening more often when I need to get a point across.

My mind will just not cooperate.

I’ve been having a hard time concentrating too.

Following conversations.

I guess I can follow them alright enough, it’s just retaining what’s been said that’s escaping me most of the time lately.

All of it is so frustrating.

I was talking to my schizoaffective friend about it yesterday and she said what I suppose I already knew…

That it’s just going to take “time and meds” to get through.

That It’s part of the disorder and I’ve just had an episode and my mind is trying to heal and it’s still misfiring a bit and it’ll calm down, it just needs time and meds.

I found that comforting.

Because she’s right.

-Keren