Why I'm in Hospital, Partly

I put some tweets out last night explaining the basics of why I'm in hospital. There may be triggers in this for some. Please be careful. So for those not on Twitter, the tweets were this:

I know I've not said why I'm in here so here goes. I'm hearing & seeing things again. Have been since the op. They also say I'm delusional.

It's officially a relapse but I'm hoping it won't last as long as my last psychotic episode, which was over 4 years long.

I start quetiapine on Tuesday and I'm hoping that it'll help me to sleep like it did last time. Also glad they're stopping the injections.


I still have doubts as to whether or not I'm delusional, part of me says it's a conspiracy, part of me says I'm unwell. So confusing.

Also, a part of me says I'm hearing satellites and seeing a hologram, but another part says they're all just hallucinations.

I really don't know what to believe right now, but I thought I'd come clean about what's going on here. I'm schizophrenic and not ashamed!

I'll expand on some of it here, but not all of it, because I don't yet want to go into the full details. A lot of people who follow me here or on Twitter will be aware that I started suffering with abdominal pain at the end of August. After a lot of tests and nothing conclusive showing up, they did an exploratory laparoscopy - basically where they made three small incisions in my stomach and used a flexible camera to get a good look around. They didn't find anything and concluded that it was either pain without medical cause or even just my IBS being weird. I was surprised that they didn't call it psychological pain in the end if I'm honest!

Anyway, the surgery required a general anesthetic and when I came round from it, I started trying to get somewhere. I think I was trying to get to the hospital cafe, but I'm not certain. I was desperate to get to wherever for reasons I can't remember, but I certainly annoyed the post-op nurse who was desperately trying to get me to lie down and rest! I remember the look she gave me when she told me that I was being difficult. After this though, my memory gets very hazy.

I vaguely remember having a nasal cannula (tubes in my nose for oxygen) and remember trying to pull it out of my nose because at the time, I didn't know what it was. I apparently also tried to pull the two drips out of my hand as well, but I don't remember this. All I really remember is terrifying visions that played out like dreams. In these visions, I entered into a new, delusional world. After a couple of visions, I started seeing a hologram of a man from the visions standing near the foot of my bed. He just stood there, dressed in black from head to toe - he wears a hoodie and keeps his hood up.

I still see this man; he usually stands in the same spot for a few days, disappears for a few days, then reappears and repeat. I have only ever seen him disappear in front of me once but never seen him reappear in front of me. He reappears and disappears when I'm not in my room. He never does anything when he stands there, he just glares at me without moving. Who I believe this man is links in with the delusions, which I'm not comfortable going into just yet.

Also, after some of the visions, I started hearing what I believed were people talking to me through satellites that orbit Earth. Again, these people are linked with the delusions so I'm not going any further into who I believed they were.

I still also hear these people. There's quite a lot of them but there's normally no more than about two or three who talk at the same time. There are some who talk more often than others but I don't know any of their names. They often tell me to harm myself, but I can fight these commands off. The threats they make are more upsetting. I often get threats that they're going to kill me, but those threats are nothing compared to the threats they make against a family member. I can usually tolerate the threats against myself, but if they start talking about my family member, it really upsets me. They're worse at night and as such, I often take lorazepam to try and help me. The lorazepam does help to dampen down these threats and I think in the last two weeks, I've used it on ten nights. Some nights I've had to take it twice because they've been so bad.

Anyway, after three days of terrifying dream-like visions and hallucinations, I started talking to the nurses in the general side about the delusions I was having. They panicked, and then the process of me being sectioned started, and that's the basics of it. I don't want to go any further into the delusions as that's where the main problems I'm having are. I think if I 'just' had the problems listed here, I wouldn't be in hospital, but saying that, the voices are the main problem at the minute. The man near the end of my bed is creepy and as I type this, I can see him in the corner of my eye, but I'm getting used to him. Or rather 'it'.

There's still the Jekyll and Hyde problem going on too, but at the moment, Hyde is losing the battle. (I use the Jekyll and Hyde metaphor because there's a side of me that's impulsive that isn't the real me. But to clarify, I've not got multiple personalities!) The real problem with the Hyde-side of me at the moment is that Hyde refuses to accept that I'm hallucinating and delusional. The Jekyll-side of me mostly believes that I'm hallucinating and delusional but there is still an element of doubt as to this being an illness. And if you hadn't worked it out, I'm Jekyll-like at the moment!

With regards to the medication, I have to have one last depot injection tomorrow, but I start the quetiapine tomorrow too. I'll probably start at 50 mg and then they've said that I'll be on a maintenance dose when they get it high enough. It'll probably be at least 450 mg, if not 600 mg or more. I was on 600 mg when I was on it last time (four years ago) and that was the dose they wanted me on when I first came in. For what it's worth, I really regret not taking it when I first came in, but I'm trying not to dwell on the past.

And also, to repeat part of one of my tweets, I'm schizophrenic and not ashamed of what I go through!

EDIT: For more about the medication, read my TwitLonger about ward round here: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rrivcb