tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76078632531059138662024-03-13T20:11:19.151+00:00Female, Twenty Something, Schizophrenic, GSOHThis was my blog describing life with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia but I've moved on from my diagnosis. As a result I've closed down this blog.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-40489327322334963012014-11-16T16:09:00.001+00:002016-01-21T19:26:47.382+00:00So Long Schizophrenia! My Final Blog Post HereI’ve come to a big decision regarding this blog. Over the last two and a half years, I have written many blog posts about schizophrenia, hospital stays and my battles with mental health problems in the past and I believe I’ve written all there is for me to write on these topics. So I’m closing this blog.<br />
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I will still keep it online for others in the hope that it could help more people, but I will no longer post on here. I want to move on from my diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and put it behind me. I believe this is the best way to move forward in life. Living in the past will only mess up my chances of a good future so I’m living in the here and now.<br />
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That said, I am still making steps to become a mental health support worker. Although I’m no longer living in the past, I still have got many experiences that I believe I could use to help people. I also still want to reduce the stigma around mental health so I will occasionally write about mental health matters on my other blog, found at <a href="http://thementalchristian.blogspot.co.uk/">http://thementalchristian.blogspot.co.uk</a> and on my second Twitter account, <a href="http://twitter.com/MentalChristian">@MentalChristian</a>. Feel free to read the blog and follow me on that Twitter. However, on both of those, I don’t call myself schizophrenic. I mention that I have the diagnosis on the blog, but it’s no longer a label I associate myself with.<br />
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I am proud of things I have achieved through this blog. As I type this, I’ve just gone over 98,000 views and if I continue to receive the same amount of daily views, I will probably hit 100,000 views in the next two to three weeks. For a while, a Google search for ‘schizophrenia blog’ has shown my blog as the second option, behind Time to Change. I’ve also spoken on national radio four times, been published and made the front page of Huffington Post four times and been asked by three other media sources for comments. But this has only been achieved by ‘living in the past’, and I feel this is hampering my chances of a successful future.<br />
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I have also decided not to publish my memoir. There is a lot of darkness in it, and I feel it would be too difficult for my family to read. I don’t feel that there’s anything in it that others aren’t raising awareness of, and I think others are raising awareness far better than I ever have. I am working on a new book instead, about mental health, the Bible and Christianity. It’s only a short book, but I hope it will provide strength and encouragement to Christians who are struggling with their mental health and negative attitudes from others.<br />
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So this is it, the end of Schizophrenia Sucks. This blog has had highs and lows, but I am ending on a high. My mental health is the best it’s been all year and I am hopeful that the New Year will be the start of my journey back into full-time employment. I will continue to give updates on the new blog (which at the moment only has one post on it, but more will come soon) and am happy to interact with people on the new Twitter and blog. To those who have read this blog faithfully, I thank you for reading and commenting.<br />
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So goodbye, and best wishes to all!<br />
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Love Katy<br />
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Reminder:<br />
New blog: <a href="http://thementalchristian.blogspot.co.uk/">http://thementalchristian.blogspot.co.uk</a><br />
New Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/MentalChristian">@MentalChristian</a>Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-47850805976742051552014-10-17T23:40:00.001+01:002014-10-17T23:40:16.297+01:00Am I Being Given Placebos?This is bordering on conspiracy theory territory and it may at first sound like I’m delusional. But hear me out before coming to any conclusions!<br />
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One of the medications I currently take is quetiapine XL. I’ve taken it three times in the past six years and this time, I’ve been taking it for around four months. The first two times I took quetiapine XL, I was given the Seroquel brand. Both times I took it, it would knock me out four hours after taking it like clockwork. This time though, things have been different, and I’m wondering if instead of being given quetiapine XL, I’m being given a placebo drug.<br />
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Hear me out!<br />
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When I was prescribed quetiapine XL four months ago, I first filled my prescription at a pharmacy close to my GP practice. I was surprised that I was being given the Tenprolide brand of quetiapine rather than the Seroquel I had been given when I previously filled my prescription there, but as it was the same ingredient, I didn’t think much else of it. That was until I started taking it. Tenprolide gave me a very dry mouth and I didn’t get the ‘knock out’ effect that the Seroquel brand had given me. I wondered if maybe the reason it wasn’t knocking me out was because my body had gotten used to quetiapine over the years and the dry mouth was just a long term effect from the risperidone I had been taking before I started the quetiapine.<br />
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However, when I was given the second prescription for quetiapine (I am given a 30-day supply), I didn’t have time to go to the pharmacy next to my GP practice to fill it. Soon afterwards though, I went to a retail park near me that has a Boots pharmacy, so I decided to fill my prescription there, rather than making an extra trip to my regular pharmacy. Here, I was given the Seroquel brand again and after taking it for a few days, the dry mouth had gone and I was starting to sleep a bit better. It wasn’t the same knock out effect I had had on my previous two occasions taking it, but my sleep did improve.<br />
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But then I realised that on some nights, the side effects were different. About once or twice a week, I would get the knock out effect I had had on previous occasions, but the effect would come after two or three hours, rather than four. On those nights, the thoughts I had about being watched seemed to ease off a bit too. This only happened on the nights where I was being knocked out. I’ve been filling my prescription at Boots ever since that first time, and have noticed the same thing with every batch. Once or twice a week, I am being knocked out fairly quickly and struggling less with negative thoughts, the rest of the time, I’m awake for longer and the thoughts are unchanged.<br />
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Although I haven’t been recording the nights where I am being knocked out, I know that my menstrual cycle has nothing to do with it. Last night I was knocked out and although I woke up with a bad headache this morning, I remember enough to know that not every night I get knocked out precedes a day with a headache. As of today, I am going to start recording the side effects and anything I think may be relevant to their sporadicalness. (Yes, that is a real word!)<br />
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It really wouldn’t surprise me if tests done on my Seroquel XL supply found that most of the tablets were placebos with only a few being actual quetiapine XL. And it wouldn’t be the first time Seroquel XL tablets were in the news. In 2011, a few packets of Nurofen Plus were found to contain tablets of 50 mg Seroquel XL (the full story is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15041236">here</a>). Although the mix-up was found to be caused by a member of the public (that story is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18203634">here</a>), it shows that mix-ups CAN happen, one way or the other.<br />
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So what do you think? Is someone at my Boots meddling with the Seroquel? Are Seroquel themselves mixing placebos in with their quetiapine tablets? Or am I just having sporadic side effects, rather than continual ones?<br />
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Answers on a postcard please!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-70763385336371745002014-10-11T22:47:00.003+01:002014-10-13T11:37:31.125+01:00A New Video and Huffington PostThe last few days have been incredible. On Thursday, I was contacted by Huffington Post and asked if I would consent to them using one of my blog posts as part of their focus on schizophrenia for Mental Health Awareness Week. I told them they could use the 'A Day in the Life of a Paranoid Schizophrenic' blog post and it was published. The following day, it was on the front page and stayed there for over 36 hours! It's identical to the blog post on here but if you haven't read it, or just want to see it on Huff Post, the link is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/katy-gray/paranoid-schizophrenic-world-mental-health-day_b_5958712.html">here</a>.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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I've had so many lovely comments on here, Twitter and Facebook from that piece and a few people have said that it has enlightened them to what schizophrenia is really like. This is exactly what I want to do with my blog: educate, enlighten and reduce stigma. So I feel that that blog post was a real success. So far, I've only seen one negative comment on it, someone who thought he was hilarious by stating on Facebook, "Shouldn't that be a day in the life of <i>two</i> paranoid schizophrenics?" Guffaw. Never heard that one before, mate.<br />
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Today, I've been working on a new YouTube video, another one about hearing voices. This time though, I've recorded the things that voices have said to me over the years. I really enjoy making YouTube videos so if anyone has an idea that I could make into a video, leave a comment below. I'd really appreciate it! Oh and the link for today's video is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch14SzuEI0Y">here</a>.<br />
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Thank you to everyone who has checked out my blog, left comments or shared it with others. I am genuinely so grateful to everyone who has left lovely messages and so pleased that some have been educated about the realities of this illness. And with that, let's battle stigma together and wipe it out!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-75774249484201747862014-10-06T13:37:00.001+01:002014-10-06T13:37:48.075+01:00Hello Depression, My Old FriendYou've come to torture me again...<br />
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Depression is something I have had an on-off relationship with since I was thirteen. And for the past six weeks or so, the relationship is back on. In simple terms, I'm depressed again.<br />
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The timing was a bit of a shock to be honest. In August, I travelled to Northern Ireland with my parents to visit relatives. The majority of my family live there and both my parents were born there. August was the first time I had gone over in over five and a half years, and I had a wonderful time, seeing family I hadn't seen for years.<br />
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On the ferry home, I looked out of the window at the Irish landscape fading into the distance when I felt a familiar pain. Immediately I felt puzzled. Depression? Now? But I've had such a good time! The good memories were still playing in my mind, so feeling low was unexpected. I shrugged it off, thinking it was post-holiday blues or something. On dry land during the five-hour car journey home, I listened to my music with my mood yo-yoing.<br />
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The day after I got home, my mood rose to a very good place. I saw one of my support workers and enthusiastically told her about my holiday. In her words, it was the best she'd ever seen me. But this good mood wasn't to last. Over the following few days, good moods turned to episodes of low moods, and episodes of low moods soon turned into days of low moods. It wasn't long before the low moods greatly outnumbered the good moods.<br />
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About 10 days after getting home, I saw my CPN and told her about my mood. As it hadn't lasted very long at that point, she told me just to monitor it. But as the days went by, my mood became lower and lower, and by the time I saw my CPN again a fortnight later, I was really struggling. She told me she would speak to my psychiatrist and would get back to me if he suggested anything. She made an appointment with me for a fortnight later and I crossed my fingers that she would phone soon with a solution.<br />
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The first week went by with no phone call, and as the second week slipped away, I started losing hope that my psychiatrist was going to do anything. I saw my GP on the Thursday of that week and he was fantastic. He tried to phone my CPN but had missed her and as she doesn't work Fridays, he left a message for her to phone him on Monday. The appointment with him lasted 20 minutes, amazing with the current pressures on GPs, and I left the appointment feeling a bit more hopeful.<br />
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When I saw my CPN again (last Monday), I found out that she had been off sick from the day after I saw her for the rest of the week, then my psychiatrist was on holiday the week after. So that day was the first chance she'd had to speak to him. And fortunately, he decided not to wait any longer before starting to help me, and sent a fax to my GP, telling him to put me back on sertraline, the antidepressant I was on for five years. I started taking it that day and now I'm waiting and hoping for it to kick in.<br />
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I should never have been taken off sertraline. I first started taking it in October 2008, not long after I was first sectioned. After three weeks, I was up to the maximum recommended dose of 200 mg. It didn't really seem to have an effect on me, until I started to recover from the psychosis I was also suffering with. Then, my mood went from rock bottom to sky high, and after a failed attempt to jump out of a window to see if I could fly (fortunately the hospital window didn't open far enough), I realised I needed help with my mood but for the opposite reason. However, instead of lowering the sertraline, the psychiatrist (different to my current one) put me on lamotrigine, a mood stabiliser, alongside the max dose of sertraline. I still can't understand the logic behind that decision.<br />
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After a while, my mood levelled out and I came off the lamotrigine, followed by aripiprazole. The only psychotropic medication I took was sertraline, and I continued taking the max dose until late 2012. I reduced it with the hope of coming off it altogether, but after reducing to 50 mg every other day, I realised my mood was suffering. Feeling bitterly disappointed, I went back up to 50 mg everyday and found my mood stayed stable.<br />
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After a few months, I came to terms with being on a daily antidepressant and accepted that it might have been something I would have to take for a long time or possibly even forever. But I told myself the comparison that so many psych nurses had told me, some people need to take psych meds everyday just like a type 1 diabetic needs their insulin everyday. And psych meds are no less important than insulin to a diabetic.<br />
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Fast forward to January of this year. I was in hospital, voluntarily, and my psychiatrist reviewed my sertraline. He told me he was taking me off it because I was no longer depressed. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you not think there could be a reason behind me not being depressed? Could it have had anything to do with the antidepressant that had kept my mood stable for three years? My mood never stayed stable for that length of time before, usually it was stable for less than a year. So three years of stability could only have been possible with sertraline being beneficial to me.<br />
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I should never have been taken off sertraline. I wasn't happy about it, my parents weren't happy about it, but I had no choice. My mood was pretty low for a while after coming off it, probably due to the chemical anxiety I was suffering with, but after a while my mood did improve and I started thinking that maybe I didn't need sertraline after all. But as I watched the Irish landscape gliding past the ferry window that August afternoon, I began to realise that maybe it is something I do need after all.<br />
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I'm currently taking 50 mg and there are no plans to increase it yet. Everyone here is hoping that that will be enough to stabilise my mood again, seeing as that level kept my mood stable for over a year. If I have to take a higher dose, I'll be really annoyed with my psychiatrist for taking me off it in January. But fingers crossed, 50 mg will be enough.<br />
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And the distress that was planted in my brain, still remains…Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-66117308853726139172014-09-18T14:05:00.000+01:002014-09-22T15:27:03.169+01:00A Day in the Life of a Paranoid SchizophrenicIt's 9:45 am when my mum comes into my room to wake me up. This is early for me. Despite my medication being quite sedating, I'm rarely asleep before 1 am. And because of the sedation, I need at least 10 hours sleep to be able to function properly all day. So I'm quite tired this morning. But I need to be up 'early' today, it's the day I go to the drop-in. I switch on my phone to check my emails. Nothing of interest. I manage to drag myself out of bed and go for a shower.<br />
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Whilst I'm in the shower, Dorothy starts talking to me. Dorothy is the voice I currently hear. Thankfully, she's also the only voice I hear at the moment. I've only been hearing her for a few months but she's very similar to other voices I've heard in the past - nasty. Dorothy tells me that satellites are watching me whilst I shower. It's not a pleasant thought, being watched in the shower, but I try and rationalise what she says by telling myself that even if satellites <i>were</i> watching me, they wouldn't be able to see me through the blind over the window.<br />
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I dress and eat breakfast before grabbing a drink and my car keys. I'm ready early for a change. In the car, I put my favourite song of the moment on repeat - Silver Moonlight by Within Temptation, my favourite band. I turn the volume up, probably a little too loud, but Dorothy's murmuring away quietly. The music drowns her out.<br />
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I'm grateful that I still have my driving licence. It's a medical licence that lasts three years, and it's due for renewal in January. I'm really nervous about renewing it, given the fact I had that relapse last year. I'm worried the DVLA (our equivalent of the DMV) will decide not to renew my licence. Not being able to drive would take away so much of my independence, given how the public transport around where I live is terrible. I had to surrender my licence a few years ago and didn't have it for well over a year. Not being able to drive was awful so I'm hoping it doesn't happen again. But I try not to think of that, driving to the drop-in with my music blaring.<br />
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The car park near the drop-in is always busy. Sometimes I'm driving around for 20 minutes with no luck before I decide to be cheeky and park right outside the building where the drop-in takes place. But today I find a space after about five minutes. After buying a ticket and walking to the building, I check my watch. I'm two minutes late.<br />
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Today's drop-in is going to be a challenge for me. Up until now, I've always attended with one of my support workers. But today I'm on my own. Walking into the room is pretty nerve-wracking, but I quickly sit down and try to calm my nerves. I've been attending the drop-in for nearly three months now. It's not too busy, usually there's less than 20 people each week, and at last, I'm not the newest person. At 26, I'm one of the youngest, but there are a few people not too much older than me. The last community group I went to was awful in that regard, I was the youngest, literally by 50 years!<br />
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One of the volunteers tells me what today's activity is. Sometimes the activity is craft, sometimes a talk but today it's Taekwondo. I rarely join in with the activities and immediately I feel that that's not going to change today. Dorothy starts talking again and tells me that if I take part, I'll do it completely wrong and make an idiot out of myself. My gut reaction is to concur with her. I probably <i>would</i> do it wrong and if I did, I'd feel embarrassed. Then Dorothy tells me that if I take part, the satellites would film me doing it. I look over at the windows. They're that type of glass that lets light in but you can't see through them. The satellites wouldn't be able to see me through that glass but wait, two of the windows are open. Could the satellites see me through them? I'm not sure. I try to rationalise things again but Dorothy's doing a really good job of putting me off taking part. When the Taekwondo starts, a few people try to persuade me to take part but I refuse. They try again to get me to join in but I shake my head. Dorothy tells me I'm a good girl.<br />
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Despite not joining in with the Taekwondo, I still manage to have a natter with others. But Dorothy's still there and now she's changed her mind. I'm no longer a good girl, I'm a wimp, a coward, for not joining in. I tell her (silently, communicating with her via my thoughts so that no one else knows I'm talking to her) that I managed to attend by myself today, instead of with a support worker, but she scoffs at that. Other people attend by themselves from day one and aren't wimps like me, according to her. Despite her criticism, I know it's a big, positive step that I've attended by myself today. The support workers and my CPN are all trying to get me to praise myself once in a while, but it's something I really struggle to do. I try and tell myself that I've done well today but Dorothy laughs and puts me down, just like she always does if I try and praise myself.<br />
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The drop-in ends and I face the daunting task of trying to remember where I parked in the car park. My short-term memory has never been that good, but since I started taking antipsychotics, it's gone from bad to terrible. But I'm sure I parked on the left-hand side of the car park, and before too long I spy the car.<br />
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Dorothy's louder than she was when I was driving to the drop-in so the music goes even louder. Until I realise pedestrians are turning around and looking at me. I turn it down a bit but now I can hear Dorothy. I grit my teeth until I get out of town and onto the country roads. Nobody would hear my music now so up it goes again.<br />
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I arrive home and let my mum know I'm home. She tells me we're going out to pick up something she bought off eBay. The town's a 45 minute drive away but I don't mind. Dorothy's shut up now so I can enjoy the drive. It's nearly 4 pm when we arrive and neither my mum or I have had lunch. So it's a drive-thru at McDonalds on the way home. I'm not keen on eating in the restaurant, I much prefer eating in the car. The voices I've heard over the years have made me a bit self-conscious about eating in public but I can sometimes get past this.<br />
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Dorothy's back again. Now I'm a fat cow because of what I'm eating. I've always perceived myself as fat, even when I wasn't. When I was a UK size 6, all I could see in the mirror was non-existent fat, all over my body. Now that the antipsychotics have made me a UK size 16, I feel that Dorothy has a valid point.<br />
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Back at home, I start thinking of an idea for a blog post. I want to find something I wrote when I was sectioned last year but I'm not sure where it is. In my search, I find a suicide note I wrote during that section last year. A wave of emotions run over me - guilt, shame, a bit of embarrassment but also some relief that I failed. That's a good sign, feeling relieved. It means I'm not suicidal now.<br />
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The alarm goes off on my phone as it always does at 8 pm to remind me to take my meds. I switch off the alarm and have one last look through my desk for what I'm looking for but no joy. I ask my mum if she knows where it is and she finds it almost straight away. I type up the document I wrote last year onto my laptop and looking back, realise what a good job it was that I was sectioned. Had I been in the community, something awful would probably have happened.<br />
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I get fed up of writing very quickly so I pick up my sewing. It's a fairly new hobby, although I do have a large tapestry that I've been working on for three years. But I struggle with it as it's so big. I've been doing mini kits lately, and find it quite therapeutic, sewing away. I finish the mini kit I started yesterday, a fat, fluffy robin, and watch a little bit of television before bed.<br />
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It's nearly midnight before I go up to bed, but there's no point going any earlier. If I go to bed too early, my mind starts thinking of things, my thoughts start racing and it takes a very long time to get to sleep. I end up getting to sleep later if I go to bed earlier, so going to bed between 11:30 pm and midnight is usually the best time for me. I have a quick drink (lemonade, not alcohol!) before going up and suddenly realise I've not taken my meds. Rats. I look at the clock. I'm four hours late taking it. Now I'm going to be up until 2:30 am writing a blog post!<br />
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So that's what a day in the life of a paranoid schizophrenic is like. I'm actually pretty boring in my day to day life. I'm not planning ways to murder people or carrying an axe around with me, I'm just going about life in my own little way. If you met me in person, you probably wouldn't even realise I had schizophrenia, unless I told you.<br />
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Did some things in my story surprise you? Being able to drive, the things Dorothy said or the fact that I'm pretty ordinary? Let me know in the comments below!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-84694131151585470182014-09-10T20:41:00.003+01:002014-09-18T14:47:30.772+01:00Has Antipsychotic Medication Made Me Worse?The first time I took psychotropic medication was when I was 18. I had been suffering with depression for about two years and I was finally given help in the form of a prescription for fluoxetine (Prozac). I was put on 20 mg and I found that it did nothing to me. It had no benefits and fortunately, I had no side effects. After a few months on it, I decided to stop taking it as I felt like I was wasting NHS resources taking something that did nothing to me.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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As well as the depression, my first symptom of psychosis (hearing a voice) began just before I started taking the fluoxetine. I had seen a psychiatrist for depression around that time, and decided to tell him about the voice I had been hearing. However, he took no notice of it and so I was left with no help for the voice, that became increasingly worse. More symptoms of psychosis manifested in the next few months; I became delusional and suffered with intense intrusive thoughts. In spite of this, I was still high functioning.<br />
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I was at a sixth form college at this time and at first, I struggled to do any work because of the voice I was hearing. I would get extremely distracted with it and at times couldn't make out what was being said by tutors. I remember getting in trouble on more than one occasion for doing little or no work, but it was because I simply couldn't hear what was being said on account of hearing this voice. After a while though, I began getting used to the voice and started being able to do some work. I managed so well that at the end of the academic year, my results were good enough to get me into university.<br />
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I was still psychotic when I moved away from home to go to university and despite a few little blips, I managed pretty well. As well as studying for my degree, I had a part-time job in retail, where I worked from 7 pm until midnight Monday to Friday. However, I was rarely home from work until 1 am or later, and because I had to take time to unwind after work before I could go to bed, I was rarely asleep until 4 am. Some days, I had to be up for uni at 7 am, just three hours after getting to sleep. Yet I could still function. I was still attending lectures, completing assignments and going to work on very little sleep. There were times when my job made me work all-nighters, where I would work from 8 pm until 8 am, and I still attended university the next day without going to bed.<br />
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At the end of my first year of university, I was given my grades. I averaged 65.5% for the first year, comfortably achieving an Upper Second or 2:1 for that year. And I was psychotic throughout the year! But just after I started my second year, I was sectioned. I spent a few days in hospital before I was forced to take antipsychotic medication. Because of refusing it, I was injected with it. The following day, the medication made me feel like I wasn't walking properly. It was like both wading through treacle and walking on clouds. Everything felt weird. In the following few weeks, I really struggled with the sedation of it. At first, I slept around 16 hours a day but after a while, this went down to about 12 hours. It was still considerably more sleep than I had been getting at university though. There was one occasion at uni where I woke up at 7 am on the Monday morning and didn't get to bed again until 1 am on the Saturday and I was still functioning well. Yet on the antipsychotic, I couldn't function with less than 12 hours sleep.<br />
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My work still kept my job open during my two months in hospital but after a few more months away from work, they terminated my contract. I had thought about getting back into work, but knew it was impossible with the antipsychotic I was on. It was a different antipsychotic to the one I'd been on in hospital, but it still made me need 12+ hours of sleep a night. To top it off, the antipsychotic didn't help with my symptoms. All it did was give me side effects.<br />
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Less than a year after being discharged from hospital, I was sectioned a second time. This time, I was in hospital for 17 months, being discharged in March 2011. Eight months later, I started volunteering in a cafe one afternoon a week. I was in the process of coming off my antipsychotic and when I started volunteering, I was on a low dose. I struggled a bit with the sedation to start with, but when I came off the antipsychotic altogether around two weeks in, I found myself able to work better. However, I started struggling with obsessive thoughts and after four months, I had to leave the cafe.<br />
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Fast forward to today. I have been on a total of fourteen psychotropic medications (nine of which were antipsychotics) and if I am totally honest about it, four have been of any benefit to me. And out of these four, only one of them was an antipsychotic. However, that antipsychotic gave me awful side effects which is why I'm not still taking it. The antipsychotic I currently take, 600 mg of Quetiapine XL, is the only antipsychotic that I would ever voluntarily agree to take. It does nothing to my symptoms but it helps me sleep and weirdly, it drastically reduces the number of headaches I get. Plus, the only real side effect I get from it is the sedation. My appetite is slightly increased from it, but my weight hasn't spiralled out of control, which it has done on other antipsychotics. But I wouldn't be able to work on Quetiapine as the sedation is too strong. I would need to get off antipsychotics altogether before I could even think of getting back to work.<br />
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I can honestly say that antipsychotic medication prevents me from working. I know that some people are on antipsychotics and able to work, but they are affected differently by their medication to me. Just because some people are able to work on antipsychotics doesn't mean that everybody can. But there is another thing that I think antipsychotic medication has prevented me from doing, and it's probably something you wouldn't think of.<br />
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A few weeks ago, I read an article about antipsychotic medication. I'm not putting a link to the article here because it would scare even the most med-loving person off antipsychotics and I know that some people DO need them. The article spoke of a healthy person taking antipsychotic medication as part of an experiment and one sentence about their experience jumped out at me.<br />
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<i>"Highly personal memories of previous unhappy times - broken relationships or loneliness - seemed to be flooding back."</i><br />
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As I have written in previous blog posts, I was bullied in my final three years of high school and left straight after my GCSEs due to being unable to cope with the bullying. At the end of the school day, I would usually get a lift home from one of my parents but for a while in my fourth year of high school, I had to make my own way home. At first, I got the train home as few people from school used it. However, one day after school, while I was waiting for the train at the station, I was subjected to a half-hour ordeal of intense bullying, which bordered on assault, by three lads in my year. I became too scared to use the train again so at first, I walked the three miles home. After a while though, for reasons I can't remember, I decided to take the school bus home. Unsurprisingly, I was bullied on the bus and sometimes bullied as I walked home from the bus stop, so I was relieved when I was able to get a lift with one of my parents again.<br />
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After I left school, I used to have to get the train into town to get to work or college, and when I moved away from home to go to university, I had to get the bus every night to get to work. I had no problems on the train or the bus (aside from losing my bearings on the bus one night and getting off a few miles away from my stop!) and while I preferred going in the car, I was perfectly comfortable on public transport. And bear in mind that I was comfortable on public transport while I was psychotic!<br />
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Ever since I have been on antipsychotics, I have struggled with public transport. As the quote above says, <i>highly personal memories of previous unhappy times</i>, in my case, being bullied on buses and trains, came <i>flooding back</i>. So as well as preventing me from working, antipsychotic medication seems to have made me scared of public transport. It's something I am working on with my support workers, but I am wondering if I am ever going to be able to use public transport and be comfortable with it again.<br />
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As well as these two things, antipsychotic medication has made me gain over nine stone (126 lbs) in weight. I have been able to lose four stone (56 lbs) at various points but I'm still considerably heavier than I was before I started antipsychotic medication. I often worry about developing diabetes, something that other people I know have developed from their antipsychotics. I've had other horrible side effects too, one antipsychotic gave me urticaria, whole body itchiness that didn't go away with antihistamines, another gave me vomiting and diarrhea like I had norovirus for a week, a third one gave me terrible anxiety and at least three of them gave me arguably the worst side effect of antipsychotics: akathisia.<br />
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When akathisia strikes, it prevents you from sitting or lying down. You HAVE to walk. Constantly. And for some reason, it is usually worse at night. So when you're shattered and want to sleep, you can't. You have to walk around your bedroom until you collapse into bed with exhaustion. My record for walking is over eight hours, from midnight until 8 am. And there have been times where I have literally fallen asleep while walking. When I first had it during my second hospital stay, I couldn't cope with it at all. It got so bad that I begged a student nurse to kill me. Fortunately, that day was ward round, and I was introduced to the miracle that is procyclidine. It didn't take it all away but I was able to cope again.<br />
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Without doubt, antipsychotic medication has some awful side effects. And as finding one that works is trial and error, it can take a long time for a person to find a working antipsychotic with bearable side effects. I've been on nine and still haven't found one that works and has bearable side effects! But can antipsychotic medication actually make you worse? I think it can. After all, I was able to study at university and do a part-time job whilst psychotic before I started taking medication and now I can't. I could get on public transport without fear whilst psychotic before meds and now I can't. Before antipsychotics I was a UK size 6 (US size 2), now I'm a UK size 16 (US size 12). At one point I was a UK size 18 (US size 14). Before meds I could function on little or no sleep, now I need a minimum of 10 hours, preferably 12 hours. I would love to know what would have happened if I didn't get forced into taking meds. Would I still be able to work? Would I have finished university? Would I still be a UK size 6 (US 2)?<br />
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But in spite of all this, I would say that if you are struggling with your mental health and have been offered antipsychotic medication, give it a go. It DOES help some people and side effects vary from person to person. Some people get very few side effects and can tolerate them well. But one thing psychiatrists should always bear in mind is that antipsychotics don't help everyone. If an antipsychotic isn't working after three months of taking it, change to a different one. If you've tried several antipsychotics and haven't found one that works, seek alternative treatment, such as talking therapy.<br />
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Schizophrenia can be overcome. There is proof of this all over the internet.<br />
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But antipsychotics aren't always the answer.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-51688229412181265642014-08-23T13:20:00.000+01:002014-09-18T14:47:42.976+01:00My StoryMy problems with my mental health started when I was 13. Not long after I started my third year of high school, I started suffering from depression. My problems worsened when I started being bullied, and this bullying lasted for three years. At 14, I started self-harming and just after this, I attempted suicide for the first time. Fortunately, the depression lifted after two years, but despite the improvement in my mental health, I couldn't cope with the bullying anymore. I decided to leave school after completing my GCSEs and instead of studying for A Levels, I opted to do an apprenticeship in computing.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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The apprenticeship meant that I was at college one day a month and worked in a placement for the council full time the rest of the month. Unfortunately, I was given very little work in my placement, which meant I spent the vast majority of my time with nothing to do. It was soul-destroying sitting for long hours with no work and although I wasn't suffering with depression at the time, I think the chronic boredom had a bad influence on my mental health. The placement lasted eighteen months until I was able to complete my apprenticeship, and I left feeling extremely relieved that I no longer had to stare at a blank computer screen for hours at a time.<br />
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A few months after I completed my apprenticeship, I decided to go back into full time education. I studied for a diploma in Music Technology at a local sixth form college. Two months into the course, I started hearing a voice, who called himself the devil. This voice made it very difficult to study for my course. There were times that I was so distracted by the voice, I couldn't hear the tutors talking. I got into trouble a few times for not doing any work, but I wasn't being rebellious, I simply couldn't hear what was being said. A couple of months after the voice, I became delusional. I believed that I had a daughter who had been taken away from me just after I gave birth to her. Other smaller delusions followed and to this day, I have memories of events that I have no clue if they are real or delusion.<br />
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Just before the first delusion manifested, my grandfather died. Just after the delusion and a mere 47 days after my grandfather, my grandmother also died. This sent me spiralling into depression again, made worse by the devil voice and the emptiness I felt at not being able to see my daughter. I became determined to find my daughter, so on my breaks from college, I walked around the town, discreetly looking in prams to see if my daughter was inside. I wasn't going to take her out of the pram or away from her parents if I'd found her, all I wanted was to see her and know that she was OK. I believed she would be better off with her adoptive parents (part of the delusion) but I hoped that if I did find her, I could speak to her parents and see if I could see her more often. I sometimes spent three hours walking around town looking for her, playing the song 'Somewhere' by Within Temptation on repeat. The song can still make me cry to this day.<br />
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With all this going on, my studies at college weren't going well. However, I decided to see if I could get into university after just one year of my diploma (instead of the two years it took to complete it). By this time I had learnt how to listen to people instead of the voice and finally, my work at college came up to a good standard. At the end of the first year, out of the nine units I'd been studying, I achieved seven distinctions (the highest grade). It was more than enough to get me into university but I had to do a foundation degree to start with, and get over 60% before I would be able to progress to the second year of a full degree course.<br />
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I left for university at 19, in a city around 75 miles from home. Within a month, I had found work in retail, which meant me working 25 hours at night during the week. Despite getting little sleep due to the late hours in my job, I was still able to do quite well at university. However, the devil voice was becoming more threatening and just after I finished my first year at university I was doing virtually everything the voice would tell me to do, at the detriment of my physical health. I had achieved an average of 65% in my first year, equivalent of a higher second or a 2:1. I was pleased with this and hoped that I would be able to keep that standard up in my second year, but this wasn't to happen. Just before I started my second year of university, the devil voice commanded me not to eat or drink anything without his permission. He told me that if I did, he would kill my family.<br />
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Terrified by this, I ate nothing and drank just two cans of Pepsi Max a day. That was all I drank a day; no other water or other drinks, just two 330 ml cans a day, which was one calorie a can. After the first week, I became quite dizzy, and during the second week of this, I was frequently having to sit down quickly to try and stop myself from fainting. After two weeks of this, I was sectioned as a danger to myself. In hospital, I refused to drink anything at all, and in the first four days, all I had was one 200 ml cup of water. I was having daily blood tests and after these four days, I was told that certain levels in my blood were at dangerous levels. I was told if I didn't drink soon, I was going to die. But I didn't care. All I cared about was obeying the devil voice. Just after the warning, I experienced my first forced injection, Olanzapine (Zyprexa), and this scared me into accepting Ensure Plus drinks four times a day.<br />
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After six weeks of not eating, the voice finally allowed me to eat and drink as I wanted again. However, the olanzapine I was now taking in tablet form caused me to gain a considerable amount of weight. After another two weeks in hospital, I was discharged but made to go back home to live with my parents. Less than a year later, I was back in hospital, where I experienced more forced injections and also saw the arrival of two new voices. After a year in hospital, I was sent to a specialist unit, where I stayed for five months. It was here that I got the help I needed, in the form of talking therapy. Two months into the therapy, I had the breakthrough I needed, and began to recover.<br />
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After being discharged from the unit, I stayed fairly well. Seven months after discharge, I came off the antipsychotic I had been taking for over a year, and found I stayed reasonably well. I began volunteering in a cafe around this time, but soon found that it was having a negative impact on both my physical and mental health. I left after four months and felt bitterly disappointed that I had failed in my attempt to get back into paid employment.<br />
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I stayed well for around two years, until this time last year. I became physically unwell and during my second stint in hospital, I had exploratory surgery. The surgery seemed to trigger a psychotic relapse and I woke up from the anaesthetic in a deluded world. I felt like I was living in a world similar to that described in the film The Matrix. For those who haven't seen the film, I basically felt like the world I was living in was a computer generated world. I desperately wanted to find a group I called The Resistance, who I believed would help me find my way into the real world. After three days in hospital after the surgery, I was sectioned a third time and again I experienced forced injections during a three month stay.<br />
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A lot of what happened during that three month stay in hospital last year feels like a blur, and I can't remember a lot of what happened. I remember writing down my thoughts, which covered eight sides of A5 paper, and I also remember someone (either a nurse or a social worker, I can't remember which) telling me, while I was delusional, that my delusions would make a good movie. After the three months in hospital, I spent three weeks at home before being admitted again. This time though, I was voluntary. I was detained under a section 5 (4) (a nurses section which lasts up to six hours) for an hour and a half, but aside from that I stayed voluntary the whole time. After a month, I was discharged and have been out of hospital ever since.<br />
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I'm currently taking Quetiapine XL (Seroquel) for the third time, and overall, I have been on fourteen psychotropic medications (fifteen if you count procyclidine), nine of which were antipsychotics. I'm in a good place right now, and hoping that the stability I've had for the last two months will stay for a long time. I still hear one voice, have intrusive thoughts and occasional paranoia but I'm coping. While I would love to be symptom free again, I know I have to be patient with myself and know that it could be a while before this happens, if it even happens. But I remain hopeful that one day, my illness will be a thing of the past and I will get back into paid employment, off benefits and living what many people would call a 'normal' life.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-39390380914350363342014-07-29T20:41:00.002+01:002014-09-18T14:47:50.206+01:00Sorry for the AbsenceYou may or may not have noticed that I've been silent on the blog and Twitter front for a while. This has been for personal reasons but now I've decided to come back. A few people messaged me to ask me how I was during this time away and I'm really touched that some people noticed the absence and took the time to send me a message asking if I was OK. A huge thank you to those who did; it really meant a lot to me.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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A few things have happened since I was last online. The biggest thing is that I've changed my medication. I was previously on risperidone but now I'm on quetiapine XL (Seroquel) for the third time in five years. Fortunately this time, I'm only on 600 mg rather than the 800 mg I was on last time. I made the switch because the risperidone was giving me bad anxiety. I asked my CPN to change my meds for several weeks, telling her that it was giving me anxiety, but she kept on telling me to stick with it. In the end, a blood test showed that my prolactin levels had gone back up so I put my foot down and demanded a med change. My prolactin levels had been high from amisulpride, then it decreased for a while when I came off it, but then they went higher again on risperidone. A consultation with my psychiatrist resulted in the change to quetiapine XL and ever since, my anxiety has gone.<br />
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The high anxiety had been making it extremely difficult for me to distract from what I've been going through so since the anxiety has gone, I've been able to distract and things have been much better. The frustrating thing is, on a visit to my GP, I saw him reading a letter from when I saw my psychiatrist for the med change. Being the nosey person I am, I had a quick read of it myself. I saw a part that went something along the lines of, "Katy shows no signs of anxiety but she attests..." and then my GP scrolled down the page. It made me really angry because everyone else had agreed with me that I was suffering from anxiety. My CPN, support workers, family and even my GP all believed me when I said I was suffering from anxiety. So I was really cross that my psychiatrist didn't believe me. This is the same psychiatrist who told me that I wasn't addicted to lorazepam when I was. I've no idea what my psychiatrist believed I was suffering from but I'd seen enough of the letter to know that he didn't believe I was suffering from depression or psychosis either. So what was I going through then?!<br />
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One of the most common side effects of quetiapine, a side effect I've always suffered with, is weight gain. A few weeks ago, I weighed myself and decided that I needed to start losing weight. So I started a diet that I've done a few times in the past, a diet that for me normally results in losing about 5 or 6 lbs in a fortnight. I stuck to the diet strictly but when I weighed myself I was devastated to see that I'd gained a pound. I couldn't believe it. Two weeks of strict dieting to gain a pound. I felt like coming off the quetiapine there and then.<br />
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I've also just started driving again. Despite the relapse and the recent blip I've been going through, my CPN and psychiatrist haven't asked me to surrender my licence. I've a three year medical driving licence, which expires this coming January. My CPN is satisfied that I would never drive when I didn't feel up to it, which is why I've been able to keep my licence. So last Friday when I decided I'd gotten over the worst of the initial quetiapine drowsiness, I got behind the wheel again.<br />
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So that's the main things that have happened since my last time online. I'm still seeing my support workers three times a week and my CPN once a week (except for this week as she's on annual leave). I'm still waiting for the interview I did with a journalist from the Sunday Express to be published; if that ever does get published, I'll post it on here. I also never heard back from the television company who interviewed me for a documentary so I'm assuming that it was a no.<br />
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I'm amazed that my blog hits have stayed at the level they're currently at, despite my absence. Since my last blog post, I've had over 8,000 hits despite the silence so thank you to all of you who keep reading this! I'll try to make sure that I don't neglect my blog for as long again!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-23451612673235806412014-06-01T21:28:00.000+01:002014-09-18T14:47:58.607+01:00When Intrusive Thoughts turn Problematic<b>*Trigger Warning*</b> This blog post talks openly about suicidal thoughts and other matters that could be triggering so please don't read any further if you are likely to be affected.<br />
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Everybody gets intrusive thoughts. It's the content and intensity of them that can turn them into a symptom of mental illness. Intrusive thoughts are, like the name suggests, a thought that intrudes into a person's mind that wasn't initiated by them. For example, a person could be standing at the top of a flight of stairs about to descend, when the thought, "I'm going to trip and fall down the stairs!" pops into their head. This is a fairly typical intrusive thought and provided the thought doesn't persist to a point where the person is too afraid to walk down the stairs, this isn't a symptom of mental illness. It's just a fleeting thought that the person can dismiss easily.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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I get intrusive thoughts like this quite a lot, but the thoughts that really affect me are the ones that are either to do with suicide or other people. At the moment, I get a lot of intrusive thoughts on the theme of suicide that aren't fleeting, and can sometimes cause me distress. They are very opportunistic too, so the thoughts interact with my surroundings.<br />
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For example, a short while ago, I was walking near to a bridge overlooking a river and the thought, "Jump over the bridge!" popped into my head. It wasn't a fleeting thought; the thought didn't go away straight away. Rather, it stayed in my head and made me imagine jumping off the bridge for the whole length of time I was stood there. In my mind's eye, I could see myself jumping off the bridge. My imagination made me experience my family's grief at me doing such a thing. It wasn't pleasant and I felt immense relief at walking away from the bridge.<br />
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A few years ago, I used to get intense intrusive thoughts that made me imagine that I was going to kill my family. They were so intense that I used to say the thoughts were telling me to kill my family. Obviously they weren't telling me to kill my family, they weren't voices, but the thought was so intense that it was like I was being instructed to do so. I would be around a member of my family and would 'see' myself plunging a knife into them, 'hear' their agonised screams and my mind would picture them lying on the floor dying. These thoughts really upset me. I've never wanted to do anything like that and never have done anything like that. I don't think it's a stretch to say these thoughts were traumatic for me.<br />
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I wish I could now give magical advice about how to beat intrusive thoughts but I can't. As I say, I'm still experiencing quite intense thoughts and I don't know the cure for them. I know making sure I tell myself I'm not responsible for these thoughts stops me from blaming myself for them but that's about all I can do to ease the struggles I experience with them. I used to blame myself something awful for intrusive thoughts, particularly the ones around killing my family, but I now know that they're not my fault. I can also try and walk away from places that trigger suicidal intrusive thoughts, but it's not always possible. I will clarify here that I'm not suicidal at the moment. The thoughts may make me think about suicide but I'm not going to do anything.<br />
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So if anyone knows ways to help with intrusive thoughts, please leave a comment below. It would be immensely helpful!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-83668244758611283612014-05-13T16:54:00.000+01:002014-09-18T14:48:07.915+01:00Ten Things Not to Say to a Person with SchizophreniaI've seen a few of these types of blog post around, for various mental health problems, so I thought I'd do one for schizophrenia. These are ten things I've heard from people that, although sometimes said to try and help, have been extremely unhelpful.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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<b>1. That's the one with multiple personalities, isn't it?</b><br />
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I've heard this one twice I think, in hospital from other patients. Schizophrenia is NOT multiple personalities, despite the common myth. Multiple personalities is the disorder now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. The myth stemmed from the translation of the word schizophrenia, which translates from Greek to mean 'split mind'. This doesn't mean that the mind is split into different personalities, it means that a mind is split from reality.<br />
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<b>2. Have you ever been violent towards anyone because of your illness?</b><br />
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I've heard this one a few times and the answer is still no. Violence with schizophrenia is the exception rather than the rule, despite all the stories of schizophrenia and extreme violence in the news. Let me put it this way. About 1% of the population suffers with schizophrenia, which would mean that as there's approximately 63 million people in the UK, there are around 630,000 sufferers. If we were all violent, or even if the majority of us were violent, do you not think that stories would be on the news more often? So don't ask this question. Odds are, the answer is no.<br />
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<b>3. Have you tried not listening to the voices?</b><br />
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This one is something that has been said in the nicest possible way but is still highly irritating to hear. If voices were as simple as just not listening to them, don't you think I would have done it? Voices aren't like people. You can't walk away from voices, they follow you wherever you go. You can use music or television to try and drown them out but I've had voices that decided to get louder when I turned my music on. I do everything I can to try and drown out voices, but I can't just not listen to them. It's not that simple. By the way, this point only applies to those who actually hear voices, as not all people with schizophrenia hear voices.<br />
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<b>4. Just take the meds, then you'll be OK.</b><br />
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This one makes me want to tear my hair out. Some people seem to think that treating schizophrenia is as black and white as the meds will automatically help all people with the illness and they'll be OK forever providing they just take them. Wrong. The usual type of medication for schizophrenia is the antipsychotic. I've been on nine different antipsychotics so far, of which seven have been used in the longer term. Of those seven, three had unbearable side effects and didn't work, two had bearable side effects but didn't work, one seemed to work but had side effects that both myself and the doctors were concerned about and the seventh one, the one I'm currently on, I'm still in the early stages of taking. I don't know yet whether it's going to work and although so far the side effects are bearable, I'm only on a low dose.<br />
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Medication with schizophrenia, as with many other mental illnesses, is trial and error. Overall, I've taken fourteen different psychotropic medications for various reasons, and so far, only four have helped. None of them 'cured' me, they just took away part of what I was going through. Schizophrenia is not as simple as just taking medication, and many people have actually been cured without using medication. The treatment for schizophrenia should be as unique as the person themselves.<br />
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<b>5. Why did you come off medication?</b><br />
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This question is usually accompanied by a look that says, "Are you stupid?" Like I said in the previous point, schizophrenia treatment is not as black and white as taking medication and being miraculously cured. The reason I've had for coming off medication was because of the side effects. Some side effects truly are unbearable and no person would want to suffer them. I wrote about this in more detail <a href="http://schizophreniasucks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/why-do-schizophrenics-come-off.html">here</a>.<br />
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<b>6. How can you believe something so stupid?</b><br />
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I've had this one a few times, once from a psychiatric nurse. Delusions are another common symptom of schizophrenia and to most people, the deluded belief may sound extremely farfetched. To you, it may be clear as day that the CIA is not tracking Joe Bloggs but to Joe, he is terrified that his every move is being watched by the CIA. Telling Joe that his belief is stupid is not going to help and it will just make him think that you're not going to help him. Instead, just provide a place for Joe to talk about his beliefs if that's what he wants. Don't push him into talking about his beliefs though, as this can upset a person even more. Again, this point only applies to those who suffer with delusions as not all people with schizophrenia have delusions.<br />
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<b>7. Why won't you talk about [insert symptom]?</b><br />
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This one has been said to me both in annoyance and in kindness. The answer is always going to be the same: "Because I don't want to." I've always hated talking about things the voices said to me. Once when I was in hospital, a nurse asked me what one of my voices thought of her. Immediately, the voice told me what he thought of her, something that I will never, <i>ever</i> repeat. She could tell by my face that the voice had told me something, and she tried a few times to get me to tell her what he'd said. She only let the issue go when I burst into tears and begged her not to make me tell her. I HATE talking about things the voices say. Sometimes I hear commands telling me to harm other people, things that make me feel ashamed to hear. I definitely don't want to talk about stuff like this so please don't make me. You WILL upset me.<br />
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<b>8. You just need to get out more/get more exercise.</b><br />
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If I had a pound for every time I'd heard one of these, well, I'd have very heavy pockets. I KNOW that it's not good to sit in the house all day everyday and not go out. I KNOW that everyone needs exercise. Please stop telling me. Forcing me to leave the house when I feel anxious is only going to make me feel worse. I'll get out when I feel ready to leave the house, not before. And as for exercise, it's not a cure-all. For some reason, anything more than a brisk walk provokes strong suicidal thoughts in me. I used to go to a gym a few times a week and every time I came out, I'd feel absolutely awful. I would usually self-harm as a result of the thoughts I had and a few times I made plans to end my life because of the thoughts. I've no idea why this happens to me, but it's something that's out of my control. And don't just tell me to take a brisk walk. Like I say, if I don't feel up to doing something, forcing me to do it will make me feel worse. I do things when I feel ready to do them.<br />
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<b>9. Can't you see that you're unwell?</b><br />
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I've had a few variables of this one, the most annoying being "But you're intelligent! Surely you can see that you're not well!" If I could have seen that I wasn't well, I would have said so. Schizophrenia has a nasty habit of preventing a person from realising that they're unwell. Around 30 to 50% of people with schizophrenia fail to realise that they are unwell and trying to force them to see it will often upset or anger them. Don't try and force a person to see that they're unwell, let them reach their own conclusions in their own time.<br />
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<b>10. You can't be schizophrenic, you look so normal!</b><br />
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Again, this one has a blanket response from me: "What's normal?" You can't always tell if a person has a mental illness just by looking at them. These sort of comments always had a negative impact on me as it invoked one of two feelings. One feeling I got was making me feel like I was wasting NHS resources because if I looked OK, then I must have been OK. The other feeling I got was making me believe that I wasn't unwell. Like I said in the previous point, not everyone with schizophrenia realises they're unwell. I am one such person. Telling me I look normal when I'm unwell and not realising it is a surefire way of making me believe even more that I'm fine. So less of the, "You look so normal!" It's not always a compliment!<br />
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So that's ten things not to say to a person with schizophrenia. If you want to help, just let a person know that you're there for them and that they can talk if they want. But never force a person to talk when they don't want to. More ways to help people can be found at this blog post <a href="http://schizophreniasucks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/how-to-help-someone-with-schizophrenic.html">here</a>.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-7822789893683635472014-05-06T17:21:00.001+01:002014-09-18T14:48:17.476+01:00An Interview on Radio 2This afternoon, I did an interview on BBC Radio 2 about my experiences of being sectioned. The interview stemmed from a news story about how mental health patients sometimes have to travel hundreds of miles to receive care. That story can be read in full <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27285555">here</a>. In January of this year, I had to travel 60 miles as that was where the nearest bed was. However, for this interview, they wanted my experiences of being sectioned, something that has happened to me three times.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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In this interview, I come in at 3:56. NOTE: To jump straight to my bit, you may need to leave the audio file to load a little while depending on your internet speed.<br />
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<br />Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-70605631467524189122014-04-28T13:51:00.002+01:002014-09-18T14:48:27.150+01:00Back on Meds...Those who have read my blog or Twitter recently will know that I came off my medication a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, things headed south quite quickly and as a result, I am now taking risperidone. I'm still gutted by this; I don't like medication and absolutely hate the side effects but I also hate feeling the way I am now. Plus, I'm only on a low dose (2mg) of risperidone so hopefully I won't get side effects. It feels like a negative thing to be back on meds but I'm desperately trying to tell myself that a low dose is no big deal.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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I've been in a pretty bad place the last two weeks or so, I tried to hide it until the Easter weekend was over but I didn't do a very good job. When I did finally tell my mum, she'd known for a week that I'd been struggling. The last few days have been quite tough too, today is the first time in I'm not sure how long that I've sat in the lounge with the curtains open. This morning was the first time I saw daylight since Thursday.<br />
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I've one of my support workers to thank for that. She came round this morning to see me but I wasn't up to it at all. However, she persisted and eventually I agreed to open the curtains and sit in the conservatory. As I say, it was the first daylight I'd seen since Thursday and it felt so good. My mood has lifted a bit and I'm now sitting here with the curtains still open. I'm grateful for all three of my support workers as I get on with them well and feel like I can tell them anything. I usually see someone three times a week (this week it's only twice) and it's done me a world of good.<br />
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I'm yet to see my CPN since things have been bad; I see her this Wednesday. I'm really nervous about it as I'm not sure what she's going to say. There's no way I'm going back into hospital and as I don't believe I'm section-able, I keep telling myself that the appointment is going to be OK. I'm not a danger to anyone, myself included, so I can't see how anyone would section me. It's what I keep telling myself anyway.<br />
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On a cheerier note, I was interviewed by the Sunday Express the week before last about the weight gain side effect of antipsychotic medication. I was supposed to hear last week about the piece and although I'm still waiting to hear back, I do believe the piece is going ahead. It may be this Sunday that the piece goes live; I checked yesterday's Express and it wasn't in that.<br />
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Also, I was contacted a while ago by a production company wanting to interview me about a possible place on a Channel 4 documentary. I didn't hear from them for ages so I assumed that it was a no, but this morning they phoned me again. I'm going to Skype with them shortly about the documentary. I'm still not sure if I want to go through with it, after all, if I do, that's my semi-anonymity gone. (For those who didn't know, Katy Gray isn't actually my real name.) But I do want to take part in it, to try and do a bit of stigma-bashing and possibly open up more chances to help reduce stigma. I'll see how the Skype goes and report back.<br />
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So that's how things are at the moment. I'm struggling with writing at the moment, I've had really bad writer's block for months now. But I'll try and keep writing updates on my blog as that's something at least.<br />
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Bye for now!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-26945586262696949582014-04-21T21:07:00.000+01:002014-09-18T14:48:40.503+01:00A Third Interview on BBC Radio 5 LiveOn Friday, I did another interview on Radio 5 Live about the effects bullying had on me. It was quite last minute and I was again quite nervous about doing it but once I got on air, my nerves eased. This is the recording of the full story. I come in at 1:57 and then again briefly at 7:00.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-17137166849292327702014-04-02T20:37:00.000+01:002014-09-18T14:49:24.807+01:00A Day of ImprovementsToday has been a good day. This morning, I was finally able to drive for the first time in around three months and while I was a little bit rusty to start with, I soon started gaining confidence. I've probably done around sixty-odd miles today and I'm feeling confident enough to drive without my mum sat beside me like she did today.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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I also saw my GP today. I have been gradually coming off all my meds and on Tuesday (all being well), I will have my first completely med-free day in five-and-a-half years. I am completely off the lorazepam now and am having no problems from it anymore. My GP was the one to guide me through the lorazepam reduction and I am so grateful for his advice about it. The reductions he guided me through went smoothly and I'm glad that I took his advice rather than listen to my psychiatrist, who didn't believe me when I told him I was addicted to it.<br />
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The meds I am currently taking are amisulpride (an antipsychotic), lansoprazole (for nausea) and procyclidine (to prevent side effects from the amisulpride). I will be stopping the lansoprazole either tomorrow or the day after and I will stop the procyclidine the day I stop the amisulpride, which will be on Monday night.<br />
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Anyway, as I said, I saw my GP today in an appointment which lasted about two minutes. He simply asked how the medication reductions have been going and if there have been any problems. As the reductions have gone well with no problems, there was no real reason to stay any longer. So my GP told me that he would see me in two weeks and said that if there have been no problems with the final reductions, he won't have to see me anymore. This is a good step because my last few appointments with him have been almost as brief as today's appointment. They're wasting my time as well as his so I'm glad that all being well, I only have to see him once more.<br />
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This blog post is another improvement. Admittedly, my last couple of blog posts have been things I wrote last year. I haven't done any writing for over a month. But tomorrow, I start attending a creative writing group and I'm hoping that this group will help kick-start me back into writing. In February, I wrote that I was being published by <a href="http://www.szmagazine.com/index.php/sz-magazine-menu/sz-magazine">SZ Magazine</a> in May; they've asked me to write a second article for them, so I'm hoping that if the creative writing group gets me back into writing, I'll be able to honour their request. The group meets every first and third Thursday of the month and I'll be attending with one of my support workers.<br />
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So finally, things are starting to go back to what's normal for me. I am definitely through the worst of this relapse and everyday I'm gaining mental strength. I worry that things could start going wrong again quite quickly, but as I'm taking things easy, I hope that I am worrying for nothing. I'm trying not to think negative thoughts but they sneak into my mind very easily!<br />
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One last thing, if you're on Twitter, you may not have noticed that I changed my Twitter account. I am now <a href="http://twitter.com/KatyGraySZ">@KatyGraySZ</a> and have deleted my old account. My email address has also changed so if you want to contact me, it's now katygraywrites@gmail.com<br />
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Bye for now!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-78851190283252085622014-03-27T17:54:00.001+00:002014-09-18T14:49:32.403+01:00The Game That Never Should Have Been InventedDuring my time in the first psychiatric hospital I was in, I noticed that the cleanliness of the ward left a lot to be desired. For one, I noticed a giant dust bunny beside my bed on the first night I was in that was still there when I was discharged, eight weeks later. A cleaner visited the ward everyday, but she generally just restocked the toilet roll and paper towels. About twice a week, she would mop some of the floors with disinfectant so strong that breathing became difficult and many eyes started watering.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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The ward had three dormitories, each with five beds and a small bathroom, which had a toilet, sink and shower but no bath. There was a public bathroom, which had a bath that patients could use, but it was shared between the whole ward. Each dorm was given one small toilet roll a day, but this toilet roll was so thin (seemingly one-ply), that we rarely had toilet roll left after lunchtime. The roll provided wouldn't have lasted a day for one person, never mind five! And that’s not even taking in consideration the fact that a lot of psychiatric medication, antipsychotics especially, cause havoc with the bowels. The situation was ridiculous. My parents would bring in tissues for me to use and other patients had the same idea.<br />
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One morning during my third week in, I noticed that the staff toilet had a small pyramid of six toilet rolls on top of a cupboard. Thinking that I had solved the toilet roll situation for that day at least, I walked into the staff toilet and picked up one of these toilet rolls. I was nearly back at the dorm when a healthcare assistant (HCA) told me to put the toilet roll back. I told her that our dorm bathroom didn't have any toilet roll but she just shrugged and told me to ask the cleaner.<br />
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I asked her where the cleaner was but the HCA didn't know. I told her that I would go and look for the cleaner but the HCA told me I wasn't allowed to leave the ward. I asked if she would find the cleaner and get a toilet roll for us but she said she was busy. Getting extremely frustrated, I asked what I was supposed to do with no toilet roll despite there being six spares in the staff toilet. The HCA shrugged.<br />
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“Not my problem.”<br />
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After this, I invented a game called 'Steal the Toilet Roll'. I would wear my baggiest jacket and pretend to be going into the public bathroom as it was next door to the staff toilet. The public bathroom had a similar toilet roll problem. Due to the positioning of the staff toilet and the public bathroom, I could close the bathroom door noisily from the outside, but not be seen by the nurses in the office. After closing the bathroom door, I’d take a toilet roll from the staff toilet, hide it under my jacket and then open the bathroom door, pretending to have just walked out. I would then get to the dorm as fast as possible without raising suspicion, and share the spoils with my fellow patients. I was never caught.<br />
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A couple of weeks later, the unit manager came around to speak to all the patients individually to make sure we were all OK. She only visited the ward three times during my eight-week stay, but each time she always seemed to try her hardest for all the patients, a stark contrast to most of the nurses and HCAs there. That morning, she spoke to another patient in my dorm first, who had quite a few complaints about the hospital. However, after emphasising the toilet roll situation, the unit manager seemed quite shocked. Once she had spoken to everyone else, she sought out the cleaner to make sure we always had plenty of toilet rolls. She told the cleaner that if she ever found out about us going short again, she would be taking action!<br />
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From then on, we were given around three toilet rolls a day, which was just enough. Not having to steal toilet roll was a relief. After the unit manager’s input, I only had to steal toilet roll once, and only did this because I believed asking a nurse or HCA again would result in a similar situation to the one previously.<br />
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Being provided with sufficient toilet roll isn’t in the Mental Health Act as far as I’m aware, but surely it is very wrong not to be given any when it is needed? Especially when a patient is detained under the MHA and can’t leave the ward to get more! I’m just grateful that my parents were able to bring those tissues in for me, and that the other patients in my dorm had access to tissues too. I’m not sure what patients in the other dorms did, but the situation was ward-wide, except in the staff bathrooms.<br />
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When psychiatric nursing is done correctly, it can impact positively on a patient and even reduce the length of time a person is in hospital for. When it is done incorrectly though, the impact on a patient can cause them to become even more unwell and lengthen their stay. It can have lasting damage to a patient, affecting them for years after their stay.<br />
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A psychiatric hospital is a place where people who are suffering with their mental health should be able to feel safe in as dignified a manner as possible. Psychiatric patients are human beings, and should be treated as such. There are too many negative stories of psychiatric wards. There needs to be change for the better, and fast.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-78019647291389370132014-03-12T15:38:00.000+00:002014-09-18T14:49:41.806+01:00Weight Gain and MedicationTwo days before I was sectioned for the first time, I needed to buy some new trousers for work. The ones I was wearing were a UK size 10, but despite using a belt, they were far too big. The ones I found that I liked only properly fitted me in a UK size 6, but I decided not to buy them. I left the city centre, and made do with the trousers I had been wearing for work that night. It turned out that that night would be the last time I would work for a considerable length of time.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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In hospital, I was forced into taking the antipsychotic olanzapine (Zyprexa), and soon, I could feel that my appetite had increased. However, by this point, I hadn't eaten any solid food for about a month and was living off Ensure Plus drinks (a nutritional substitute) instead. The Ensure Plus always seemed to make my appetite increase, but the olanzapine was causing my hunger to be extremely painful. Even after I started eating properly again, I found that I could not stop the chronic pains from hunger.<br />
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Pretty soon, my favourite size 8 jeans were too tight. Then, after being discharged from that hospital, I began eating like a horse. I would eat a pretty large breakfast, lunch and dinner along with three snacks a day. Despite the snacks consisting of carrots, grapes and other fruits, it didn't prevent me from gaining a considerable amount of weight. Moving up to size 10 jeans only lasted a few weeks, if that. By the time I came off olanzapine, three months after starting it, I was up to a size 12 - three sizes bigger in as many months.<br />
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Coming off olanzapine slowed the weight gain, but didn't stop it. I was moved onto quetiapine (Seroquel), and was still on this when I was sectioned the second time. My weight continued to increase as I took this new medication. Shortly after arriving in hospital, I was taken off quetiapine and was started on clopixol in depot (injection) form instead. As the clopixol caused akathisia (painful restlessness), arguably the worst side effect of antipsychotics, and made me walk off the pain for long periods during the night, my weight finally plateaued. After three months of this, I was started on another antipsychotic that can cause considerable weight gain - clozapine. The 'zombification' (extreme drowsiness) that clozapine causes took the akathisia away, but it made my weight go up again. Pretty soon, my size 16 jeans were feeling a bit tight. Feeling extremely frustrated by this, the hospital referred me to a dietician.<br />
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As nice as the dietician was, all she ever did was make me write down everything I ate and drank, and then give me a lesson in diet and exercise. It was useless information at the time, because I am a notoriously fussy eater and hospital food is far from appetising. My parents often brought in food for me because they knew if I didn't, all I would eat was chips, yogurt and the occasional piece of Friday fish. Plus, the only exercise I could get was the odd walk with the therapies team, a game of badminton here and there and the occasional sprint away from the hospital. That last exercise wasn't a good idea.<br />
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However, due to no improvement in my schizophrenic symptoms with clozapine, my psychiatrist finally decided to dress this and my weight gain problem. He told me he would start me on a second antipsychotic, aripiprazole (Abilify), alongside the clozapine. This was to try and improve the efficacy of the clozapine but also to try and stop the weight gain.<br />
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Being told that a second antipsychotic would help my weight sounded ridiculous, but as I was so upset by my drastic weight gain in a period of less than two years, I agreed to it. However, not believing the aripiprazole would help me lose weight, I decided to start on a crash diet to try and 'kick-start' my weight loss.<br />
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The diet worked, and I lost two stone (28 lbs) in two months. I felt delighted by this, but then discovered that my psychiatrist was putting my weight loss down to the aripiprazole. I had told him and the nurses that I was doing this crash diet, which had worked, but he was giving it no credit. He even wrote a report saying that the aripiprazole had succeeded in reducing my weight! Cheesed off didn't begin to describe how I felt at that!<br />
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A short while after the weight loss, I decided to come off the clozapine as it wasn't helping me. It took around six weeks to get off it, and in that time my aripiprazole was upped to 30 mg, the maximum recommended dose. However, the day after coming off clozapine, I was very physically unwell from the withdrawals.<br />
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I suffered with an increase of schizophrenic symptoms after coming off clozapine, but they subsided after a few weeks. However, the physical symptoms I suffered from the withdrawals were extremely painful. My psychiatrist told me that I'd had a stomach bug when I started to recover, but I've never had a stomach bug that bad that lasted a week. By the end of that week of vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach cramps and intense nightmares, I felt absolutely awful. However, the relief of being off the clozapine compensated for it.<br />
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Once I had fully recovered from my clozapine withdrawal symptoms, my weight started increasing again. The weight gain was slower this time, but after a year, I had regained all the weight I had lost through the crash diet and the clozapine withdrawal symptoms. The weight gain still continued though, and in the summer of 2011, just under three years after starting on antipsychotics, I was six stone (84 lbs) heavier and six dress sizes bigger than I had been before starting antipsychotics.<br />
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With an upcoming holiday that summer, I needed to buy some clothes for my bigger size. I bought a pair of baggy shorts for that holiday and for the first time in my life, I needed to buy a size 18. I tried laughing it off, saying the sizes must have been small etc, but inside, I was really upset.<br />
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A short time after buying these shorts, I was finally allowed to come off the antipsychotics. My weight started dropping almost immediately, but the weight loss was slower than the crash diet had been. I knew that the effects of another crash diet would be short-lived, so I wanted to lose the weight in a way that would keep it off. It worked, and ever since, my weight hasn't increased. I've lost a stone and a half (21 lbs) since I came off antipsychotics in November 2011, and so far, the weight has stayed off.<br />
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The worst part of that side effect however, is having doctors and nurses implying that the weight gain is your own fault. Yes, I was eating that food and wasn't getting enough exercise, but the hunger that antipsychotics cause was definitely not my fault.<br />
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There were times I ate so much that I felt sick and in pain from overeating, but at the same time, I felt like I hadn't eaten for weeks. Feeling painfully hungry and too full at the same time was a horrible experience, and eating only gave a very brief relief. Plus, as the antipsychotics also caused intense drowsiness, getting exercise was extremely difficult.<br />
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As a picture says a thousand words, these are my favourite size 8 jeans, that fitted me perfectly before I started on antipsychotics. Underneath are the dark blue shorts I bought for the holiday just before I came off antipsychotics. They are size 18, the size I was after just three years of antipsychotics.<br />
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To put it another way, here is one thigh of the shorts on top of the waist of my size 8 jeans. Granted, the shorts are meant to be a bit baggy, but it still shows just how much weight gain antipsychotics can cause.<br />
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A while back, I heard a joke about medication and weight gain: "Oh your medication causes weight gain? What's your medication, cheeseburgers?” It’s frustrating that yet another part of schizophrenia, the weight gain that is so common with the medications used for it, is being mocked. Medication CAN cause weight gain and isn't the fault of the person taking it.<br />
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While diet and exercise is the best way of combatting the weight gain, these two methods alone aren’t always possible. When the medication is first started, the sedation can be extreme to the point of sleeping up to, and even over, 16 hours a day. Even when awake, a person can have difficulty finding the energy to walk, never mind start exercising.<br />
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One way of reducing weight gain is to exercise by doing something you enjoy. This will increase the likelihood of having the motivation to exercise. So whether you enjoy swimming, walking, or running, just do that, rather than doing something you dread doing, such as going to a gym. Eating little and often also helps, but that's not always easy with the hunger of antipsychotics. Also, know it’s not essential to eat healthily and diet everyday. I’m not sure of the origin of this quote, but remember this:<br />
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“You don't get fit from one salad and one workout. You won't get fat from one burger and one rest day!”Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-53346562525535534852014-02-21T20:34:00.001+00:002014-09-18T14:50:10.984+01:00An UpdateI realise I've neither blogged nor given a real update on how things are going with me for a while. Things have been a bit chaotic here but here's an update as to how I am.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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At the beginning of the year, I was taken back into hospital after being discharged just before Christmas three weeks previously. I was under a massive amount of stress in hospital due to an 'event' and I asked for lorazepam to help. The stress became severe and the more I suffered, the more lorazepam I took. After three weeks of up to 4 mg of lorazepam a day, the event that was causing the stress was finally over. I stopped taking the lorazepam that night only to wake up the following morning with severe anxiety.<br />
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My worst fears about lorazepam were soon confirmed. I was dependent on the drug. My psychiatrist didn't believe me however, but fortunately he still prescribed it for me. I was allowed home on permanent leave the day after the event and a week later I was officially discharged. Despite being pleased that I was allowed home, the anxiety was still very bad. It took a week for the anxiety levels to come down.<br />
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I visited my GP to ask him about the lorazepam and fortunately he believed that I was dependent on it. He gave me some extremely helpful advice about reductions and he has been helping me ever since. I have a reduction starting tomorrow morning which I'm nervous about but reassurance about it came from an unlikely source.<br />
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Yesterday, I went to my CMHT to see my CPN. She emerged from a room next to the waiting room along with several people, my psychiatrist included. I was amazed that he stopped to chat with me. He was surprised that I was still on lorazepam but seemed more accepting that I was dependent on it. He asked me what dose I was on and what I was going down to, and he pointed out something that I hadn't thought of. I take half a milligram twice a day at the moment, and the reduction is going down to half a milligram once a day. Both doses are extremely small, so I probably won't feel much, if anything when I reduce. I couldn't believe that reassurance about the reduction could come from my "you're not addicted to lorazepam" psychiatrist!<br />
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I'm still nervous about the reduction but I'm hopeful that the anxiety won't be anywhere near as bad as when I first reduced. After all, I went from 4 mg a day to 1 mg a day overnight, which is a substantial reduction. Going from 1 mg to half a milligram is nowhere near as much. So hopefully I won't have really bad anxiety and maybe even no anxiety!<br />
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Apart from that, things are going quite well. The voices I was hearing have virtually stopped, the intrusive thoughts are much better and I haven't had a visual hallucination for months. I don't believe that I'm delusional at the moment either. I'm hoping that this relapse is coming to an end. All I need is to get off lorazepam and get my anxiety levels down, then I'll hopefully be back at a similar level to where I was at six months ago when things were going well.<br />
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Overall, despite a lot of negative things in the recent past, I'm now optimistic of a positive future. I see a support worker three times a week at the moment and I'm going to start attending social groups soon with them, which will hopefully give me some confidence back. Things are definitely starting to look up for me right now, after a very bad start to the year.<br />
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So that's how I am at the moment. Hopefully soon I'll be back blogging regularly again and doing more writing for other projects. Which reminds me, I'm having a short piece published in the American magazine <a href="http://www.szmagazine.com/index.php/sz-magazine-menu/sz-magazine">SZ Magazine</a> in May, and may be asked to write for them again! Fingers crossed there'll be more on my blog here in the very near future!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-84599909715249914762014-02-07T17:31:00.002+00:002014-09-18T14:50:26.508+01:00Talking Therapies and SchizophreniaA BBC News article has written about how talking therapies can be just as effective as medication for treating schizophrenia. This is exactly what I've been saying all along! The article, which can be found <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26046228">here</a>, says that 4 in 10 patients find antipsychotic medication to be helpful, stating:<br />
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"<i>The drugs do not work for the majority and they cause side-effects such as type 2 diabetes and weight gain.</i>"<br />
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In comparison, they state that talking therapies, "<i>Worked in 46% of patients</i>" but was only "<i>available to less than 10% of patients in the UK with schizophrenia.</i>"<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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I've always said that talking therapies helped me and that I was fortunate to receive it. I had lived with the symptoms of schizophrenia for four years before receiving therapy and while I was extremely negative about how it could help me at first, it proved to be the key to helping me recover.<br />
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In my therapy sessions, my psychologist helped me to see that my voices weren't real, which was a massive turning point for me. Once I could see that they weren't real, the voices lost their power over me. I started recovering quite quickly and within six months, my voices had gone, the intrusive thoughts were drastically reduced and I was well on my way to recovery. The period of wellness lasted for two and a half years before surgery caused me to relapse.<br />
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This time around, I've not been offered talking therapy. While my symptoms are better than they were, they are not as good as they were compared to how they were after I received talking therapy last time. I am still hopeful that I will be offered talking therapy soon, but at the moment, it's not in the pipeline.<br />
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Whenever someone contacts me and asks what the best help for schizophrenia is, I always say talking therapy. Medication can be helpful for some, I've seen first hand how they can be helpful, so I don't try and put people off taking it, but talking therapy is my number one suggestion.<br />
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Bottom line, I would recommend talking therapies to anyone who has the symptoms of a schizophrenic illness. Its only side effect is feeling a bit drained after the sessions. The benefits far outweigh the side effect in my opinion so if anyone is looking for help, I would recommend asking for talking therapy. What have you got to lose?!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-82802438165914355752014-01-21T20:44:00.000+00:002014-09-18T14:50:46.927+01:00Assisted Suicide Story in the Psych WardWARNING: This post talks openly about suicide so please do not read if you are triggered at all by this topic.<br />
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Also, SPOILER ALERT: this talks about the plot of *that* <i>Coronation Street</i> episode so if you haven't watched it yet, don't read this just yet.<br />
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In the psych ward I'm in, there are three rooms where patients can access a television. One is in the main day area, one in the female quiet lounge and the third in the general quiet lounge. Last night, I was sat in the female quiet lounge talking to another patient when the night nurse walked in and told us that she was putting <i>Coronation Street</i> on in both of the quiet lounges and that it wouldn't be on in the main day area. I looked a bit puzzled so the nurse told me that there was an assisted suicide story on that night.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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<i>Coronation Street</i> (AKA 'Corrie') is a popular soap opera here in the UK. I don't normally watch it, but I became intrigued by the story line after finding out about the assisted suicide plot. When 8:30 approached, a few more women piled into the female quiet lounge and the atmosphere was rather jovial. We started joking about having our tissues ready etc and there was a fair bit of talking going on while the programme was on.<br />
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Towards the end, a male patient came over to the window and shouted 'Is she dead yet?!' making us all laugh. Giggling, we told him she wasn't and we opened the window so that he could see and hear the programme without having to come inside. Even right up to the point where the character Hayley took her overdose, the atmosphere was light-hearted. We started shouting at the television, saying things like "It's not that easy to OD!" and talked about things that had happened when we had overdosed in the past.<br />
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The thing that struck me from the night was that the story line was about assisted suicide, not just suicide in general. In the psych ward, the only real talking point that was brought up was suicide. We were joking around saying "I wonder what was in that magical potion!" and "When I tried it, I just woke up five days later in the ICU!" We weren't discussing the ethics of it, just our own attempts at ending our lives.<br />
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I wondered if it was a good idea for the nurses to let us watch Corrie last night. But seeing as how the programme got us talking about serious matters in a jokey way, maybe it was a good idea. Time to Change are always saying about how it's Time to Talk about mental health matters, and Corrie certainly did that last night. And we had a good laugh, the six of us, so why not watch it?<br />
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I understand the nurses keeping us all safe so that's why it wasn't on in the main day area. The staff wanted to have a safe haven for those who would be triggered by the assisted suicide story but gave those who wanted to watch it an opportunity to. I'm glad I was able to watch it and be a part of the light-hearted environment of last night, and it also made me see once again how much suicide affects those who are left behind. In Corrie, the person left behind was Roy, Hayley's husband. Seeing how distraught he was at Hayley's death made me see just how much it would affect my family if I were to do the same.<br />
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So an episode of Corrie got me talking about suicide in a light hearted way, made me feel less alone in that I don't really know anyone in person who has been suicidal and it reminded me ever moreso about those who would be left behind. I personally believe I did the right thing by watching it.<br />
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Oh and as for Roy and Hayley, the acting was 10/10. It really felt believeable.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-12880054594606262222014-01-14T21:06:00.002+00:002014-09-18T14:51:00.070+01:00Half a Day in A and ETo those not from the UK, A and E is Accident and Emergency, also known as the Emergency Room in other countries. Also, there is talk of hospital and psych wards throughout this piece so if you are triggered by these topics, please leave the page now.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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So last Monday (6th) turned out to be a long, difficult day. It started when I saw one of my support workers from the Intensive Support Team. I told her about some thoughts I had been having and things that voices were telling me to do. She suggested that she phone my CPN and I agreed to let her. My CPN briefly spoke to me too on the phone and asked me if I would go down to the CMHT office and speak to her there. I agreed and my mum and I travelled down there.<br />
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I was seen pretty quickly and my CPN seemed quite concerned. She spoke to me, then my mum, for over an hour and suggested either hospital or the home treatment team. I turned both of these options down and my mum and I left. However, when I got home, my problem that I had thought was manageable turned into a crisis. My mum tried to phone out of hours but was told that there was a wait on available doctors who could speak to her. WIth me worsening by the minute and my mum not knowing just how long the wait to speak to a doctor would be, she took me to A and E.<br />
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We arrived at A and E at around 6:30 pm and booked in. The woman who booked us in was quite friendly and after my mum explained to her that I was having a mental health crisis, she gave my mum a reassuring nod of the head and told us to take a seat in the busy waiting room.<br />
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It was probably a good 20 minutes before I was even called through to triage but once the triage nurse had seen me, she took my mum and I through to an interview room. We were offered tea and biscuits, which we accepted on account of only having had breakfast that day. The minutes passed and after about another hour, a doctor came in, gave the briefest of interviews and told me a nurse would come and see me shortly. Shortly turned out to be another half an hour.<br />
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The nurse who came in was lovely, and asked a lot of questions, some of which I wondered if they were necessary. Once the interview was over, she told me a duty psychiatrist would see me at around 9 pm, half an hour later. 9 pm turned into 9:30 pm before the psychiatrist arrived but she too was lovely. She asked a lot of questions, some going into what I thought was excessive and unnecessary territory. I asked her a couple of times why she was asking me all these questions but I finally managed to get to the end of them.<br />
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She told me she would admit me but she was unsure if there were any beds available in my local area. She made some phone calls and the nearest available bed was 60 miles away. She booked me in to that bed and the phone call for the ambulance transport was booked just before 11:30 pm. The psychiatrist offered me some diazepam but I initially turned it down. I asked if she had my regular night medication (Quetiapine XL) as we'd forgotten to bring it with us but she said it was unavailable in A and E.<br />
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The hours waiting for the ambulance transport passed and on a couple of occasions, the voices were so bad that all I could do was walk around in circles and was barely able to speak. The psychiatrist prescribed diazepam at this point and my mum and a nurse convinced me to take it. It was only a 5 mg dose though, so it did very little, if anything to help.<br />
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At around 2:30 am, I was shown to a small ward where I was to try and get some sleep and wait for the ambulance. The voices had other ideas though. Even when I lay down under the covers and felt exhausted, the voices had me wide awake. I started walking around in circles again and the psychiatrist phoned time and time again to the ambulance control, trying to get an ambulance for me. The nurses in the little ward I was in also kept phoning but to no avail.<br />
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Eventually, just before 6 am, the psychiatrist had managed to get some Quetiapine for me. I took it gratefully, as I hadn't been looking forward to the side effects of not taking it. They had been saying that once I arrived at the unit, I should ask them for Quetiapine, but the journey was over an hour away and at 6 am I was starting to feel the effects of no Quetiapine.<br />
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Around 6:05 am, my mum had had enough of waiting for the ambulance and told the psychiatrist and the nurse on duty in the little ward that she was taking me herself. The two of them initially tried to stop my mum, but she pointed out that I hadn't been sectioned so it wasn't a requirement to go in an ambulance. After further persuading, my mum had their all-clear to drive me there herself.<br />
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The journey took over an hour and I fell asleep on the way. The staff in the hospital I was in were nice, but the facilities weren't as good as the ones in my local unit. Plus, I was in a 5-bed ward rather than the private rooms we get in my local unit. But thankfully I was only there for two days before I was able to get a bed in my local unit where I am now.<br />
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I'm currently going through a medication change, from Quetiapine XL to Amisulpride. I've never been on Amisulpride before so if anyone has any comments on it, please leave one below.<br />
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Apologies for the massively long blog post but there was a lot to get in!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-13648629283687694172013-12-30T22:16:00.001+00:002014-09-18T14:51:19.522+01:00What's it Like to Hear Nasty Voices?This blog post is about what it is like to hear nasty voices and may contain triggers. Some people hear voices which aren't nasty and they can have a positive experience with their voices. This is about the nasty voices though, which can make life extremely difficult.<br />
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Seven years ago at the age of 18, I started experiencing my first auditory hallucination. This voice seemed determined to get me to kill myself and the first few days and weeks were extremely difficult for me as I had struggled a lot with suicidal thoughts before it started. At the time, I was at college, and I was getting in trouble a lot because I wasn't doing enough work. However, this wasn't teenage rebellion or laziness, this was because I simply couldn't hear the tutor over the noise of the voice. My concentration was poor too, and I was easily distracted by what the voice was saying to me.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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Once I was able to listen to people over the noise of the voice, things got a bit easier in one sense. However, the content of what the voice was saying was still extremely nasty and it never really got easier to listen to it. The voice was joined by two other voices after three years, and for a whole year, I was plagued by these three voices. The original voice spoke nasty things to me all the time, even in my sleep, and it would be joined by the other two in the evening. The nights were extremely noisy for me throughout this year and sleep was very difficult to achieve.<br />
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The relief when those voices stopped caused my mood to soar high from the constant state of depression that it had been. It was too high really, but with additional mood stabilising medication I was able to enjoy the new sensation of silence. The silence lasted for over two years before more voices made themselves known.<br />
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I was able to hear other people over the sound of the voices pretty quickly this time round but it wasn't easy to listen to nasty voices again. It still isn't easy to listen to voices telling me that I should kill myself or that I need to harm others and I don't think this side of auditory hallucinations really gets easier. It only improves whenever medication or talking therapy helps the voices to dampen down or silence them altogether.<br />
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I will point out here that I have never harmed anyone and I never will harm anyone. Just because I hear voices telling me to harm others doesn't mean that I will actually do what I am being told.<br />
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Hearing voices can be an extremely difficult and even traumatic experience. For those suffering with voices, distraction techniques can be extremely useful. Finding things to distract the mind from voices, such as watching television or listening to music can work well. For those who are supporting a voice hearer, the best thing to do is to make sure the sufferer knows that you are there for them and will do whatever is needed to help them.<br />
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For an audible way to hear what voices are like, my YouTube video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZSDeec41U">here</a> gives a true to life experience of this phenomenon. Be warned though, this is as real as I could make it and could trigger anxiety. Keep yourself safe.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-72488003557892552402013-12-15T22:47:00.002+00:002014-09-18T14:51:31.075+01:00Psych Wards and the PoliceIn all three of my psych ward stays, I've encountered the banter between patients about our situations. Patients, or rather 'inmates', discussing the 'jailers' (nurses and HCAs) and the 'prison' (the ward) in a jokey manner. But underneath the jokes, there is a small degree of truth in the banter.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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For patients on a section, the hospital is like a prison. They can only leave the hospital grounds with permission of doctors (the permission is known as section 17 leave), and before their first ward round, a patient cannot leave the hospital grounds at all. Some psych wards do not allow sectioned patients without section 17 leave to go beyond the ward doors, which can mean that a person is left with no access to the outdoors.<br />
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In my first psych ward stay, I had no section 17 leave until my second week in. As the ward I was in was not on the ground floor and it was a ward that wouldn't allow me beyond the ward doors, it meant no access to the outside world for nine days. Literally no fresh air for nine days. It was no surprise that I suffered with cabin fever.<br />
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Those nurses who wouldn't let me beyond the 'prison' doors really were like jailers. If attempts were made to abscond (or rather 'escape') then the emergency alarm was pulled and the escapee was physically restrained, sometimes in painful ways. On one occasion, I was dragged by my hair to my bed, and I wasn't even on a section!<br />
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I've tried several times during my three stays to break free of the 'prisons' I've been in and each time I've been fortunate in a way to have been stopped by the 'jailers'. Other 'inmates' were more successful in their escape attempts but the police were called to find them and bring them back. I am fortunate to have never had the police involved during my stays but I've seen 'inmates', friends, being brought back in handcuffs for the crime of having an illness and leaving hospital. There is a sense that this isn't right.<br />
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However, I can see both sides of the argument. I have a loved one who worked for the police for 30 years and they had many dealings with psych patients during their time as an officer. As much as psych patients don't want the police to deal with their situation, the police also don't want to spend their working hours playing hide and seek with psych patients. Currently, there's no real workaround to this.<br />
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There was news recently of mental health staff being put on the beat alongside police officers, but it didn't sound like it would make a real difference to how things currently are. There's been many times I've left the unit to go out on leave and a police car has been in the car park right beside the front door. It really does bring home the legal aspect to mental health. And seeing friends being brought back to the ward in handcuffs for having left the ward makes it really feel that police involvement is wrong.<br />
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It always sends a chill down my spine when I see a police car by the front door. All I can wonder is who it is there for. Who's run away? Are they OK? Will they be brought back to the normal ward or will they have to spend some time in the locked ward? I've spent time in the locked ward after one escape attempt too many, but fortunately only spent five days inside.<br />
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Of course, there are other people in all this. The 'jailers'. The ward I'm in currently has lovely nurses and HCAs, but I know that not all wards are like this. But regardless of how nice the staff are, they will all do the same thing when a sectioned patient runs away. They will phone the police. Some 'jailers' may feel bad about it, some may get a sick sense of satisfaction from doing it, at the end of the day, they all do the same thing. There's no workaround for them either.<br />
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The 'jailers' have the job of keeping psych patients safe. Some 'jailers' may take advantage of this responsibility and act like actual jailers, but there are some nice ones out there who will treat patients like they treat everyone else, but with the added element of keeping the person safe.<br />
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My 'sentence' in this 'prison' is almost over, but I've had some memorable moments with the legal side of this situation. At the end of this stay, all I can say with regards to the police is how lucky I am not to have had police involvement. I really hope that the current situation changes for the better, but sadly, I can't see this happening.<br />
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But I've been wrong before. And this is one circumstance where I'm happy to be wrong!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-25128772616208041212013-12-15T16:44:00.001+00:002014-09-18T14:51:47.652+01:00My Final Psych Ward UpdateAs you may have guessed from the title, I am being discharged from the psych ward soon. In fact, I'm being discharged this Tuesday (17th). It was a bit of a shock to be told last Tuesday (10th) that I would be discharged. My regular psych was off on leave for a few weeks and on the Monday before he came back (2nd), I was told by the psych who was covering him that I could stay in hospital until I got a place of my own. So when my psych came back the week later and told me that I was being discharged, it really did surprise me.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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It stressed me out a lot at first, because I had been told that I would stay in hospital until I found a place of my own, rather than going home. I'm sort of getting used to the idea, but I am hoping to get a place of my own quite quickly. Unfortunately, with the bedroom tax in place, there are no places for me to move in to. There are plenty of 2-bedroom flats available, but no 1-bed. I can't afford a 14% drop in housing benefit so it's taking a long time to find a suitable place.<br />
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If the bedroom tax wasn't there, I'd be able to get a place of my own in a 2-bed flat but the government seem insistent that the bedroom tax is a good idea. I can understand that single people occupying a 3-bed house whilst a family of four is struggling in a 1-bed flat isn't ideal, but in reality, there aren't many 1-bed flats going. 2 and 3-bed accommodation is readily available; 1-bed isn't.<br />
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So I'm getting the boot from the psych ward on Tuesday before I get accommodation of my own. My psych says that he can't justify using a psych bed for me whilst I wait for a place of my own so I have no choice about getting kicked out. I'm not sure how things will pan out on discharge, but I'm hopeful that I'll stay out of the psych ward and not get bounced back in.<br />
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Fingers crossed!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-14056911538901446722013-11-25T21:47:00.001+00:002014-09-18T14:52:07.499+01:00How I'm Doing, TruthfullyToday's ward round went well, I went in hoping to get five hours of leave so was pleased when they gave me six hours. My meds are staying the same - 800 mg of quetiapine and my body is starting to tolerate it, meaning that I'm not so drowsy anymore. It's been all positive steps today.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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But is everything positive here? The answer's a definite no. If you read <a href="http://schizophreniasucks.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-im-in-hospital-partly.html">this blog post</a> you'll see the symptoms I am currently experiencing, but in short, it's mainly delusions and hallucinations - auditory and visual. I felt like the quetiapine was helping the auditory hallucinations (voices) a bit, but in all honesty, I think they're getting worse. I'm not saying it's the meds fault, but they do seem to be getting worse, particularly at night.<br />
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As for delusions, they're really tough to handle. When you're told that what you believe is false, it really makes you wonder what other memories and ideas are false. For example, I had a delusional memory three years ago that I had a daughter. When I finally realised she wasn't real, it made me analyse my memories to see which other ones could be false. And it's the same here now. I have delusional beliefs and I don't know if I have any other beliefs or memories that are also false. It's so confusing.<br />
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Also, I really hate knowing that this is affecting my family. We're a really close family, and I hate that this is having to take a high priority when there are other things that should really be taking high priority right now. I'm infinitely grateful that my family support me regardless of how my symptoms make me view them - past delusions have made me view them in a really negative light. I'm infinitely grateful that one or both of my parents take me out every afternoon so I can have a few hours of 'normal' life again. But I'm still hating the fact that this is affecting them.<br />
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So this is the point where I'm supposed to get all inspirational and say something along the lines of "I'll fight these symptoms and not let them get me down!" but that would definitely be a lie. Truth be told, these symptoms <i>are</i> getting me down. When I could see that what I am hearing was just voices (rather than satellites), it made me a bit depressed. I didn't want to be hearing voices again. I still don't. I don't like the visual hallucinations (seeing things) or delusional beliefs either. I'm trying to fight them but it's really tough.<br />
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So no inspiration in this blog post I'm afraid. Just honesty, in that things aren't all positive. I'm not a super human who can cope with anything and everything thrown in her path. I'm only human. But hey, maybe in the near future I'll be able to blog inspiringly and honestly.<br />
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I just hope that day comes very soon.Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7607863253105913866.post-79948569316395389532013-11-18T21:06:00.000+00:002014-09-18T14:52:21.559+01:00My Experiences with Visual HallucinationsA common symptom of schizophrenia that I've not really written about before is visual hallucinations, AKA seeing things. I've written about auditory hallucinations (voices) numerous times before and even created a YouTube video on the subject, which can be found <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZSDeec41U">here</a>, but never really touched on the visual hallucination topic before.<br /> <a name='more'></a>
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Seeing things that aren't there is a very scary experience at first and there are those who find that the fear never really fades away. During my first psychotic episode (between 2006 and 2011), I didn't see things very often, so when I did see something that wasn't there, I was terrified. I would usually see faceless people dressed in long black robes, people I called 'demons'. Seeing a demon always left me fearful and even a short hallucinatory experience would leave me shaken for days.<br />
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During one incident while I was at university, I saw a 'demon' standing by the front door of my flat. I became rooted to the spot for a few moments, before I was able to get my bedroom door back open. I ran back into my room and locked myself in the en-suite bathroom. I’ve no idea how long I sat shaking in the bathroom for but when I finally stood up, I was very stiff. With shaky hands, I unlocked the bathroom door and peered around to my bedroom door. There was nothing there. I looked all around my bedroom for the demon but couldn’t see anything. I sat on my bed clutching my duvet as protection and stared at the door.<br />
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When it came time to go to work, I was still sat on my bed staring at the door. I knew there was no way I could open my bedroom door so I phoned in sick. I stayed on my bed the rest of that night. When I started getting tired, I changed into my pyjamas whilst staring at the bedroom door to make sure nothing came in. I was scared to go into the bathroom again in case the demon would somehow know and would then come into my room. But when the call of nature became too strong, I quickly ran into the bathroom and left the door open. This was the way I used the bathroom for the next few days. I had to contact work again after a few days to tell them I would be off work for a little bit longer. I didn't tell them the real reason why - that I was too scared to go anywhere near my bedroom door.<br />
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At night, I would end up lying in bed, staring at the door. I couldn’t take my eyes off the door at all and would only manage a few minutes of sleep at a time. I would jolt awake shortly after I fell asleep and would start staring at the door again. After a couple of days, I was too tired to really get out of bed and just continued to stare at the door until I was able to sleep for a few minutes.<br />
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Another problem I had was hunger. In the mini fridge I kept in my bedroom, all I had was a jar of strawberry jam, a jar of mayonnaise and a nearly empty bottle of barbecue sauce. I looked on my shelf where I sometimes kept food to find an unopened bag of sugar. I'm sure Heston Blumenthal could have made a delicious lasagne with these ingredients, but for me, it was my breakfast, lunch and dinner for about a week.<br />
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The strawberry jam was eaten first. After living off the jam for about a day, I moved on to the sugar, which lasted for about two days. When my stomach was telling me to feed it, I looked at the mayonnaise with hungry but squeamish eyes. I felt like I had a choice of either eating mayonnaise on its own or opening my bedroom door. I really didn’t want to eat the mayonnaise so I decided to shower and go out to buy food.<br />
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I had the quickest shower in history and dressed. I again grabbed my debit card and keys and ventured towards the bedroom door. I got as far as holding the door handle but I was too scared to push down on it and open the door. I took a deep breath and willed myself to push down on the door handle. I failed. Reluctantly, I sat back down on my bed and opened the jar of mayonnaise. It was disgusting.<br />
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The mayonnaise lasted two or three days. I had completely lost track of the days and how long I had locked myself in my room for. It didn’t help that I didn’t and still don’t know what day I had seen the 'demon'. By this point, the last item of food I had in my bedroom was the nearly empty bottle of barbecue sauce. I looked at it with the same look as I had given the mayonnaise but squeezed a small amount of it onto a spoon.<br />
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Finally after a day or two of barbecue sauce, I was fed up of condiments. I decided the best thing to do to start getting over my fear of opening my bedroom door would be to shut the bathroom door. I locked myself in the bathroom and had a shower. I dressed quickly and then used up all my courage to open my bedroom door. There was nothing by the front door. With the voice I was hearing at the time shouting random things at random intervals to make me jump, I managed to open the front door. There was nothing and nobody else there. I bought some proper food at last, and my first meal after just condiments was amazing!<br />
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Currently, I do see things on a fairly regular basis. I'm not as scared of these as I was with the 'demon' I've just written about, but I believe this is because I see them on a regular basis. When I first started seeing the things I currently see, I was terrified again, like I had been at university. But now that I see things so often, it's not as scary anymore.<br />
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Seeing things is very different to hearing things, but they are equally difficult to live with. The coping strategies are different too, but both types of hallucinations are treatable. Talking therapies helped with the voices I heard during my last episode, but I'm still experiencing the voices and seeing things in this episode. I've had medication (which has sometimes helped) but not talking therapy. I'm not sure if I'll get talking therapy this time around, but I'm hopeful that I will.<br />
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Visual hallucinations/seeing things are terrifying experiences for many, but with the right treatment and support, a sufferer can still live a peaceful life. Seeing things is quite common experience, so if you are someone who lives with this type of hallucination, don't feel alienated. It is common, treatable and doesn't mean that you're crazy. Visual hallucinations can be a sign of an illness but it doesn't make you mad, bad and evil. It's just a symptom, like a runny nose is a symptom of a cold.<br />
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The bottom line is, no matter the severity of a hallucination, it is treatable and doesn't make you 'crazy'. Don't give up hope or stigmatise yourself!Katy Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13384403447580393959noreply@blogger.com5