My psychosis has hurt my trustworthiness.
No one would believe me if my paranoia was founded.
Admittedly, I’m mostly writing to untangle these feelings in my mind. In March 2021, I headed into my worst psychosis to date. It was mild compared to the episodes I watched my mom spiral into when I was a kid. She would talk about my devil eyes, the hell hounds, and the melting windows. She required multiple involuntary hospitalizations, and I have not.
Nonetheless, I can vividly remember the fears and worries that developed in Spring last year. I felt that the world was not real and that bipolar people have an ability to perceive this lack of reality, while the neurotypical person cannot. Thus, the powers at be have successfully completed a smear campaign to label those of us with ‘mental illness’ and ‘psychosis’ as crazy. Certain beliefs are to be recognized as such. Tapped lines. Simulated reality. Signs from the universe and heavens. Etc. Etc.
This campaign was obviously carried out to ensure that our loved ones and medical professionals medicate us into compliance to maintain the current systems.
I don’t believe those things entirely these days, but inklings of fear still crop up at times. My son and my friend’s son both love rainbow trout stuffies? It’s because I’m creating this reality. Both the band and the substance Anthrax come up in conversation in the same week? It’s because I created reality.
But my most pervasive paranoid concern is that my doctor’s office and telehealth calls are tapped/bugged.
There are a lot of implications here. I need to untangle my brain.
I’m going to walk through the chronology of these concerns. Where does it start? And where do I ultimately land?
Intrusive Thoughts
The spiral usually begins by contemplating my intrusive thoughts. My therapist and psychiatrist know I have them, but they don’t ask about their content and I don’t tell. And I wouldn’t tell if they did ask. Because talking about them could make them happen (which I talk about here), or the details could be recorded.
What could happen to those recordings if they fall into the wrong hands? Would I be arrested? Locked up? Would they be played for my family? The world? The results could be a disaster.
But what if keeping my mouth shut is hurting my treatment plan? What if my doctor thinks that my intrusive thoughts are relatively mild and non-disruptive, when they’re incredibly distressing and hurt my relationships?
So I can’t tell my doctor my intrusive thought content, because those details could be transmitted and hurt me or those I love.
How would my doctor respond to my fear of being recorded?
Then I come to the idea that, perhaps, I need to come clean to my providers about this concern. Because maybe they’d be better able to treat me and care for my symptoms, if they new the details.
But then, if I’m right, they’ll know I’m onto them. What will they do? Overmedicate me into compliance? Is the system large enough that they might… I don’t know. I can’t say it. Use your imagination.
And if I am right, no one would take me seriously. The smear campaign that could possibly have happened to turn the general public against those with paranoia would mean that no one would believe me. My own husband has admitted that he wouldn’t believe me and would think that I’m in an episode.
Which would, ultimately, land me more medicated or locked up.
So, what do I do?
I take the medication. I do the therapy. I divulge what I can. And I hope that, at some point, the medication makes these feelings go away.
Because, if I can’t be sure or fix the situation, I might as well be ignorant.
I feel helpless. If I’m right, I can’t fix it. And if I’m wrong, I’ll never be convinced. There is never an explanation or a fact that will prove me wrong.
