Question:
Dear Unknown, There are doctors and therapists that sometimes monitor this group. They would be more qualified to give you a diagnosis than those of us that are just here for support, like me. You will find a lot of support here, there are others here that have similar experiences to yours. I’m not so sure that you have PTSD, but again, I’m not qualified. I would recommend the best thing would be to get yourself a good therapist and stick to some therapy for awhile. It appears you definetely have some childhood issues to explore, which may shed some light on the things you describe. Look at your addictions as self medicating. Explore why you need to self medicate, try to see what is underneath and motivating you. Some of what you describe sounds like Post Drug Impairment Syndrome. That could be from the LSD. However, I think maybe there was something there long before you discovered LSD. Sometimes all the self medicating we do just complicates the matter immensely. Some people suffer from PDIS from LSD, some don’t. Kinda depends on the quality control of the acid you encountered. Good luck to you…… Jim
Response:
jpmock wrote: > Dear Unknown, > There are doctors and therapists that sometimes monitor this group. They > would be more qualified to give you a diagnosis than those of us that are > just here for support, like me. You will find a lot of support here, there > are others here that have similar experiences to yours.
It would be unprofessional, IMO, for a therapist/psychiatrist to make a diagnosis purely on the content of a post in a news group. But I do agree that you WILL find support here so please don’t be a stranger. "Post early and often", as they say. > I’m not so sure that you have PTSD, but again, I’m not qualified. I would > recommend the best thing would be to get yourself a good therapist and stick > to some therapy for awhile. It appears you definetely have some childhood > issues to explore, which may shed some light on the things you describe.
Here too, I agree. You need the one to one contact with a therapist and a psychiatrist you feel comfortab with. Stick with someone for awhile, it takes time for trust and comfort to build in a therapy setting…but don’t feel you can’t change if you feel things are not working btwn your therapist/psych. and you. Just my $.02 worth
Response:
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!!!!!! HOW DO I FIX THIS PROBLEM!!!!! Problem: About 19 or 20 years, maybe earlier, I started having a lot of daydreams. These day dreams would be, and still are, very terrifying and frustrating. These daydreams would be about people doing things to me, or saying things to me, that I did not like. Examples would be the people in my day dreams calling me a parasite or cutting me off over and over when I talk. There are many other examples of things and people which I will list later. These day dreams are almost always about people that I have meet. If I can not remember what the person looks like my mind will give him a face and I will have the day dreams about them. The day dreams are about things that these people did to me or might do to me if they had the chance. These daydreams happen a lot. Almost half of my time is spent having these day dreams. I do not realize that I am day dreaming, when I am day dreaming. When I do realize, I stop day dreaming. Shortly after that another day dream starts. I am able to function in life but at a reduced capacity. I pass up the street that I want to get off on, drive through lights, and generally take longer to complete tasks than I would without the interruptions of my day dreams. In the day dreams the people bother me and I get and more upset (terrorified and furious, in the day dream, and in reality) until I become violent in the day dream. In the day dream I start choking these people. In reality, while I am choking these people in my day dream, I start choking myself. I do not stop my breathing but I hold my neck and squeeze. Most of the mussels in my body will be tightened. I start rocking back and forth as the day dream becomes more and more violent. Suddenly I realize I am day dreaming, that people are looking at me, and I stop, very embarrassed. If I am punching the person in the day dream I start punching myself in the face. Once again without realizing it. I do not hit myself in the face hard enough to give myself a black eye but I hit fairly hard. I twist back and forward in reality while fighting in the dream. If in the day dream I shoot a person, then in reality I would make the noise of a gun going off at the same time. The day dreams are very real. I see the people as clearly, and get as terrorified, as if it was a nightmare and I was sleeping. One time while I was having one of these day dreams I ran into the back of a stopped car. I did not see the car until I was about 20 or 30 feet way from it. I was going 55. Luckily no one was killed but I think I did give a couple of kids whiplash. I got sober at 21 because of the pain of these day dreams. I thought they were just a symptom of my drug addiction and alcoholism. I have been sober to this day (9+ years) but the day dreams continue. I do not seem to be getting any better. I thought this condition would pass or at least get better but it has not. The day dreams are not just about people from my far past. As I encounter new people I may start having day dreams about them. I am now thirty so the dreams have been going on for about 10 years. I started taking Anafranil and then Prozac also on and off at about 23 years old. I am currently taking 50 mg. of Anafranil and 40 mg. of Prozac. I still have the day dreams and often drive by the exit I should take because I am busy day dreaming. While I am taking the medicine the day dreams usually do not get so intense that I hit or choke myself but I will make the bang noise when I day dream about shooting people. I also still rock back and forth in reality when I am fighting in my day dreams. When the day dreams become very violent I will realize I am day dreaming and it will be over. The anxiety does not go away immediately after the day dream is over. I notice that I am anxious after the dream is done. Since the dreams happen regularly I am almost always anxious. This is even with the medicine. The strange thing is that even though I am having these day dreams half of the time I still manage to drive (not that well mind you) and work as a computer programmer. I am real smart and can produce a lot of work in the time that I am not day dreaming. In fact a lot of bosses have commented on how much work I can do in such a short period of time. I am respected buy the people I work with and have recently completed a degree in Computer Science and Math with about a 2.9 GPA on a 4.0 scale. I could have done much better if I had tried. When I try I usually get the highest grade in the class. At night I continue to have these dreams, at least sometimes. Sometimes at night while asleep I will kick as hard as I can in reality while I am kicking a person in my dream/nightmare. The reason I know I do this is that I sometimes stub my toe against the wall when I kick. I wake up from the pain and remember that I was having one of those dreams. Another thing I do constantly is crack my back and spine. I am always doing it. I seems to be a compulsion. I usually do not do it consciously but some times I do. I feel like I need to pop my back. If I try to hold off from popping it I get frustrated but can refrain. The compulsion is not as bad when I take my medicine but I am sure everyone that I know wonders why I do that all of the time. Drug and Alcohol history: When I was in eight grade I did not have any friends. I was an outcast and constantly getting picked on and pushed around. I saw people, the freaks, that did not get pushed around or picked on. No one messed with them. The were also popular at that time. Towards the end of 8th grade I talked to an old friend and let him know that I would use drugs if I had the chance. He came over and spent the night and we smoked some pot. I was very high and I just laid on the floor laughing. I stood up, pissed in my trash can, and said "I am going to be the biggest drug addict that ever lived". By the time I entered my freshman year I had long hair parted in the middle (up until this I had short hair parted at the side), bell bottom jeans, a tee shirt and green field jacket. I was hanging around with the biggest drug addicts in school. During high school I tried speed (caffeine) and LSD a lot of times. When I was 16 I signed up for the Marine Corps delayed entry program to enter when I got out of high school. In my junior year I flunked most of my classes in the second semester. I was getting 2 day suspensions all of the time for being late to class. Toward the end of my Senior year in high school I tried to quit smoking pot and could not. I admitted myself to a rehab center and was there for 60 days. I got out and went back to school. I went to the Marine Corps and told them all about my drug usage and the rehab center. They would have forgotten it but I did not want to go in. I was afraid and chickened out. They gave me a delayed entry program discharge. A little after I got out of the rehab center I had a conference with the principal and assistant principal. They asked me to drop and made it clear that they would not let me back in the next year if I applied. I went ahead and dropped out even though I was sober. That summer I started collage. I went to collage not because I wanted to learn but I wanted to show everyone that I was not as stupid as I felt everyone thought I was. I did real well and started going full time. I started as non-degree seeking (no high school deplomia) and moved onto degree seeking after I proved I was going to do well. I got into the Deans Collage and the National Deans collage and then I relapsed. I was sober for 9 months before the relapse and did quite a bit in that 9 months. I do not remember if during those 9 months I was having the day dreams or not. My relapse lasted 2.5 years and I have been sober every since. During the 2.5 years that I was out drinking and using drugs I tried to quit on my own quite a few times and went to recovery quite a few times. The people at recovery gave me a real hard time. One person in particular said I could not come to recovery if I was in collage. He said I had to choose recovery or collage and I chose collage. I might have avoided a lot of suffering if he would not have done that. This same person said a lot of cold things to me. Many were true which made it hurt even more. I would often stomp out of recovery meetings and get drunk. One time on my way out of the door this same guy said "have fun drinking". Many of my day dreams are about that person. He does not know this. I have seen him regularly in the 9 years of sobriety and we talk friendly when we see each other. But when I am alone I have those day dreams about him a lot. Some notes about myself that may be relevant: My memory is terrible. I can not remember things from my childhood or from yesterday. It may be brain damage or I could be a defense mechanism (or other). My night time dreams are often violent and about war. Sometimes I even enjoy them sort of. I never enjoy my day dreams though. When I was about 24 I thought that if I took Karate I would not be afraid of these people and would stop having these day dreams. I took Karate for several months. I was getting good at it and they advanced me to a yellow tip on my belt. Note that I would not put the yellow tip on my belt and after a few weeks I dropped out. While I was taking the Karate I believed I could beat the people up that I was having these dreams about. Instead of the day dreams stopping the players in my dreams would come with friends. I would be in the same position except that I would be fighting more than one person. When I am not taking my medicine I get so crazy with the day dreams, especially when alone, that I will ask God to kill me. If I had to live without the medicine and I did not think I was going to get better I would most likely put myself out of my misery by … read more »
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