Maybe a year and a half ago, now, I was having a stressful day. I remember being in the car parked outside a friend's house, ready to leave, talking on the phone to my ex husband. I don't know what we were talking about, but it got me quite worked up. That night, I went home, and I actually felt "fine". I felt calm and okay. I had forgotten about the conversation and was minding my own business in my bedroom. The tv was off. The record player just sat there mute. The box to the cable tv, however, began to glow. The red and blue indicator lights were more like eyes looking back at me. All around me, I heard jazz music! Clear, detailed, music with many parts, including a muted trumpet. It was as if someone had turned on the radio. But the tv box could not and cannot play music. The record player was further away and it still was unplugged. I sat and just listened from about three feet away on my bed. I wanted to write the music down. If ONLY I was better at transcription! And yet, I knew in my mind that as real as this music was, it was my brain doing this. It was my BRAIN making the hallucination of detailed, beautiful jazz music OUTSIDE my head! I kept sitting and listening- staring at the box, which still stared back with its mismatched eyes. Soon, it began to talk to me. It said how horrible I was. It told me to "look at me!" and to "pay attention to me!" All commands and ALL very demanding and sinister. I ignored it, knowing it was just a box and it couldn't hurt me, even though it was talking to me. After a little while, I got bored of the box's demands, and got up. When I did, I saw the box melt, Dali-style, over the table it was on. I left the room and went downstairs. When I got back to my room, it had reset itself back to normal. No more demands, no more music, and no more melting.
Two years ago now, I was working at a factory as a temporary worker. The floor was a typical factory- big, dirty, and loud. You couldn't hear someone talk out there unless they were right up in your ear. This particular day, I had gone to the bathroom just off the floor. In there it was quiet as the offices that were adjacent were empty for the evening. Just as I was about to leave the small bathroom, I heard a woman's voice say something to me. Then there was a man's voice right after. I didn't need to look around: there obviously wasn't anyone there. I continued back to my station out on the floor and just as I got there, I heard another voice say something to me, this time a woman. Now I KNEW I was hallucinating, as I would DEFINITELY see someone talking to me to be able to hear them out there. They didn't scare me as they weren't saying anything derogatory, but I did take note. My feeling at the time was that I was over-worked.
The last time was also the most recent. I was at a doctor's appointment, but in an office I don't usually go to. As I waited to go in, I heard music playing. Just the usual muzak you hear quietly over the speakers in an office. I didn't think anything of it. It played the whole time I was there. When I left, to go to the pharmacy, something got to me that this wasn't quiet right, so I went back to the office. No music. I asked the office staff about it. No, they said, they didn't have any music playing, and in fact, the music system had been broken for quite some time! There was, however, someone at a back desk with a radio on low, but it was doubtful, they said, that I could hear it- and I couldn't. The music had been "louder" than that, anyway!
I had been sitting in a coffee shop with a good friend. The "bar" table was up against a wall of windows. As I sat and drank my mocha, I stared at the parking lot. In front of me was a yellow beetle- a fairly new car, at that. All at once, it began to slowly melt. First, its left side headlight, SQUOOSH! Then, it slowly sprung back to normal. Then other parts followed suit, almost slyly. Then it would sit there, staring, solid as anything withe the cold winter light reflecting off it. That was the end of that entertainment!
One I'd forgotten, is one I had before I was diagnosed as bipolar. I had been wandering around the block in my neighborhood. The world was hyper-real. All the colors were very vivid. The flowers were bright pink and purple. I felt detached from reality, like I was floating along. As a turned the corner, I saw a little girl walk up to a porch alone. I thought she was going to enter the house, but she had no time to. Nor did she have time to start walking down the sidewalk. She simply walked up to the door- and disappeared! (There was nobody else around. And I don't believe this was a "ghost".) I now know that this episode is called "derealization", but this was the episode that made me seek help from a doctor, as I recall. In fact, the first doctor I saw, was not mine, but someone else in that same office and he diagnosed me with premenstrual dysphoric disorder! (Otherwise known as "PMDD".) Even after I was referred to a psychiatrist's office, they were reluctant to diagnose me with bipolar for sure, for at least six months, I think. Over time, though, my symptoms have consistently shown that I'm bipolar 1 and that is what's in my record.
No comments:
Post a Comment