Sharing this now is very scary. I wrote it two years ago and hid it in a private blog. Only my first postpartum episode in 1973 had definite psychotic features.When I am manic, I occasionally find it hard to distinguish among books I have read, movies and plays I have viewed, and what I have actually experienced. And when I am manic, I remember hundreds of books I have read, movies I have seen. What fueled this episode, by far the worst one, was a pregnancy spent editing psychiatric books about schizophrenia. The most frightening fantasy/dream of that 1973 episode turned out to be straight from the surrealistic Fellini film, Juliet of the Spirits.

 I realized after reading something about Buddhism during my year of headaches etc....that made me think i could not become a buddhist ( i was serious about it, i wanted to) due to my head injury. i realized the mind is the most important factor in buddhism...and i understood that this meant i could never be a buddhist. i was flawed and useless. well, i was but this time i felt persecuted by god for the reason that i couldnt theoretically practice buddhism ever...i wouldnt be able to do it, really, i couldnt have at the time and when i most needed it and god in my life.

Well, well, well...

Mourning the pain I've inflicted on my soul for hating it because of being raised by an extremely bi-polar mother and then finding myself in manic episodes. And now, being told I'm o.k. but doubting always.

 Today I went to a new group called "beliefs group" for two hours and then had an injection of 250 zuclopenthixol.

I had hoped for more than 3 other people to turn up at group but that was ok.

 I was told in therapy that many mentally ill patients have a tendency to becoming perfectionists when it comes to dealing with their recovery.

I used to keep charts about my sleeping times, all the drugs i was taking, how many etc and my suicidal mood and general notes of the day and what i ate and which health pills i had taken.

when i was first psychotically depressive i read and researched a lot on the internet. I was hearing many persecutory voices at once and suicidal and completely insane and harming myself....i even lost control of my arm and wanted to stab myself in the stomach. I struggled against that and everything else and copied a lot of notes of Thomas S Szasz (the myth of mental illness, the case against psychiatric coercion etc etc), The verdict of the foucault tribunal, David Healy etc. It was as though i was leaving a message to myself at the time for my future, because it was definite psychiatric services would get involved. It was scary. My brother is also mentally ill who i have supported for many years and his experience made me weary of psychiatric services.

 I am new to icarus. I have been a psychotic depressive for 5 years. I also had a year or more of constant headaches and migraines due to a head injury i have had since i was 17, I am 30 now. That was the catalyst for my mental illness. I found this website through a dating website. I was too unwell at the time to join and the dating thing went terribly wrong too.