Is this anxious or psychotic?(poss-trig)
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| Tue, 02-27-2007 - 12:47pm |
So, at nearly 6 months pregnant I'm finally off the last of my meds and having what I think is the beginning of some badness. I was on such a low dose of Effexor (37.5 mg...down from 225) that I find it hard to believe it was doing anything but keeping the vertigo away at this point, but still I'm having sudden problems. Might be coincidence...might be anxiety over finally stopping. I just don't know.
So, following my last pregnancy I had ppd and some problems with serial killers. Not real serial killers, just the kind that secretly lurk in the driveway waiting for you to accidently forget to lock a window in your 100 degree house so they can come rape and murder you and your newborn...you know, the ones that live in your head. So, they've been gone for 3.5 years now, thanks to the marvels of pharmacology, but I think they are moving back in. The last couple of nights I wake from horrible nightmares about violent death, intruders, and general mayhem. This time I'm mostly the one doing the violent slaughter (in my dreams), but still when I wake it takes a long time to get past that panicking, helpless terror and risk going back to sleep. Last night I became obsessed with the idea that I needed to buy a gun to be safe. That is sooooo not me. I don't like guns. I have handled one twice in my life and only at the insistence of others (safety lessons both times) and I hated it both times. Besides, I have a 4 year old in the house. In the daylight I know I don't want a gun. I remember last time though, when the night stuff started hanging around 24/7 and I'm nervous about my future decision making capabilities. I know it's starting to slide a bit because when I was taking my daughter to school this morning we passed a state police officer coming the other way with lights flashing. It's a rural road with light traffic and I was suddenly very certain he was on his way to my house because he was involved in tracking a dangerous serial killer....I know this has to sound stupid. I'm very seriously aware of that.
I know I have to call the pdoc if this doesn't go away in a very short time, but I was curious....Is having this sort of focused fear an axiety issue...or am I stepping off into the world of paranoid delusion. Anyone know? Anyone have an educated guess?

Sounds to me like you are having paranoid thoughts. This is one of the things a lot of bipolars who decide to have babies need to consider. When you have to stop meds you can have all these bad symptoms come back and you and your unborn child will need to have some one who will watch over you. Some bipolars don't have paranoid thoughts and some do. Do you have someone who can be with you all the time? Even a few different people taking turns? Until you have your child and get back on meds? This is something I would definately talk to your pdoc and OB/GYN about immediately!!!
I wish you all the best and please talk to the pdoc.
Tina
~ Tina ~
Thanks Tina. I think I need to call pdoc and get back on meds. I've been fighting with the idea for awhile, but I had to talk with DH today seriously about the probability. I have a 4 year old. I live in the middle of nowhere and although she goes to preschool some days we're home together by ourselves a lot. DH works a lot of hours and seems disposed toward increasing them. Right now I think I'm still making reasonably good decisions, but I'm starting to feel a bit on the hypomanic side right now and that won't last.
DH was really against me taking anything while pregnant, but I had to lay things out for him..."If you were faced with the certainty of a long long painful death and had to choose between that and a quick one at your own hand how would you choose? What if you just really really believed that a long painful death was a certainty? What if your child was in the house?" I think he's finally getting the picture that there's more risk in me being unmedicated than there is from fetal exposure to my medication. He may also be starting to understand why I wasn't so psyched to find out I was pregnant in the first place.
Mary
Mary,
I think talking with your ob/gyn and pdoc will be a great idea. May be you only need a samll dose of a med that will help. Hopefully they can come up with something that will be safe for your baby. I know women take meds while pregnant but I don't know which ones. Let me know how things are going and what your docs think.
Good luck and hang in there.
Tina
~ Tina ~
Mary,
PG hormones can do really wild stuff to our brains in the 1st place--I had really WILD dreams/nightmares (of course I hadn't been dx'd back then), but so did DD and she isn't BP (and she's been "examined" for the possibility by my tdoc who specializes in BP).
No matter the cause, I do think a call to pdoc is in order.