131: What if a psychotic break split your life wide open? 31:57

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I have a fear every single day. Am I going crazy and I don't even know it? Because I didn't know I was going crazy. I thought this was completely normal behavior. I didn't know the things that we're doing and the things that I was saying were so, so extreme. Welcome to the Permatemp Corporation. A presentation of the audio podcast, This Is Actually Happening. Episode 131.

What if a psychotic break split your life wide open? This Is Actually Happening is sponsored by ADT. ADT knows a lot can happen in a second. One second, you're happily single. And the next second, you catch a glimpse of someone and you don't want to be. Maybe one second, you have a business idea that seems like a pipe dream. And the next, you have an LLC and a dream come true. And when it comes to your home, one second, you feel safe.

And the next, something goes wrong. But with ADT's 24-7 professional monitoring, you still feel safe. Because when every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com today. My dad had a mental illness and it was raging when I was a little girl. And I'm talking about like three, four years old.

I remember coming home a lot to my dad in bed for days, or he'd be locked in the bathroom for hours and hours, and my mom being scared, and that was the only thing I knew. Everybody else's dad must do this too, this must just be normal. That was just kind of like the everyday thing where, you know, it was either my parents yelling and throwing things, or it was...

My dad would just always be crying and he needed like a lot of emotional support from me, even though, you know, I was five, six, seven years old. They had split up. So it was like a lot of my dad crying. I remember going to his, he lived in an apartment and I remember every time we would go over there, like my dad would just always be crying. And he would talk to me about things like suicide and things that parents should not talk to their children about.

My dad never got diagnosed with anything. He's never, you know, gone to a psychiatrist and have a legitimate diagnosis. Instead of him taking care of me, I felt like I needed to be the parent almost and take care of him and guide him.

My parents went through, you know, the whole custody battle and everything. And the original deal was that I would go to my dad's two or three times a week. So I did spend a fair amount of time with my dad because my mom worked shift work. My mom always called me her angel baby because I was such a good kid. I was very polite and I was very shy. I had a crazy imagination.

I could spend hours by myself in my room just playing in these imaginary worlds. I would be in my room and my room would transform into these like worlds that I'm escaping in and I would be this different person. It was just a way to get back to being a kid, I think for me. It was just an escape and a way to feel less responsibility. I felt like if he ever killed himself, it would be my fault because my dad told me so many times that he was going to do it.

I remember my dad dropping me off from school and telling me that after he drops me off, he's going to go kill himself. I had no idea what to do. So I had that, I had that weight on me all the time. After that, I remember seeing my dad the next day pick me up from school like he did every day and everything being just fine and back to normal. And we, I don't think we ever talked about it again. He would tell me that he got cancer, but he never legitimately ever had. He would just tell you this and he would play on it.

I would do all this research on like, you know, what are the survival rates for somebody with pancreatic cancer? It's only 5%. Oh my God. Now I know it's just another way of controlling my emotions and a manipulation tactic almost with him. He makes you feel like you're the center of the world and you're the center of his world. And without you, he wouldn't survive. He had that sense of ownership over me.

I idolized my dad as a little girl. Even though I felt such a responsibility, at the same time, I idolized him and I thought he was my hero. My mom was the most stable thing I had.

I don't have any huge specific memories because they were all just normal. They were me coming home from school and I would do my homework and I would go and watch TV in her bedroom for a little bit before I'd go to bed. And she'd let me read an hour and then come and tuck me in. She knew exactly, you know, who my dad was. Like, and that's why she left him. For some reason, my mind went to like, you need to hurt yourself. I think it was just my first panic attack that I ever had.

I just had no idea what to do. And I thought that I would never, ever see my dad again. And like all those feelings were just like, it was so loud in my head, so loud that I had to make it stop. Like something had to stop. And the only thing that like was the clearest thing that I could think of at that point was that like, you need to hurt yourself. You need, that's the only way that this is going to stop.

I started cutting, I cut my wrist and it was like this whoosh of things quieting and things. It just became silent. It was an aha moment for me that I was like, this is how you do it? This is how you stop it? I wasn't thinking suicide. I was just thinking I needed it to stop.

I think it's just directing the pain somewhere else. I think it's just your brain's way of like, because it's still pain, it's just going to be a different pain and it's going to focus on one spot. So I think it's really a survival method.

My dad also had been in a relationship, like soon after him and my mom split up, he moved in with a woman who had two children who were, you know, older, a lot older than I was. They were teenagers. And the stepbrother, he would have been 16 and over. He used to molest me. I know that it happened. I can accept that it happened.

I don't necessarily need to remember the, I never wanted to get past that memory block and remember the exact details of what happened because I don't know if those would be helpful in me healing from it. I was sitting in my bedroom. I had an impulse to go take some pills. At the time, I think I wanted to die. And I got up and I took a handful of pills and I went back in my bedroom and I sat there for a little bit.

And I just kind of like, I don't think I took enough. And so I went back out and I took more. It's a little hazy how many like I took each time. But I remember taking handfuls and handfuls each time that I'd go out there. My parents just like, you know, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just getting a drink, mom. Or, you know, I just have a headache. So I'm going to have a towel. I'm going to have some Tylenol. I just do that. I might not wake up, but I was OK with that. And then I woke up.

And I was delirious. And I don't remember a lot. I just remember I puked like all in front of my mom's door. And I think I was trying to bang on her door to tell her I was throwing up. She opened the door and I couldn't get the words out. The next thing I remember is puking on my shoes in the car on the way to the hospital and my mom calling my dad. And just the only words was, your daughter overdosed. Your daughter tried to kill herself. Get to the hospital.

It's all just fuzzy. And for the next, like, I think I was in the hospital for a couple of days. I was seriously, seriously depressed during high school. I would start at the top of the hill and then my moods would just spiral down as the snowball would just get bigger and bigger and bigger.

It would get to a point where I knew to tell my mom, like, look, if we don't do anything today, I can't promise you in two hours or five minutes or I can't control myself. I'm getting to the point where I can't physically control myself from doing something. So we need to do something. My mom was very stoic and she wouldn't. I don't remember her ever showing me that she was upset or disappointed in me. I just remember her being worried and, you know, being a mom.

I started really being paranoid. And at first it was just thinking that everybody was talking about me and I could hear them talking about me. They weren't, but I would be on the bus and I would just hear them. And I think that everybody was looking at me. You know, it went from being just sad all the time and being depressed and being angsty and angry to it being something more than that.

It was a buildup from the time when I started puberty. And so it was a buildup of in and out of hospitals as a teenager and through my high school years. And I think it was all just a gradual. And then I can't remember. Like I said, I can't remember what happened. I just moved out with a boyfriend. I moved in with this boyfriend after two weeks of knowing him. It was the first time I ever lived away from my mom's house or my parents' house.

So I just moved in with him. Like at that period when I had lived with this boyfriend and I had split up with him and all of that, and then I was in the hospital, the psychotic break happened within then. It came out of nowhere. I,

It went from being sad to thinking crazy. Like it was more than just being sad. It was, it turned into paranoia of people talking about me behind my back. And I lived in my own apartment. So like these thoughts manifested in it and they grew stronger.

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I don't remember if I had overdosed or if I had attempted suicide or I don't know how long I was there for. This part is so fuzzy to me. That point is really, the beginning point is so unclear. That was the beginning of the couple of years that this was going on and off for. I worked in a factory. I had always had earplugs and I was always solitude. It was so loud in there that I couldn't hear anything.

I was able to go to work and I was able to function. I was able to portray myself in public. But I know as soon as I came home, you know, I had posters on my wall and I had to take all the pictures down because, you know, somebody printed a camera into the picture and somebody was watching me just to make fun of me or judge me or whatever it was. That's when I started to hear voices as well.

It was somebody else's thoughts and somebody else's voices inside my own head that I was hearing. And I remember that being the most terrifying part of it, was these voices starting inside my head. And like, I think I had always kind of heard them every here and there, because that's, I think it was the same tone of voice that would tell me to hurt my, like, like when I first cut myself when I was, you know, 12, 13 years old, I think it was that same, came from that same place.

There was other symptoms as well. It started off as paranoia and then, you know, added the auditory hallucinations. And then after that, it added, I thought I kept seeing, I thought I had a ghost, but it, there was like, I thought there was a woman in my closet. I always thought there was this like woman in my closet and I'd stop sleeping in my bedroom at that point because I would, like, I wouldn't even go into my bedroom because I thought there was a woman in my closet and it really scared me.

It wasn't disassociative identity disorder, but I would disassociate so much from my own self that these other personalities would pop up. I stopped going to work. I stopped going out with my friends. I was a very heavy cutter. You know, this was something I heavily leaned on. I wouldn't particularly call it a symptom as I would a coping mechanism for myself.

like I was lonely or something like that. I just, I was looking for something. And, you know, this is when online dating started becoming, you know, something that people used often. And so I, I started, like, I made a profile on Plenty of Fish, I think it was. And suddenly I got this attention and I'd never really gotten that type of attention before. Like as a teenager, I like, you know, express myself like I was,

strictly a lesbian. And I used that word as a shield of armor instead of an actual description of who I was. It kept people away from me. I never had a boyfriend before. So I started online dating and then I started getting all this attention from men that I never ever knew I could get. I think I just got this like flood of attention, this like little loophole that like allowed me to escape a little bit from what was going inside my head.

this person that just came out, just some sort of vixen. And I started flirting a lot with men at work and then, you know, online and everything. And I think it all just kind of happened at once because like I dove in pretty headfirst. I would always have a handful of men or women that I was talking to at any given time.

I would always make sure that when I got home from work, I would have a meeting with somebody. And usually everybody in the party knew, each person knew exactly what the intention was. And it wasn't to get to know each other. It wasn't to go out for dinner. It was to have sex. It was the act that I was looking for. And it was the only time that I felt something other than

out of control. It was the only time that I felt I was in control. When I was sleeping with people, that's when I started not cutting myself as much. I thought of it as a superpower. I would have somebody that I would come home to. If that encounter ended fairly early, I'd usually have another one before bed and sometimes in the morning and sometimes during at work. There was times where I was sleeping up to four different people a day.

It wasn't as easy to have that much control when I was with a woman because there was always more emotions involved with that where I didn't want the emotions. I didn't want anything attached to it. So I found it a lot easier to be with men. The men that I seemed to attract were, you know, easier to manipulate.

95% of the time, like it was men that like it was a one night thing and I would never see them again. But there was there was a couple where like we had a mutual understanding that it was just about sex because, you know, either they were married or whatever the case may be.

Then there was like the select few where like, I actually like, you know, there was, you know, one in particular that I remember and he was just as out of control as I was. And we found this like this mutual respect in between our crazies. Like he was somebody that I wanted to build a relationship with, but I was unable to because like, you know, I wasn't, I couldn't stop my behavior, but I was, I did feel something more than just wanting to manipulate him.

I don't remember how many people. I cannot give you an exact number, but I know that it was maybe like between 600, at least one person a day kind of thing, give or take. It would probably be up there. It was such an escape for me that like it was just, I wasn't fully connected to reality enough to remember the situation and remember every single one.

As time progressed, I know that that became not enough, that it started becoming redundant. And I stopped feeling like it was an escape, that it was more, you know, like I know that it started being where like I could hear things and I would see things while the act was happening and I would have to stop people and like I, and like kick them out or, you know, leave the situation or whatever it was. So like,

The actual acts had to become a lot more aggressive and a lot more. That's when I really, I did, you know, get into BDSM. You know, somebody along the way must have introduced me to it, started experimenting with it. Receiving pain gave me peace and cleared my mind. And it brought me back down to reality instead of this, like, disassociation when I had sex and it centered me.

Over the years, like, you know, it was something that I came back to and it was hard for me to accept about myself and understand it and everything because I knew nothing about the community and nothing about BDSM. I put myself in situations that I shouldn't have put myself in because I didn't know any better. I would allow these men to come to my house where I lived and...

I would give them an open door to do whatever they wanted to do to me. I would open that door, but I wouldn't set boundaries and I wouldn't talk to them about it first or ask them what they were going to do first or anything like that. I would just tell them to stop and they wouldn't. I didn't know it to be rape, but that's what it was. I thought it was, you know, me. It was just the price I had to pay in order to feel that feeling that I was looking for.

When I said no, it didn't matter. Sometimes when it hurt too much and I was past my threshold of pain and I said, no, please stop or used a safe word if there was a safe word and it didn't end, that caused trauma instead of causing peace.

I would become somebody else or another part of me would take over. I would disassociate. I would turn into another person. Usually it was a child almost. And like, I would either turn into like a child almost. And like, I would completely just like, I would revert back to being this, this little girl that like,

That I think was just a physical representation of my vulnerability in that point. Or I would turn into, like, a total bitch. And I could, you know, fight a gang kind of personality. I don't know. Me and this other part would kind of, like, fade into each other as I was coming out of it. And, like, we would, like, pass each other on the street in my mind. I would kind of, like, understand...

that this thing was there for me. And then I come, like I would pass it and then like I would come to graduate, like really slowly kind of me, I would come back and I'd be very, very confused. Very, very tired is like every time that this happened, I'd be very confused and very tired after. You can host the best backyard barbecue when you find a professional on Angie to make your backyard the best around.

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It wasn't a secret that type of girl I was, especially at work, just because everybody talks. I

I know that I was labeled what I was labeled as and it was you know a slut or easy or whatever it may be and there was a specific incident that I remember that you know somebody that I didn't know who he was like I saw him around just because you know we worked the same shift or whatever but I never you know actually knew who he was and um he had just like come behind me and grabbed me and pushed me against the wall kind of thing and

I actually defended myself and walked away. But I think he knew who I was and he thought that that was appropriate just because of the rumors of who I was. I had quit shortly after that and I never reported it or anything. A boyfriend that I had, he found out that I was still sleeping with other people and him and I ended up breaking up. And he stalked me for a while and he had threatened me a couple of times and stuff like that. I had to get the police involved, I remember, because I was worried that he was going to kill me.

In Canada, we have something called the Canadian Mental Health Association. I had a therapist through them that would come and visit me at home. He was the first any doctor, any therapist I ever saw that I really had a connection to that I can really talk to. He was my caregiver during this entire period. He had admitted me into the hospital when everything kind of got to like the pivotal moment. I had absolutely no control.

I got a diagnosis of temporary psychosis. I think it was this time in the hospital that I got a diagnosis of bipolar disorder as well.

I started a different kind of medication. It wasn't just, you know, medication for depression or anything anymore. Like, you know, they decided to put me on like antipsychotics and mood stabilizers and the medication that I essentially should have been taking this entire time. I finally started taking it. And so the medication eventually like slowly take away those, the really overbearing thoughts like that.

I know that what I sought help for was more the darker symptoms that I had with like the hallucinating and paranoia and disassociating and all of that. That's what I sought help for. The sleeping with people, I think, was something that I didn't see as a problem or an issue or anything wrong with that because the benefit, it was the good thing about it.

A lot of my psychotic symptoms had gone away, but not completely. There were still times, especially in times of stress, where I was overwhelmed that especially the disassociative moments happened.

there was medications that would make me go even more crazy. And that would make me like, I was on a medication that like, it just kind of like really made me lose it. And, you know, I was walking down the street in the middle of like, I live in Southern Ontario, like it gets cold in the winter. And I was walking down the street in bare feet. And it just like didn't process to me that like, this isn't good. And I know that I was on a certain that was because of a certain medication, because as soon as I got off that medication, like,

Like it was just kind of an up and down of cocktail. And then I got to like a level of like my psychotic symptoms were manageable and were, you know, I were more dissipating. And this is when right around the same time that I had met my son's father.

We met online. I think I still had an account at that point. I know I wasn't sleeping around as much just like due to my libido going down and like having all those medications, I think was the main part of it. But I started talking to him and we actually went out on dates. And, you know, like I actually wanted to build a relationship with him. He was significantly older than I was. He was a figure that I looked up to and that I saw somebody to protect me.

We dated for about nine months and then we decided to move in with each other. I got pregnant that night that I moved in with him. As soon as like the shock, the initial like, oh my God, there's a plus sign, like wore off. There was never a thought if I was going to have the baby or not. It was, how am I going to do this? Just, I think a spark was ignited. A chemical was released that I never had before.

Something happened in that moment, in that night, in that little time period. Somebody turned on a light switch in a really dark room in my head that I'd never seen before.

I just remember this like ultimate shift happening within myself slowly over like the months I was like he grew. And like, I just, I came back down to earth and I found this like sense of purpose within myself that I never had in my entire life. Like I just felt like I never owned in my entire life. And I finally had this reason to live and to survive and to fight and

It wasn't about me anymore. It wasn't my life anymore. I owed everything to this human that I had created. There's a reason why we're here. And the reason why I never, you know, none of my suicide attempts really went through...

None of like I never actually like jumped off that bridge or whatever it may be was that, you know, I hadn't fulfilled my purpose yet. My purpose was yet to come. And like suddenly that was my purpose. And so I found it. And that's why it changed. That's why everything changed was because of him.

We tried to be a family, you know, it just wasn't working. We weren't a match for each other and it wasn't that, you know, we were unhealthy or anything like that. It was just at the end of the day, the reason why we were together was to bring this little person into this world and it wasn't to be together. And so we realized that we tried to do like family counseling and all of that.

It was about a year, a little bit under a year after my son was born that we finally decided to split up officially. I started seeing a psychoanalyst and he helped me heal a lot from everything that I had gone through and make sense of it all. You know, I still struggle with like, you know, bipolar disorder. I have, well, I haven't had a psychotic symptom in five years now.

For me, everybody has their own experience. I know what I experienced. I know what I went through. And I know what I still carry with me from that time and from my life and how it affected me.

After I had my son and I started therapy and everything, when we started realizing this isn't working and everything, I didn't know if it was because I truly wasn't in love with this person and I truly didn't want to be with this person or I wouldn't justify the fact that I simply can just say no and I simply can just not want to be with this person and I can simply live my own life without worry and know that I'm making the right decision for myself. And that's how I learned to trust my emotions again.

After a year or so, I met my now fiance and he's the second best thing that ever happened to me. He has a daughter, so I have a stepdaughter and we have one on the way now. So I feel like I have everything I want in this world. And I haven't had a true, I haven't had a symptom in three years now, three, four years, going on four years now.

I definitely have PTSD from that. I have a fear, an underlining fear every single day. Am I going crazy and I don't even know it? Like that is, cause I didn't know I was going crazy. This was like, when that was happening, it was normal. Like this was just like, I thought this was completely normal behavior. I didn't know these things were happening to me. I didn't realize that like,

the things that we're doing and the things that I was saying were so, so extreme. So I have this fear now of going crazy and not knowing that I'm going crazy. I have to have like my, my fiance is great at it. Like he's good at bringing me back down to earth when I need to be brought back down to earth. And like, he's just like a,

He's the lighthouse in the middle of the storm if it gets too much for me. And I know if I find him that I'm going to be okay. Or, you know, if I look at my son, I'm going to be okay that I'm here and it's fine. I'm able to understand my dad and have a healing with my dad now. You know, my dad's still the same person. He's never changed. He's probably gotten worse. But I'm able to still maintain a relationship, a healthy relationship with him now.

I always tell people, you know, if I had to go back and I had to do it all over again, but I still get the same results every single time, I would. 100%, I would. I would always, I would do it over and over and over again because it really shaped who I am and the way I see the world and the way I see people as a whole and humanity as a whole. Like, I have an understanding now. Like, I just...

I can empathize a lot more with people. I don't think I would be the mother that I am now. I don't think I would be the friend that I am now. I don't think I would be the wife that I'm going to be. It made me who I am and I'm proud of who I am. This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by me, Whit Misseldein. If you love what we do, you can join the community on our official Instagram page at Actually Happening.

You can also rate and review the show on iTunes, which helps tremendously to boost visibility to a larger community of listeners. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stay tuned. ♪

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