ADHD – being very susceptible to punishment

Photo de l'alcazar de Cordou au niveau du jardin
Illustration to embellish the site.

I think I had and still have a bit of ADHD (attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity), that I had it a lot before.

ADHD consists, for me, in having the attention that is blocked at every moment towards something more attractive than the current boring task.

I take a simple example, before if I had to do my homework or now in a period where I am distracted if I have to work for a long time, or do a mandatory task, I will force myself to do it, and psychically I will feel obliged non-stop to do it, to never stop, and like the interest of doing homework, to do the housework, to work for a long time gives a reward that seems to me no more interesting than that and that will happen in a long time, so I saturate and I do not feel the interest in doing this task. And since my mind tends to always stay in the same context, I create an obsession with having to succeed in my task, an obsession that is painful (I explain this tendency to stay focused on the same thing in this chapter:My brain remains activated in the background on what I have seen or done for a very long time after stopping this task.

That's when the urge to take your phone to watch a video or go on Facebook, or play the computer will take me and will be intense, and there, the reward is much faster and allows me to escape much more, on Youtube and Facebook, there are fun and surprising things that make me think of something other than this obligation to work and video games give me an impression of intense victory when I win who it really attracts me and for some games, they allow me to explore a world, which is distracting too. So I waste my time on nonsense, and I can really have a lot of trouble concentrating.

un ancien beau bâtiment avec sa tour à Séville
Illustration to embellish the site.
I am also writing this chapter to clarify a point I have seen in children who are suspected of having ADHD: the nervousness they have when they are cheered up which is a common symptom of ADHD, and the scathing response to their parents in those moments.

I remember that when I was being cheered up, I felt deeply humiliated, as if I was an idiot for doing this, as if we were taking the psychological advantage and feeling superior to less by lecturing me, I was embarrassed and humiliated at those times, it annoyed me to be done this, it was unfair, but since I'm nice I didn't respond badly, but the anger was there.

I believe that this child with ADHD who responded badly felt this way, when I explained to him that I scolded him first to explain why not do this before wanting to humiliate him, and that indeed it is good to explain in a neutral tone rather than condescending instead of scolding, and that indeed no one should humiliate others, and that I too felt humiliation when I was scolded, I think then that he understood it a little, and it has improved the situation it seems to me.

Impulsive obsessions (or impulse phobias):

cloitre d'une abbaye à Majorque, avec un palmier au milieu
During this period of impulsive obsessions, it was impossible for me to imagine that it was really going to calm down, even if I kept hope.
It is the fear of committing a criminal or dangerous act (fear of assaulting someone, blaspheming in a church, etc.). (wikipedia)

These impulse phobias happened to me especially after my big seizure (following the taking of a firecracker) which led me to have a treatment that I had actually needed for a long time. These impulse obsessions or impulse phobias lasted for several months, and were really heavy to live with. I was afraid that they would never stop, I could not see how they could stop because they were so intense, and I was afraid that by dint of having them I would end up taking action and / or become crazy with worry, that I would end up in asylum, I couldn't see, I couldn't conceive of them being able to leave. I suspected that the treatment I was taking should help, but my intuition made me fear that it would never stop every time one of these impulse phobias crossed my mind.

A week after taking this very concentrated firecracker in cannabis, I was no longer sleeping, and I ended up having an intense anxiety attack, my father took me to the hospital, I was afraid of ending my life in a psychiatric hospital because I was not sure that there was a suitable treatment for me, I wasn't sure if I had schizophrenia (which I knew was curable) but I feared I had an even more serious illness than can be cured. Fortunately, I was quite schizophrenic (quite an amazing sentence if you take it out of context), there was a treatment for me.

These impulse phobias that lasted several months after the start of the treatment consisted of imagining that I would end up throwing myself under the RER when I was on the platform, jumping at the head of bald people and tearing off their scalp with my teeth, nibbling my fingers, if I couldn't think of anything else.

In fact I explain to you what I remember about what was going on in my mind:

I was afraid, extremely afraid that such a thing would happen, as I knew that I was crazy, that I could not control my thinking on many subjects and worries, I told myself that logically I would never be able to control these fears of attacking others or killing them, my mind, when these fears came to my mind, made me visualize such a scenario. I told myself then that these flashes, these visualizations of these horrible scenes, as I did not control them, as I could not think of anything else, would never stop and that one day necessarily, I would risk doing this. And so I tried not to think about it to reassure myself that I could think of something else, but the next second I had a phobia of impulse and I dreaded again this and these scenes, these flashes came back to my mind and so on, seeing that I couldn't think of anything else, I panicked that I would one day end up doing this.

I didn't want these ideas, I was aware that I shouldn't have these ideas, but they still came into me.

If you have these fears too intensely, I invite you to take a stronger treatment, I should have explained this to my psychiatrist, he would have given me Tranxene or other, it would surely have relieved me!

Un éléphant et surement une éléphante à coté
The sociability which is most certainly useful for maximizing one's chances of having offspring settles in the social species. I think it's about feeling what other people are feeling to take it into account, so we can help each other.

It seems to me that having impulse phobias in no way creates a risk of taking action.

For me, now, I think there was surely no chance that I would hurt others even if these impulse phobias had lasted for several years (if you ever suffer from schizophrenia and really think you could do harm, talk to your psychiatrist who will give you treatment, it seems to me that impulse phobias never lead to doing the dreaded act, but I am not totally sure of that, I let you see with your psychiatrist if for you there is really a doubt). In my mind the fear of doing harm was intense, these ideas that I had, I told myself that they were serious if others saw them and this is also what worried me when I saw that I could not contain these ideas. I totally forbade myself from hurting others and now I think that for me there was no chance that I would hurt others.

A little in the continuity of that, for many years, I feared that I would be thought to be really dangerous if I told that I had impulse phobias, I guess today that if you tell your ideas of impulse phobias clearly, that you are afraid of doing harm at these times and that's why you think about it, but that in reality we will surely never do it, that then most people will understand that we are not dangerous but just obsessed with this worry.

Fear of being frowned upon by doctors because of symptoms

So if I told this to my doctor or my psychiatrist, I would then leave the office with a certain discomfort, the fear of being seen as dangerous for some 30 minutes, I told myself then that I had to stop thinking that my doctor thinks that, because it was in practice surely not the case, but that didn't stop me from worrying that he was worried that I was dangerous. When I was hospitalized, just to make the diagnosis of my disease and to adapt my treatment when I was doing it quite well, I ended up not supporting the look of the caregivers who, I had the impression judged me on my ideas, my behavior, as if at every moment they made a silly idea about me. I went home after a week and I was very happy because it was more tenable, it bothered me to think that the caregivers, when I was hospitalized thought that I had had impulse phobias or had some silly stereotypes about me, and that I could not fight against these silly and reductive stereotypes that they had on me, at the risk of getting upset and looking like a dangerous madman, making these stereotypes worse. There can be in some departments a real contempt for patients, when this is the case, it is unacceptable, for my case, I think it was too much concern on my part that caused especially this unpleasant feeling (even if I am a little ashamed to admit it). And I was like, "Luckily I can come home, I would have gone crazy to stay there!" creating a fear of being hospitalized, fortunately for me, never before necessary.

I didn't like to be badly perceived, which is why, sometimes when my former psychiatrist talked to me about certain subjects, I made a little head, like I did not appreciate that I could be considered sick in this way, it is the others who are sick in this way, not me, it was disturbing to be seen like this.

I will take you an example, my former psychiatrist told me about a patient who had strange ideas: Having had a homosexual son, she had as a result of this announcement a painful gynecological problem, I believe she had continuous periods, she then had the impression, the intuition that this gynecological pathology was a consequence, a divine punishment for having had a homosexual child.

My psychiatrist had told me this, I had understood it a little but not really, to draw the parallel between the strange idea that this woman had and the fact that I too could have strange ideas, make supernatural connections between events, in order to open the conversation. Only, I felt that feeling having a homosexual son as a punishment is wrong, because it is intolerant towards homosexuals to think that, which is why when my psychiatrist told me this, rather than saying: yes I also have weird ideas, I had the reaction of wanting not to look like this lady who seemed intolerant to me, for fear of being rejected for being like this and I said something like, "it's not very good to be intolerant (here I was talking about homophobia towards your son), fortunately I'm not like that".

The fact of discussing certain topics with certain patients can disturb them because they may be afraid that if we say that he has such a symptom, it is because he is someone not normal, to be rejected, that we do not really consider as our equal, of whom we make stereotypes rather than understand him. In any case, I felt this way a few years ago.

When a psychiatrist I saw at the very beginning of my treatment saw me and asked me the question "do you have any friends?" with a look that made me feel the following message: "ah yes, I see that you have no friend, admit it, it is a sign of schizophrenia", I experienced it badly, as a humiliation, as the fact that I am not worthy of being a human, that this kind of problem I had should make me consider by others as if I were not equal to them, that my thinking was abnormal and that I should not be taken seriously, since a delusional person has only false and somewhat ridiculous opinions, who are borderline funny, and that it's the not good guys who don't have friends,… that was how I felt about it.

You just have to know that it's not our fault to have symptoms,

… but sometimes the brain makes it that at its head and in a stronger way than is we feel the shame of having a symptom because we imagine the stereotypes that others will make about us when they know this. We feel that the person will not consider us human if we have that, this strong impression is in itself a symptom and at the same time a normal phenomenon, I think that a person who tells that he is schizophrenic to his friends when he is not, will still be disturbed by their gaze.

For doctors, I also saw, fortunately rarely, doctors or caregivers who despised people with psychiatric problems.

The fear that people think that I, who had impulse phobias, really wanted to kill people would have chased me if I had never had treatments.

photo d'un bouc dans une ferme qui émerge sa tête d'une barrière
Schizophrenics are nice too :).

Humans are good in general, schizophrenics too!

In the same way that there is this mechanism in the brain of almost everyone that makes us terribly afraid to hurt others if we start thinking about it, and that in the end, makes that we do not hurt people in general, this mechanism is always present in schizophrenic patients or even amplified, at least at home it was, it was amplified, I dreaded hurting others, and that's precisely why I had impulse phobias, and not because I really wanted to hurt them.

During these impulse phobias we are terribly afraid of hurting others, and this is proof for me that the innate (or almost innate) mechanism that prevents us from harming others is present in schizophrenic patients.

Even if the paranoia of schizophrenic patients can cause them to hurt people they think could threaten them, harass them, control them, spread rumors about them, the restrained is always present, on the one hand because they may realize that their paranoid ideas although invading their minds is not really founded (I believe that not all schizophrenics understand that their ideas are unfounded in the but I'm not sure about that), but also because hurting people is serious, even if you're schizophrenic.

Serotonin peak

dessin de la joconde au crayon à papier
Illustration to embellish the site.

I'm going to describe a symptom that I didn't find on the internet, I'm not sure of its name, but a psychiatrist friend told me it was called serotonin peak if I understood correctly.

Serotonergic spikes consist of getting stuck on an idea that is often a little crazy, and that the person turns if contradicted, this is a common symptom in schizophrenia.

Here is the example of one of these ideas that I had: in my city there is a place where there is a wide sidewalk and above this sidewalk there is a sign that says that you should not put a trash can in it.

As I wondered why there was this sign here, when it seemed strange to me, because there did not seem to be any interest since in this place no one had any reason to put garbage cans, I imagined something to explain why there was this panel. As at that time I was thinking about nuclear missiles hidden underground, I said to myself, if it is, the French state hid a nuclear missile under this sidewalk, in town to keep it discreet, and to avoid a problem during the launch of the missile they put a sign to prohibit the installation of garbage cans on the opening of the roof of the missile compartment. Idea a little crazy, but this idea invaded my mind, and I kept thinking about it, on the one hand it stimulated me to believe in it, but as I felt that this idea was crazy, I told myself that if I told it I would be judged by thinking that I am crazy, it bothered me. At the same time I continued to think that there was not so much reason to hide a nuclear missile in the city in this place, but also I wanted to believe in it imagining other scenarios more crazy and stimulating. And to imagine that I was contradicted, that I was considered stupid and ridiculous to think it robbed me and forced me to want to ask myself if this idea was true or not, and somewhere to believe it. Imagining people judging me on this idea was as if I was being looked at while doing my morale, that I had to stop thinking that, that it's ridiculous to think that, it gave me the impression that people judging me on this idea would have taken the psychological ascendancy if I had confessed that it was stupid, and that's why I wanted to believe that there was this nuclear missile under this sidewalk. When we tend to imagine that we are going to be questioned all the time, we can't have a neutral point of view.

Une tour ancien avec de nombreux moucharabieh vue de loin à Séville
Seville - illustration to embellish the site.

It was also an intuition, and as sometimes my intuition pushed me to have a good idea, so there too I had to follow my intuition, as sometimes my intuitions are right, this one had to be right, otherwise I would be wrong as sometimes I was wrong when I did not follow my intuition, and it would have been a shame.

This is a phenomenon that happens to other people with schizophrenia it seems to me. I remember a person on the atoute forum (the old forum before la-roue.org) who testified that after touching a stuffed animal and putting her fingers in her face, that she was convinced that there was a risk that it would be toxic to her because of the product used for taxidermy. She went to the emergency room for that, and I think it bothered her that she was taken crazy because of this story, I think the emergency staff really judged her ridiculously (I'm not sure either), I think we had to reassure her by explaining that it is very rare for substances to be toxic to this extent, and that the state would surely have made sure to ban such a product too toxic for taxidermy.

Bizarre ideas

Une vingtaines d'amoncellements de pierre sur un passage de randonnée dans la foret
I kept ideas that I considered important, which were my benchmarks during these bizarre ideas, in more calm moments, keeping certain ideas in the long term reassured me. However most of these weird ideas make me rather anxious.

I realize that I have weird ideas, but they are very fleeting, and I have a hard time describing them, I have a hard time realizing it.

These are ideas where there are supernatural rules for a fraction of a second, for example that certain things are sacred in my mind, that some people are sacred, that certain things need to be done for the future to go well.

I take such an example: I sometimes believed that nature launched us into life by giving us scores on different human intellectual abilities, and that they are somewhat supernatural entities, let's say Gods who chose these scores (a bit like role plays where we choose the capacities of the people we create at the beginning of the party, here gods would have chosen our abilities at birth) and that it is a kind of competition, of play, between these Gods to find the best distribution of these human capacities to be the most winning human, the one with the best life, who will have realized the most great projects at the end of his life. So, with this in mind, I felt that if I had certain psychic abilities like Einstein or other scientists, I had no other abilities because we could not be perfect in all areas (according to this attribution of points in the intellectual abilities that I had at birth). And it's kind of like I consider this belief to be true, even though I was aware that it was crazy to think that. I imagined myself coming out victorious from life or conversely defeated, and if I was victorious, I saw myself feeling: it is well justified because we are the best, me and my god has chosen my scores, we know how to decide.

Each time, what is constant in these bizarre ideas is the impression that there is a supernatural rule: here supernatural people or entities who will choose my intellectual abilities before I am born.

Today, and I believe that it is as a result of the gluten-free diet that I am, if these ideas come almost more to my mind, I can make them disappear if I want.

And indeed when I eat gluten or cow's milk again that contains casein that can have a similar effect to gluten, then it can happen that a few hours later I have a lot of weird ideas that come to mind.

For the mechanism of gluten on the psyche, three doctors explained to me that gluten, cow's milk casein, sugar and soy, tend to degrade the junctions between the cells of the intestine (even for people who do not have a real gluten intolerance) and that often in people with psychological problems these junctions are already a little destroyed. These leaky junctions let molecules from the food bolus pass into the blood, saturate the liver and also pass into the brain and surely disrupt the neurons a little.

dessin comme une bande dessinée d'une histoire bizarre: un cosmonaute qui tombe sur terre dans un port
Astronaut: drawing of a bizarre scenario that I created in middle school!

Here is an example of other weird ideas that I noted at the time I got it, unfortunately I did not take the time to describe well what I felt, and I do not remember what I meant exactly, it is very confusing, but I leave this text very confused voluntarily to make it clear that it is very difficult to explain his bizarre ideas:

"There is telepathy between me and Lucie (a friend), that she will realize that I have changed telepathically, so if I called her it will disturb this balance, because I will tell things that will disturb her (even if the way I talk to her can disturb her, it should not change everything? Except butterfly effect) as if calling him or not calling him would change everything. To see things in a solemn way, to shudder, to testify in front of a TV camera that I will do grandiose things, a little to see something sacred in me. And yesterday I realized that, and this constant desire to want to fry, to want to be important disgusted me and it worried me that I can not think otherwise. It did that to me after the gluten recovery. It was a good thing because, these weird ideas that were going through my mind seem to have started to disappear at that moment. And conversely imagine that by calling her I will give her tips that will save her, I will free her from a memory that stresses her, (because I feel that she is always a little stressed) and it will change her life forever.

And it is born in me the fear that if I do not take into account this strange idea, then it will hurt, for example to Lucie (this friend) in this case, so I force myself to worry about this thing, I force myself not to forget it … in reality you have to ask yourself the question, will in practice it really change your life thanks to this? Yes, no, maybe! But the impression that we must not forget this idea remains very strong."

un gros serpent sur le sol
The presence of disturbing parasitic ideas disturbs.

As a child I also had this stuff, where I forced myself to remember certain events (such as the lightning on the electrical panel in the hospital of my city at the age of 5) because it would be beneficial for me to remember it. I had the idea that keeping in mind all these important ideas and impressions would make me strong and allow me to save the world, and if I forgot them that was the end. I always have a little bit of these impressions where I want to remember ideas, testimonies, understandings of the things I do, because, I think, they will serve me one day.

I often had, and a little less now, the intuition that if I do not stay focused on an idea, that if I do not suffer psychically permanently, or that on the contrary I think of something that I should not think, then a catastrophe will happen, or that it will create an irreversible thing…

as for example that the villains of the matrix (scenario that I felt was real) take over me by detecting me in their network (because the presence of certain ideas in my mind would allow them to find me in their network according to my intuition) which would ultimately allow them to succeed in destroying humanity. A bit like imagining a conversation with a person in our mind, I felt the presence of the person who will be affected by this catastrophe in my mind (here for this example of the matrix, it was the whole of humanity) when I had these intuitions, so it pushed me to continue not to forget that. When my mind bugs, that I believe in these beliefs, rather than forgetting the presence of that person in my mind, I continue to believe in it. I feel that something bad will happen if I forget to take this into account, the negative forces will take over, and suddenly I remain stuck on this worry for several minutes by forcing myself to think about things, or on the contrary not to think about others. If I forget to take this risk into account, it will cause the problem so we must not forget to think about this problem, which pushes me to think about it constantly.

It could sometimes be beliefs not about the supernatural consequences of my thoughts, but about actions, like opening the fridge or whatever.

Here I am talking about hypochondria (the permanent fear of having a serious illness), I wonder if it is related to weird ideas:

In these weird ideas, there is the idea that comes to mind and that says that if we do not take into account something, that if we take something too lightly then almost certainly it will be serious and not taking into account it will kill us or bother us seriously. So, in this psychic state, appears the idea that we must necessarily worry about it, otherwise we will miss out. Well this kind of idea can, perhaps, make hypochondriac.

Indeed, for example a long time ago I had a red pimple with a big spot around it, so I thought that if I think it's just a mosquito bite, then necessarily I will miss a migrant erythema (which can be indicative of Lyme disease, due to a tick bite and which can cause serious psychiatric problems, which wouldn't be cool given my situation), and if I forget to think about it I won't go to the doctor to prescribe an antibiotic to prevent this Lyme disease from taking hold, and I'll become even crazier, and that everything will be lost and that I can no longer live well and make my plans, plunging me into worry.

So my intuition that it is surely serious and that it is surely an erythema migrans (so the beginner lyme disease), intimately, if I ask myself the question even if it is a good intuition, then the answer is yes.

So here the impression that if we do not take into account a thing, an idea, it will pose a serious problem, can lead to becoming hypochondriac or having strange ideas. It should be seen whether hypochondria and bizarre ideas are often associated in patients.

Feeling of inferiority – rapid fluctuation between feeling of superiority and inferiority

Photo d'un lion dans un zoo pris dans un couloir en verre, le lion est sur le couloir
Feeling strong like a lion, but it's fake.

I imagined that I could make huge discoveries because I was sure to be immensely intelligent and the next second I imagined that it was totally ridiculous to imagine this, and that it was sure that I was stupid because I had imagined this totally crazy megalo thing, or because I had just lost in a game against a friend for example. Right after I was afraid that people would know what I was thinking, that they would find me very deeply ridiculous to imagine myself super genius. I was afraid that my attitude would betray the fact that I mean that, and so every moment in the presence of people, I was ashamed of these kinds of ideas.

I imagined myself as a lion at times, but deep down the confidence in me was not there and at the slightest obstacle, I became afraid.
photo d'un lapin dans une cage dans une exposition
Here, when we are afraid, we become very small again.

Then right after both motivated by the desire to prove to myself that I am a real genius, not an idiot, and by the motivation to do great things I imagined grandiose projects that I would realize, then I fell back into the fear of being an idiot and so on.

I think that this kind of unbearable fluctuations happened to me more by getting closer to the periods of crises that happened to me during the big school holidays.

One helping thing to deal with these fluctuations is that you have to know that we all have defects and qualities and therefore that extremely few people have only defects, and extremely few people have only qualities, that's how it is.

Why delirium in the brain – the ideas of schizophrenics can be understood:

Photo de la plage de Deauville avec les fameux barrière avec le nom de nombreux grands acteurs américains noté dessus
Deauville beach (illustration to embellish the site)

For me, delirium is only the fact of feeling things very strongly, even if we may be led to think: "how can this person think that? his brain must be bubbling completely."

There are people whose behavior revolts me today, for example extremely racist people or other cases of deep selfishness. In reality although I can frankly not like them, it must be admitted that there is something going on in their minds that we can surely understand.

, for example during discussions with a friend who was still a little racist I understood that she was convinced that black people were more delinquent, lying and wanted to harm the France and people of French origin, so it makes sense to want to fire them from the France if you think that. By arguing at length, I managed to persuade her that these are mostly ideas that she had because I meet many black or Arab people and it is only rarely that they cause me problems, in the same way as white people. Although maybe after the end of this conversation these ideas came back, and I explained to him that even if, let's imagine, there is a little more delinquency among these people, then accusing them all of delinquency is a bad thing: it wrongly accuses them, makes them suffer and sets people against them.

photo de la plage de Veule les Roses en Normandie
Normandy beach (illustration to embellish the site)

It is the same for schizophrenia and other delusions: they have an idea in mind that could be understood, although sometimes during their reasoning they make shortcuts, leading to some conclusions that seem foolish, they are only half senseless in reality. These are ideas, I think, generally false, they do not realize that they are false on the one hand because they have an intuition that leads to believe that certain ideas of persecution are likely, where the majority of people think they are unlikely, and on the other hand because shortcuts are made because their mind harassed with disturbing ideas n 'can't see that there is an inconsistency in this shortcut.

The speed with which these ideas appear and the force with which these ideas persuade them is too strong to be able to fight against it by discussion, even if by discussion we can make it clear that something is wrong and that one of the ideas is wrong, the disturbing ideas will eventually come back, so we must take a treatment.

I think it's something biological that creates schizophrenia, something that kind of disrupts all the neurons. Indeed it affects a little all the functionalities of the brain: Interpretation, sight, hearing, smell, touch, will, anxiety, sleep.

Having an unbearable secret, guilt, the impression of rape of the mind

photo d'un patio en Espagne avec une fontaine au milieu
My secret garden should have been shared in my impression, as others managed to do? Laughing with friends or having fantasies were all embarrassing things to tell my family, which apparently I should have shared.

I kept a secret during adolescence: I had done a sexual thing in a situation that should not be done around my 13 years, basically it did not go very far, but it bothered me. At that time, I had such an intense libido, it was untenable, I did not masturbate because the gesture had not occurred to me, and because I found it obscene. As a result, my libido was pounding with an erection and fantasies absolutely all day. Generally facing girls I was very intimidated, but with this girl with whom I went on vacation, whom I had known for a long time, I was more comfortable, that's what pushed me to do some things a little sexual with her. I felt guilty about everything a lot, but as my libido was crazy, and as a teenager we have more trouble controlling ourselves than adult and I was quite comfortable with this girl, I still insisted to her that we do sexual stuff, even if deep down it did not go very far and that this one seemed consenting at first. When she was no longer consenting, I continued to be verbally insistent, so intense was the urge, then I stopped being verbally insistent, but it did not go any further and I did not physically force anything and nothing more happened. I believe that this kind of anecdote sometimes happens in teenagers, especially those who have a big libido and do not masturbate thus preventing the libido from dropping.

I tell this to tell the guilt in me that followed and almost a feeling of rape of the spirit that I experienced in the face of it, although I was the culprit of these acts.

I felt extremely intensely guilty, knowing that the girl I had done this to was a little depressed afterwards, I was afraid that I had destroyed her psychically forever on the one hand, and on the other hand, I felt bad about my parents. I still don't understand why I felt bad about my parents but I felt compelled to go to this girl at the same time to say my apologies, when in reality I was so intensely ashamed of it that it was very difficult for me to talk to her about it, and at the same time I told myself that I had to confess this to my parents to be somehow relieved of this weight, this unspeakable secret, to keep this secret, however this feeling of obligation to tell this to my parents, I felt it as a rape of the mind because it would have bothered me terribly to do it. This impression was going on all the time and I felt that as long as I had not apologized to this girl and my parents, this secret should totally destroy me for the rest of my life.

The solution to have a clear conscience was to confess the sexual thing to my parents… but it was not a solution, because it would have bothered me deeply, yet I continued to tell myself that I should have done it.

I told her about this again 6 years later apologizing, I was still without treatment, it seems to me that she told me that I was worried too much, I wondered if she took me for a madman given the way I talked to her.

I would like to talk to her about this again, even if it frankly still bothers me a lot, just to make sure that she did not experience it too badly since at the time even if I had insisted, I felt guilty afterwards. And of course apologize to him and explain to him the intense guilt I experienced in the face of having insisted on having the impression of having done something serious.

Lack of motivation

Photo de la mer prise d'un chemin en hauteur en Corse
Illustration to embellish the site.

Before 2020 I had a very heavy lack of motivation, I could not make an effort, and I felt guilty, I could not make myself food, and I went to the Flunch almost every meal. This laziness has decreased following the continuous intake of a lot of vitamins, omega 3 that have an effect (light but real) in schizophrenia and the transition to solian (which is known to give motivation) rather than abilify (abilify and solian are two antipsychotics) a few months before the first confinement of covid.

I constantly had the idea that doing something, like the dishes, was going to prevent me from thinking about something important and focusing and moving me forward on my projects, I felt guilty for doing nothing. I didn't feel the point of doing the dishes, even though I felt guilty for not doing it, it accumulated in the sink.

I really got to nothing in life, except as I wanted to do important projects, it made me despair.

Being intensely afraid that my life will be missed and death

maison de Guillaume le Conquérant en Normandie
The house of William the Conqueror. Was William the Conqueror megalomaniac?
I had the idea that if I didn't do a really huge project, if I didn't leave a trace on earth, my life was :), it created a dread to tell me that I would be an average guy who was born, then died, and that no one remembers. My life would be a failure.

I wanted to leave a very important trace on earth! Make projects that would mark the time!

The sight of people living their normal lives working a lot, hard, dying without a trace on earth created a scare in my mind.

I had this impression for a long time, it is following the continuous intake of a lot of vitamins, omega 3 that have an effect (light but real) in schizophrenia and the transition to solian rather than abilify (two antipsychotics) that this impression that despaired me has decreased a lot (I do not know what caused this improvement among all these changes).

dessin abstrait: un foetus sur le coté sous un arbre avec un totem oiseau en eau, et une fontaine homme totem à droite
This drawing I made in middle school reminds me a bit of death, yet it is beautiful!

So I was terribly afraid of death, of the idea that it is nothingness. As the brain and the electrical conductions of neurons stop after death, and since it is these electrical conductions that make the reasoning and the feelings and impressions that we experience, inevitably there was nothingness afterwards. It was a fear that improved after the treatment I received began. And then I said to myself something that both reassures and bothers me: we have a soul, but this is not explained by physical phenomena calculated mathematically (at least for me the physical world with mathematical consequences can not create emotions, that's what I feel), but the seat of our soul is the brain that is in the physical world and so maybe there is something really after death.

photos de pigeons dans un square
I was afraid of being a pigeon like everyone else, to be born, to live, to die, nothing more.

Derealization? – Fear of going crazy and feeling like everything is absurd?

Photo en contre jour d'une personne qui monte un escalier en pierre en pente douce entre les montagnes
Alone in my destiny and my head, I felt like the rest of the world was fake, that I was the only one there?

It seems to me that the name of this symptom is "derealization", but I'm not sure.

During those moments that come when I've experienced too much stress for too long or I don't have treatment, I feel that everything is absurd and that I'm afraid of going crazy if the intensity of this feeling of absurdity is too great.

Definition of derealization:

Derealization (DR is sometimes used) is a state of consciousness or an alteration in the perception or experience of reality that appears to be dissociated or external to oneself. Depending on the case, notions of existence or reality, usually rooted in personality, may be questioned. Derealization is in a way the concrete experimentation of a metaphysical doubt. It is not a disease per se. Otherwise, it may be a dissociative symptom that can be experienced during periods of intense and prolonged stress. Some "meditation" practices can also cause derealization. (Wikipedia)

Indeed, I was often afraid at these times, and it still happens to me sometimes that the world is not real as in the Matrix movie or that others do not have a soul, so I would be alone on earth to really live. So this can be taken for a questioning of the reality described on Wikipedia.

Un dessin au crayon à papier représentant une gare et le chemin de fer à côté dans le far west
In westerns, everyone is wild and mean for free, during those worrying times I saw the world that way.

When I was going through periods of great stress because of the fluctuations of my illness…

… I had the impression that everything was hard to live, there was a metallic tone and no warmth, humanity in everything around me and in the relationships with others, just hidden aggressiveness…

… by dint of several days in this state of mind everything became absurd and at worst I had an intense fear of going crazy. There was no benevolence in the eyes of others that I felt, just an aggressive judgment towards me to say that I should not be like that, that I think like that, that I suffer like this. And not the idea: "thin then it's hard this suffering, but it's not my fault".

I had the idea that if I was going badly and I feared that it would get worse, I was the culprit, I would have to twist in my brain the ideas responsible for it so that I could get better, I did not see myself as a victim but as a culprit at those times. It could be by dint of putting pressure on me after a large workload, that I ended up feeling this. There were only aggressive sensations from the outside, from the world, by dint of accumulation of its aggressive sensations, I think we have the impression that the world is absurd. When I didn't have treatment, it was constantly and very, very intensely that I felt that way, it was horrible. Now that I'm back under solian in low doses it happens to me a little but it remains light.

To feel this absurdity felt in schizophrenia, think of the movie Mother or watch it (if you've never seen it). Everything is deeply disconcerting, absurd, disturbing, after two hours of this film we are frankly out of whack. I had seen it with a friend, and I had thought about myself, this is what I feel because of my schizophrenia, my friend took a few hours to get back to the absurd side of this film, at that moment I was doing quite well and in ten minutes after the release, it was already getting better:(

During these periods I created ephemeral beliefs that would be solutions to my future without a way out.

In the moments when I was going very badly and sometimes now when I have too much stress, when I fear that my psyche will get worse, that I will become crazy worried for life, that I will end up in a psychiatric hospital, lost in a deep despair and a deep worry about the future that revives me every second, I still create very ephemeral little beliefs in my mind, which say that if I think like this and I continue to think like this, it will scare away my obsessions, my worries and it will save me.

Unfortunately these beliefs of being able to be saved are immediately taken into default because I immediately realize that it is foolish, which worries me intensely.

Here is one of my recent writings on the subject: "I understand that it is what I imagine of the judgment of others on me that creates derealization in me, that creates this guilt. So the moment I feel that this derealization is coming, I say to myself "I should not be afraid of the eyes of others because on the one hand it is frowned upon to be afraid of the eyes of others and on the other hand this is what in the end will give me the impression that everything is absurd, so I should stop feeling that the gaze of others as incisive." and I feel guilty for not being able to do it and staying worried."

But in the end, to do this is only to impose a nasty and aggressive judgment on me: "I must make an effort to save myself, otherwise I am cooked and it is justified", so it is a harsh and violent world constantly that I feel, with the idea that I am the culprit. These beliefs that are created were therefore themselves violent against me, I was suddenly a little defensive. a bit like in a machination.

chemin en Corse dans la verdure un peu sèche donnant sur la mer
Illustration to embellish the site.

I realize these weird ideas right now, which worries me if I'm in this mode where I feel guilty, usually I don't understand what's going on in my head at this level and these ideas get out of my mind, which is pretty much better. At the limit we should not stimulate patients to realize these ideas and understand them, because if they are trained to understand them, to highlight them in their minds, without forgetting the idea they have just had, it risks creating a vicious circle, they will make knots, and worries, if they are in this mode of guilt where they have to save themselves. This may be what happens in borderline patients in psychoanalysis where the disease can worsen or in hypnosis for schizophrenics.

This feeling that it's not okay, this fear of going crazy, it's also the feeling that if a thought doesn't go into my mind, I'm like balancing on a thread, and then I'm going to fall into the endless worry that leads to disasters.