It is the middle of the night here, and the ants are crawling on my body. Of course they are not ants, they are my tactile hallucination. I get this sometimes at night when I haven’t taken my meds at the proper times, or if i am stressed ,or if I haven’t been getting enough sleep. This time they are a bit worse. So what the hell, I’ll blog about them.
What do I do? I just ignore them. I have survived a decade on a low dose of medication but just ignoring my major tactile hallucinations. Sometimes it is ants. Other times it is a drop of rain. I know that if I wasn’t taking my meds I would start thinking that these fictional ants are actually signs from the Holy Spirit and go nuts. But as things are, I ascribe the phenomena to my mind playing tricks on me.
Now I don’t have voices, and I can’t say whether I would have been able to block voices the way I block the ants that crawl over me sometimes. But I would tell those fellow schizophrenics that it is worth a try.
I read this book- it was mainly anti-psychiatry so I won’t mention it’s name - it said that many people with schizophrenia managed to suppress and live with their symptoms while taking low doses of medication or sometimes none at all. I am a firm believer in medication, but I am also a firm believer that they should be kept at a minimum. The side effect from too much medication would have rendered me incapable to think or work as a programmer. So ants. Well they crawl sometimes. I just live with it.
What do I do? I just ignore them. I have survived a decade on a low dose of medication but just ignoring my major tactile hallucinations. Sometimes it is ants. Other times it is a drop of rain. I know that if I wasn’t taking my meds I would start thinking that these fictional ants are actually signs from the Holy Spirit and go nuts. But as things are, I ascribe the phenomena to my mind playing tricks on me.
Now I don’t have voices, and I can’t say whether I would have been able to block voices the way I block the ants that crawl over me sometimes. But I would tell those fellow schizophrenics that it is worth a try.
I read this book- it was mainly anti-psychiatry so I won’t mention it’s name - it said that many people with schizophrenia managed to suppress and live with their symptoms while taking low doses of medication or sometimes none at all. I am a firm believer in medication, but I am also a firm believer that they should be kept at a minimum. The side effect from too much medication would have rendered me incapable to think or work as a programmer. So ants. Well they crawl sometimes. I just live with it.
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