My Hell

This records my medical Hell.

Demon possession_ a psychological, spiritual, physical disorder. The demons affect my ability to think clearly.

The demons found an entrance into my mind, my soul, and my body through a  combination of genetics, both of my parents were believed to have been possessed. The demons found their entrance through the chemical imbalances of my brain and the structure of my premature brain. I was born three months premature; a direct reaction to the chemical and physical escapades of both parents.

The demons cause my thoughts to occasionally be out of touch with reality. The demons alter my experiences to cause them to be out of touch with reality; The reality perceived by the majority of people isn’t my reality. The demons cause, within me, what others perceive as disorganized speech and behavior. The demons affect my concentration. To those in the mental health profession, this is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD is just a pretty name for the demons. Because of the demons, there are days when my memory fails; it is there, then it is on vacation. The concentration and memory go and come as they please. There are also moments when the demons grant me total recall.

The medical community, The professionals, have labeled my demons' schizophrenia, Again the labels are too pretty to nondescript for the demons and episodes I experience. I have cooperated with the medical. The psychiatric community for a lifetime. From the age of two, I have been on medications. From age two; before I could speak, I was in psychotherapy and other treatments they called coordinated specialty care. At age thirteen, I underwent electro_convulsive  shock therapy. Electro_shock was torture, worse, it had no effect on the demons.

The demons manifest themselves in episodes of mood swings. When I am manic, that is how my therapist records my happiness and my good days. When I am experiencing a manic episode, my energy level is high. My need and ability to sleep is greatly diminished. 

When I am on the outskirts of suicidal depression, she says I am experiencing a depressive episode. I will agree with her up to a point. Happy people don’t contemplate ending their lives. I disagree, if she had demons dwelling inside her, she would be eccentric too. The depression episodes are intense. They can last for a few seconds to several months. In some way, my last depression episode has lasted for five years and is continuing.

When I’m held captive by the depression episodes, I experience extremely low energy. I experience an absence of motivation. I lose all interest in the things I previously enjoyed. And worse, I have suicidal thoughts. I want to die but, I am too chicken to act on the impulse. So, I seek refuge in the lyrics and music“ Because He lives, I can face tomorrow…”

Treatment has proven it is not the solution. I understand the medications, and psychotherapy is all the modern world knows to do. They haven’t got any answers. And I am opposed to being medicated for the rest of my life.

Again, the therapist says these experiences are brought on by my environment. Why can't she address that? She says there are chemical imbalances in my brain. The imbalances are triggering the episodes. I am on medication to correct the imbalances. The medications are not working. Why won’t she talk about that? She says the episodes could be triggered by some abnormal structure or structures in my brain, why isn’t she willing to refer me to the Brain Institute in Reno, Nevada. This is more than a bipolar depression disorder. I want answers. Am I wrong?

My demons are manifest as Clinical depression. Clinical depression is defined as a persistent state of a depressed mood, a lingering loss of interest and motivation. I know Clinical depression well, I lived there from age thirteen to age twenty-four.  The demons held me, prisoner, for eleven years. Then, someone, a loving husband, brought happiness to me for 31 years. Then he had to go away. My therapist says those years, the marriage, and the happiness were manifestations of my bipolar disorder. If so, the demons once could make me extremely happy. 

A new crop of demons has emerged as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I was in the house when my mother shot and killed a trespasser in Saint Martin, Mississippi. She believed she fatally shot him. She and a girlfriend spent the night searching for a body they never found. I was asleep in the house when my mother shot my father. I was with her when she constructed her plan to drive to the home, father and my stepmother shared and complete the job she botched a year before. Stronger, clearer minds than mine must weigh the evidence and form a verdict.

I’ve emerged from a very dark place. In this darkness, I felt pain in the center of my chest. At first, it felt like intense pressure pain. I describe the onset of my pain as feeling as an elephant is sitting on my chest. I am afraid. The pain is causing me to experience severe anxiety. The fear, the paranoia, the anxiety to intensify the pain and the crushing sensation. For the duration, my Life is halted. I am powerless. Diagnoses, there is none. As a child and adolescent, when this occurred my mother would slip me one, possibly two of her nitroglycerin tablets. This is Hell and the demons are in charge 

At least once, this pressure pain was followed by a lighter-than-air sensation. I was in pain yet, I felt an overall lightness. I felt faint; as if I was fainting but, I wasn’t dizzy. I wanted to stand. I wanted to walk, but, The sensation of lightness in my legs prevented any movement. Through the years I’ve learned when this phenomenon occurs, I am best off if I sit perfectly still and rest my head against the back of the chair where I am sitting.

The only restraint confining me to the Earthly realm was my skin. I felt my flesh holding me back. My skin felt extremely dry and extremely tight. I felt as if my skin was being pulled down off my scalp and face. In addition to the sensation of being skinned my flesh was stinging, it felt like ants were crawling on me, stinging me from my scalp.

 The ant was in my eyes, they were across my face. The biting, the stinging, the itching, and burning, the biting, stinging was in the lining of my mouth. 

I massaged my face. I wanted the flesh, the underlying muscles to respond, to feel normal. Begging was futile. Pleading was equally futile. Bartering was unsuccessful, it was as if I had nothing the demons were interested in. I was alone in Hell. I wasn’t going to escape. If I escaped, it would be because the demons became bored with tormenting me; not likely.

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The physical pain crawled down the left side of my neck. The sensation was one of my arteries on that side felt stiff. I thought to myself the pain would diminish if I moved. I tried turning my head from side to side. The muscles, the epidermis, were unresponsive. The unbearable pain intensified with my attempts to diminish my suffering. My tormentor, the demons, were not permitting any aid or comfort to come my way.

 The painful imprisonment continued in my left shoulder. The pain on a scale of 1 to 10, the scale was grossly inaccurate to measure the pain the demon or demons were inflicting on me. The pain I felt was best measured as a 99.5 on a scale of 100. The pain was detectable in the bones, in the muscles, The pain increased each time I touched my skin. I felt the tightness, the dryness intensifying as it snaked its way down my leg. The feeling was that of having a cast or medical brace., now, the confined cast-like feeling was strongly present in both extremities. Was I stroking out? 

The torment was unbearable on the bottoms of my feet. I felt the heat, the burning of hot asphalt on bare soles. I felt the blistering. I craved the merciful relief of standing barefoot in green grass. Alas, my tormentor wasn’t allowing any mercy for me. 

A trip to the Emergency Room revealed a low body temperature. An erratic pulse and blood pressure of 80/60. After ten cups of water, the physician felt I was stable enough to release. There was a light at the end of the dark tunnel. I was emerging.

The physician said something I didn't understand. My red blood cells were extremely elevated. The fluid in my blood cells was extremely low. Was he saying that this is dehydration? How? Why was this happening to me?

If so, why would he? Continue the fluid pills.  The answer came in the explanation there was a significant build-up of fluids behind my heart. I was experiencing A_fib and an acute asthma attack. 

Maybe tomorrow everything will be better.