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I've had panic attacks before, but this was slightly different. It felt the same in the way that I got these awful thoughts that I couldn't ignore, just COULDN'T. But I wasn't nervous or scared or paranoid, just upset.

My mom, for clarification, is borderline obese, and though I'm just moderately overweight, I can't seem to lose weight for anything. I just gain, I never lose. I hate it when my mom buys junk food (I live with her) and I try to impose restrictions like only one serving per day. I always talk myself out of it. "Oh, just this once..." "I haven't eaten much all day..."

So, I'm trying to sleep last night when I hear the clink of a spoon on a bowl. It must be my mom eating ice cream. Clink, clink, clink...

For lack of a better word, this drove me insane. I was furious, and no matter what I did, how much I tried to talk myself down, I couldn't. I punched my mattress a few times, I bit down on my mouth guard (I grind my teeth in my sleep), I pulled my hair, I got up to say something to her, I forget what, but then I started pacing. Just clenching my fists, pacing the length of my apartment, telling myself "let it go, let it go..." I was just furious and I guess I wanted to hit something (not really someone), I wanted to scream, I cried and banged my head against the wall, trying to do something to get my rage out without waking up the neighborhood. I told my mom we were disgusting, and hideous. I apologized, but it was like I couldn't stop the insults, I couldn't just calm down and go to sleep.

My mom asked me if I was hallucinating, if I was on drugs. This kind of threw me off, but I was able to say no (I wasn't). I took some Ativan, but it just didn't work fast enough. I was just pacing, feeling this unquenchable rage that just wouldn't go away. Adding to my irritation, it was really, really hot inside the house and you only got a breeze outside. I finally just dragged my sleeping bag out onto the porch and went to sleep there.

I wish I knew how to describe this. I wasn't hallucinating, I didn't have any physical symptoms like with a panic attack, I was just angry and frustrated and I couldn't calm down. I just want to know what it is. I've never read about anything like this.

Has this ever happened to you, or anyone you know? What is it called? How is it treated? Don't tell me Haldol and restraints... sad

I've had episodes such as those in the past... not so long ago.. maybe a year ago(or a bit more).

For me this is how it triggered:

1)My parent's already knew I had some kind of a mental illness.
(I had a paranoid-delusion manic episode when I was first diagnosed with bipolar.. last time I saw a psychiatrist they said it was Schizo-affective disorder.)

2)I had been stressed out for the last couple of weeks about something... I don't remember what exactly... I think I wanted to rejoin my church, and that is a tough thing to talk about in my family because nobody is interested in religion but me. Anyway I wasn't able to sleep at all the whole night.

3) I got out of bed early while it was still dark after a long night of just lieing there unable to sleep or stop thinking. I get that when I can't stop thinking due to stress or whatever. Anyway I got up to make them breakfast I think.

4)When they saw me up in the morning really early, they both started asking a lot of worried questions.

5) I have always been very protective about how much other people will tell me about 'how im doing,' as I used to find that whenever me and my mom argued - she would blame it on my illness and tell me to go 'take my medication.' .. I guess she didn't mean it but maybe just had to say something in the heat of the moment.


So I kept arguing quite strongly that I was fine... I think also at this point my over talkitiveness was worrying them. (They take it as a sign of feeling me to 'high').


6)Things got out of hand. I had no control over the situation because before I knew it they were both calling in sick leave and calling up the psychiatric emergency lines because they thought I was about to snap.




So yeah... basically I thought I was fine... maybe a bit jittery from lack of sleep... but they were absolutely worried or something else... they kept alternating between yelling at me ... or in my moms case bursting into tears then yelling at me again. It was the strangest thing... but most of all it was frustrating because there was nothing I could do to convince them I was fine.


So anyway... the angry part...

Once the whole ordeal of getting taken to the local mental health unit and basically just getting prescribed some medication was over...(stronger stuff then what I take now.. Zyprexa (Olanzapine) On the way back getting driven, I just felt this uncontrollable rage. I didn't want to be mad at my parents... but I was.

At first I was quietly seething about it. But I think at some point I was talking about how bad a day it had been, and I kind of just yelled out. I think I also punched the side of the car door as well.

I saw a psychiatrist again about it later that day but they said I needed to take something... so I went home a little less angry, took the medication and just sat down and fumed until I was too tired stay awake.



These days stuff like that doesn't happen. I sleep regularly, which is largely because I take Seroquel (Quetiapine) every night. It's a much more agreeable drug then the last one I was on... I am able to wake up ok in the mornings and get on with what I have to do... all the bad times in my illness are in the past. I would say my life is pretty much normal.


Maybe you should quietly see someone about the issues you have.

Stress is not something that is easy to control on your own, and in our cases these kind of things happen when it gets out of control.

Trust me that it is better to have a psychiatrist figure out the illness you are facing and get some kind of therapy... either a prescribed rest period from work or school if you need it, or possibly some of the medications that are out today. That is better then the kind of scene you can make if you snap. You won't happily think back on those sort of things.

What we take today is so much better then what people had to deal with in the past... the side effects were much stronger... and for some people this was just too much of an obstacle.



(edit- I haven't been here for ages... and I notice that you seem to be kind of familiar with the whole coping with a mental illness thing... so sorry if I came across as patronizing or something.)