see-flick-ing flickers headlights

too fuck loud dakka rain voices drunk cars too many cars

eyes down voices can’t see

pain good fury scratching nails neck wrist scalp

twitch cigarette hitch throat

run frozen RUN stuck hide shame

I’m over-reacting and dramatising, I’m sure of it, but I think that I may have (am) experienced a mild episode of paranoid psychosis. I’m safe at home now, but the first part of this post describes how I felt less than an hour ago. I had just walked out of the cinemas after watching Mad Max: Fury Road. There are scenes in the movie where Max has short intense psychosis. Those images really impacted me – intense flashes of disturbing images. Then I was extremely over stimulated with all the action and flames and cars and guns and and and and. I probably shouldn’t have driven home in the dark rain with headlights constantly coming at me, but I couldn’t stay on the street. I had to come home to safety. I’m still anxious as I write this, I just had to try to focus my brain to make words and sentences. I need a cigarette …

I’m pacing a lot when I stand. I tried sitting down as I had my cigarette. My toes twitched till I got a cramp in my foot. The rain heightened my anxiety instead of calming me. I keep feeling itchy on my scalp, neck and arms. My toes are twitching again.

I don’t know what is going on in my brain lately. I’m functioning okay in the day, but the nights are messed up. Anxiety just sets in, or I just get this slow headache that lasts all night. A fleeting thought: is this withdrawal? I’ve not had an episode like this before. Today was the last minimum dose of my now old antidepressants. Tomorrow I won’t take any meds and the next day I start a low dose of the new ones. I wasn’t expecting this. I was expecting a really low mood with withdrawal and lethargy, but not anxiety that has no impetus.

Bed. I can’t sleep now, but if I’m in bed maybe my body will think that it is time to sleep.  I can ride this out. It will be better in the morning.

Oh, and this is how I describe those slow headaches. I wrote this earlier before I had my little episode.

Cotton ball storm meanders around the brain.

Dull and obscuring, it pushes on the backs of eyeballs, furrowing brows.

Scalp tender, bruised from the inside.