Closed Eye Visualizations

  It's hard to talk about my hallucinations and delusions, but they do tend to do a spiral dance to oblivion. Before I discuss MY experiences with closed eye visualizations I want to prepare you for WHY I'm even bringing them up. They're not characterized with my disorder or even seen as a bad thing. People take drugs to see things that aren't there and meditation can be done to bring them up. It's a fascinating thing really because I've always just had them, my first recollection was in grade school. To attempt to bring this all together: Iceberg memes are common, so if we were to view schizophrenia as an iceberg, the diagnosis is just the tip. From my observation as a patient, just an unfortunate subject to the field, they tend to view sufferers as a ship. but in this metaphor what can a patient do to avoid sinking? Take your meds, obviously but in my experience that's like the spiffy features on the Titanic that were supposed to make IT unsinkable - medication is not some advanced sonar equipment or something like that, we aren't there yet. I've seen it work in stabilization but how much of that is psychosocial, having a "sterile" environment and the sedative nature of the medication itself? I'm not on some crusade against the drugs because I'm crazy, more or less I'm just upset about almost dying taking them. I don't like the way I've been treated by all kinds of MD's and though this is not wholly a mental health issue, it's what effects me the most. Maybe I'm an iceberg and the ships I could sink are just individuals or aspects of society. I realize that last bit could be a case for grandeur, but let's focus on the iceberg instead as a way to explain what I'm getting at. To avoid grandeur I am the ship.

  If the tip of the iceberg is schizophrenia - we're fine, nothing to see here, medication works really really well. Take your meds and you won't sink. That's the deceptive part here, the disease is being handled more like a floating chunk of ice devoid of any real danger underneath. Obviously professionals KNOW there's more to recovery than just that and they don't pretend otherwise but yet their job is to modify the ship to withstand impact if it happens. 

  Then it only makes sense that below the surface we have things like poverty - in the US that tends to lead to imprisonment instead of help, due to both stigma and federal funding.  Support systems play a huge role in avoiding a 'relapse' - one of those being the medical field. You also have stigma which could lead to loved ones ignoring the disease, I assume because there is a genetic aspect to it. Which is the next thing. But I suggest we stop viewing this as something to become resilient to and recognize it as something it is - avoidable. 

Which changes this entire concept. 

  What helps me is recognizing the signs of relapse, as I state in my last post - no medication stops the voices, if anything they become more structured. The drug that reduced the intensity of the voices the most also caused impulse control problems. So in my iceberg it starts with closed eye visuals becoming unruly. Usually when I close my eyes and try to sleep I just see a whitish light, I've found it helps me sleep to kind of focus on that as it expands and contrasts, moves around and eventually fades away with my consciousness.  Sometimes however, it's almost as if I'm dreaming but not really. A wall in a house that I've never been to, decorated nicely. On one medication I'd see what I can only interrupt as kitchens of the future with a single machine in them... no stoves, sinks, fridges or cabinets. I'd be like "okay, replicators it is" and start seeing what I can only describe as patents detailing the circuitry required for these new fangled devices. I do not have as much control over the visualizations as I did on the medication I'm on now, but they are not as persistent or long lasting either... Though I do sleep walk on this medication despite (miraculously) ending up on the lowest dose available. 

  The closed eye visuals can be disturbing, I have a great deal of control over them most of the time. They're a bit annoying or sometimes fascinating but not usually scary. The medication that made them the worst wasn't always full of replicator dreams, as initially I kept seeing my dead body laying in various dumpsters located throughout my neighborhood. I didn't have a face but I managed to train myself to transform that visual into something positive through sheer determination, grit and a tinge of luck... I think the CBD helped too but I didn't tell my doc that I had to start using it, not worth it. It's not just closed eye visuals however that link to what (invariably) sinks me into insanity. Psychosis is the main reason I go to the hospital, probably because I am SCHIZOaffective manic type not depressive. Sure, suicide attempts have happened. For example; at onset I tried to cut my wrist open because I was attempting to remove a tracking device the CIA or something placed in me, it was fine but all the things I knew made me a threat so they activated it and were sending serial killers after me.

I did realize I could die but I figured I was going to die if I left it in so it was worth the risk. I also thought my remaining family would be much more safe without serial killers finding me.

 Seeing as how a bad med combination led to my other two attempts I'd say it's a very dire situation to recognize what to expect when psychosis is lingering. Certain events can trigger mania and if left untreated psychosis is inevitable. Though closed eye visualizations do not always result in 'relapse' nor are they entirely alleviated by standard medication treatments, if I lose control of them then they will partner up with the voices, sometimes resulting in open-eyed visualizations and eventually a degradation of self. May that be an over expression of the negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia - to outright losing 'the leash' I've managed to keep on my delusions (i.e. how psychosis presents in my case). I've managed to avoid how the general public has come to see this phenomenon.

 Most notably 'psychics' claim these kinds of visualizations are the key to their gift, which is something I see less of these days. That's why I've never really shared with anyone, even when I was out galivanting with pagans, my hallucinations. I do not see them as some divine force. I'm sure Christians would consider it some aspect of "the holy spirit" which though more widely accepted, isn't a healthy approach to it either in my opinion. I've found some solace in Jungian psychology, in fact, at onset I bought the collective works of the collective unconscious. But even that is (and as far as I can tell, always has been) considered hogwash by many, if they're even aware Karl Jung existed... excuse me Carl. Seeing as how I haven't had any form of structured or accredited education on his works, I'll spare you of my half-baked understanding of it.  But I will state this; mysticism is not relevant to mental wellness. I'm just not equipped to explain it yet.