Hey lady, your psychosis is showing

Have you ever felt like your skin was ripped off and everything inside you including emotions and feelings became exposed? As I write it, it sounds so trivial but at the time I felt like my inner most core was being exposed to anyone who happened to be looking. Whether it was my doctor, the nurse, or the other patients in the waiting room. I walked with a severe stoop, shoulders drooping. My head was down and my hair was a long mess. I walked slow-without purpose. My eyes held no life in them and my mouth couldn't have formed a deeper frown. I had a constant trickle of tears streaming down my face and my clothes were probably the pj's I had worn the night before. I was dropping weight fast and my will to live became non existent. I woke up crying and wishing I hadn't made it through the night, I went through the day begging God to take away my pain. I approached the night panicking that I would all of a sudden turn psychotic and out of control. I felt like I had to get my skin off of me or I would go nuts. I thought about driving away and never coming back. I thought about checking into a mental ward and living my life out there. I felt like I would never feel normal or happy again. I was beyond just wanting to be happy again though, I was praying that I would make it through the day without hurting myself or anyone else. I couldn't read the newspapers or watch the news if there were stories about moms hurting their children on them. I couldn't watch dramas on T.V. I could only surround myself with icons, listen to orthodox music and read about lives of the saints. I was slipping off the edge of reality and all though I had everyone around me, no one was going to be able to save me. This was a deep deep emotional and physical sickness. Even my blood pressure dropped. For two weeks I was unable to figure out how to make a lunch for my children, I couldn't bring myself to eat and could only function minimally to maintain my own personal hygiene (I'm sure those close to me were thankful for that). I had to go to see my doctor every few days to be monitored. I don't remember how we spent Fathers Day, I barely remember the 4th of July, I DO remember turning 40 in July (which sucked) and I don't remember a vacation we took to the beach or visiting my sister in law. I lost the entire Spring and Summer and fall was fast approaching. I did somehow manage to homeschool minimally my children during this time. By the end of August I was on Paxil, Clonzapan, Welbutrin and Risperidone (an anti psychotic) and a third psychiatrist was urging my doctor to put me on Effexor on top of all of this. None of my symptoms were subsiding, they were in fact getting worse. I started having hallucinations and had thoughts that my baby didn't like me and may be possessed. (The last two thoughts are VERY common in Post Partum Depression) I realized I didn't have to wish for death after all, I was already loosing my life slowly. All of the drugs I was taking were battling each other. Some were uppers and some were downers. I was basically taking speed balls daily and how I felt depended on which drug was winning out that day. The general opinion of my family, friends and priest was to get me off the drugs ASAP. There was brief talk of hospitalization for detoxing, but that was met with severe trepidation from my doctor and her nurse. The thing was, that these people were the closest to me, they saw me every single moment of the day every single day and night. They witnessed what was happening to me. But the medical staff only knew what they saw during the office visits. This was a huge education for them as well. By the beginning of September I was crashing emotionally, mentally and physically. My daughters Godmother called me and insisted I see a homeopath she knew. This just didn't seem to be a viable option for me. We couldn't afford to spend 300.00 for the initial consultation and I couldn't make a decision for myself. This homeopath nurse practioner comes to town once a month from Portland and he was going to be here the very next day. She made all the arrangements for me and got me an emergency appointment. I'll go into those details in another posting, but I'll end with....finally I was tossed a life ring and when I reached out for it I grabbed on to it and held on to it as if my life depended on it. It did.