Have you ever lost your mind, or felt like you did (literally, not figuratively)? Perhaps from a medically or chemically induced incident?
I think I have, just once. When I was in college, living in the dorm, I came down with the flu. I was an invincible young man, and I didn’t go to the doctor. I medicated myself with OJ (by the gallon) and sleep, and that was it. Late one morning I woke up, and what I recall was that sense of paranoia that I still occasionally might feel during a dream- I remember feeling like everyone was out to get me, and it was for a specific reason- but I don’t remember what the reason was. I felt a weird sense of purpose, and went outside. I wore boxers and nothing else. When people gave me weird looks, I was sure they were part of the “they” that were against me.
Minutes later, a couple of friends spotted me, talked me out of my delirium, put me in a cold shower, and took me to the emergency room. My fever had gone down by then, but the ER doctor said that my ear wax had melted, which he said meant my fever had exceed 105 F.
If that’s really what it’s like to be crazy, then it’s terrifying.
Yes, when I was pregnant. I know people said I would be hormonal, but honestly, one instant felt like what I thought 'roid rage is like - things appeared to be covered in an red filter. I was an undergraduate in one of my experimental biology classes and became convinced that someone had stolen my experiment. I then focused on this guy in my class (that as far as I knew, we had never interacted in any way - I found out later he was the second-string quarterback) and decided he stole it, viciously and with malice aforethought. I confronted him loudly, and when he denied it (probably while looking at me like the nut I was), I physically assaulted him. He had to be over 6 feet tall, and in good shape, while I was 5’4" (still am, actually) and a little over eight months pregnant, and at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hurt him. They finally got some other women to pull me off (all the guys were apparently terrified to touch me as this was in the '80’s) and I remember screaming madly at him as they pushed me out the door. And I know I benefited from being a pregnant woman as all that happened to me was being placed in a different section. That situation was the low point - I spent the majority of my pregnancy with an absolute rage against humanity.
But it felt like as soon as they cut the cord on my son, my brain snapped back to a cool blue place and all I could wonder was, “Who the hell was that bitch and please let her stay far, far away…” My mother suggested I not get pregnant again (which I pulled off). I kept a terrified eye out for postpartum depression but that didn’t happen.
My family went on a trip to Italy after I graduated high school - for some reason, jet-lag hit me unbelievably hard. I was literally falling asleep on my feet all through that trip - I’d close my eyes for a minute, and start to fall. More to the point, there were moments when I was - sleep-walking? hallucinating? dreaming whilst awake? I still don’t know quite what was going on, but I was walking around and doing things while absolutely out of my mind. I walked into a jewelry store and tried to steal a “plus-three amulet of something-or-other”, tried to swipe what I thought was an Atari 2600 from what I believed to be an electronics store (who knows what it actually was), and spent half a day convinced I’d accidentally killed a woman I bumped into on the sidewalk.
Absolutely bizarre trip, in all senses of that word. I still liked Italy, but I wouldn’t want to feel that way again.
There have been weird moments where I get seized by irrational anger and do odd things. It’s never involved me becoming violent, at least not that I can remember. More likely I would be walking down the street when I feel an intense rage at someone (George W. Bush was the most common target) and I might started running as fast as I possibly could for as long as I could, sometimes to the point where I’d be gasping for breath and close to passing out once it ended. On other occasions I jumped as high in the air as I could, many times, before I calmed down.
I had a massive fever when I was a child, and hallucinated myself out of bed, down the hallway (which I clearly remember crawling down *on the wall, *because it was twisting so that the wall was “down” gravity-wise) and then locked myself into the bathroom because I had to stay safe from the people who were keeping me from brushing my teeth. It was very important that I brush my teeth, and I don’t remember having any particular enemies in mind, but they were after me, and if I could only brush my teeth, everything would be better.
I woke up from being passed out on the tile floor (no memory of how I got there) to find my aunt frantically trying to unscrew the door from the hinges to get me out of there.
Ish. I started taking antidepressants during college, and tried coming off of them a year later. Two months after I finished tapering off the meds, I discovered a nice layer of anxiety and paranoia that had previously been hidden by all the depression. I felt that I was starting see ‘the pattern’ that explained why people do what they do, why things happen as they do, life, the universe, and everything. I’d thought about it at previous points in my life, but this time I felt like I was really, really close to seeing and understanding. Conveniently, none of my new-found revelations went into words at all.
I also started isolating myself from my friends and thought about breaking up with the wonderful guy I was dating, not because of any legitimate reason but just because it was existentially ‘wrong’ for him to be dating me. I spent hours hiking to try to keep the anxiety at bay. The last straw was when I caught myself thinking that I didn’t want to be ‘drugged back into normality’. I restarted the antidepressants the next morning and the crazy voice in my head shut up and let me go back to my normal self within a week.
I should note that my grades didn’t suffer and no-one else noticed what was going on. I wasn’t severely loopy, but I was starting to get there. I’d like to stop taking antidepressants some day, but after that experience I’m going to be very cautious about doing so. I thank God every day that I’m living in a time and place where they’re readily available!
Yup. As a survivor of a hellhole of childhood, there are still things which will set me off. I’m desperately working on reducing the triggers for PTSD, and medication helps, but if you know how to set me off, like my younger brother does, be glad you are on the other side of the Pacific.
I’m actually much better than I’ve ever been, and the ability to recognize the insane degree of power and focus I can bring to the table has done as much as anything to help me stop it.
When you are in the middle of a flashback, and you know your life is on the line, you act appropriate for a person who is in a life-or-death situation. Of course, since we aren’t in the front lines, and people with guns aren’t after us, the behavior can seem a little extreme to normal members of society.
But if ever had to physically protect my children, all bets are off. No one out crazies the Tokyos.
After 22 years of marriage - my SO cheated on me and I went a bit ‘crazy’ - did the usual - slept around - hey I had only been with the 1 woman in all my 40 years. At times seeing 3 women at a time - got a couple of motorbikes and got my first tattoos - taking the bikes to as fast as I could go - got the ZR7 up to 145 - the Harley to 100 - on really crappy roads as well. I wrapped my Harley round a post at 80mph - I got up dusted myself off and picked up the bike - and proceeded to race my mates home - after my family heard they had a go at me and it was only after my mother passed away i started to get back to my old self - worse 4 months of my life
If I may ask, what’s the best way for other people to respond to someone who’s having a flashback? Try to get them to a different, calmer location? Don’t interfere at all? What are the signs that someone’s in a flashback as opposed to, say, drug induced psychosis (in which case I’d be more worried about my own safety)?
A few years ago, I was undergoing menopause at the same time that my mom was entering her terminal illness due to Alzheimer’s. The grief alone would have knocked me off kilter, but the wildly variable hormone mix turned me into a completely different person. For the first time, I knew what insane rage felt like. The rage was nicely alternated with bleak depression, to the point that I was starting to price charcoal burners. My gynecologist, when I asked if there wasn’t anything I could do to feel better, seemed blandly unconcerned and blew me off.
I’m much better now, but I never ever want to return to being that crazy woman from four years ago.
I just wish to go on record as noting this method of measuring one’s temperature (cerumen liquification) is not particularly reliable. I give it as much credence as placing one’s palm on another’s brow to judge the degree of fever.
