It's All In My Head

Well Hello Family and Friends, (and possibly strangers)
I'm starting this blog because I think my life is just that interesting that it has to be published somehow. :) For all that know me, completely understand this, for those of you who are reading this and don't really know me... I am an attention grabbing, outgoing, somewhat obnoxious girl who really thinks that everything she says should be written down as inspirational quotes.

The main reason for this post is just to quickly outline why I chose the name of this blog the way I did, and to have you waste an incredible amount of time reading this.

So its all in my head.... What's in my head you may ask? Well lets just say it was filled with delusions and voices of people telling me things. What things? Ill get to that later, let me start by telling you how and when I started hearing and seeing these delusions.

I am now, right now, 129 days in my recovery from an evil, ugly, horrible addiction from Heroin and Meth. Now before you start to label me as a disgusting junkie who has no soul, I want you to understand that Addiction, any Addiction is a disease. Its a disease of the brain. It literally hijacks the brains reward system. This system has an important role in sustaining life because it links activities needed for human survival with pleasure and reward. Did I loose you? Think of it this way. Lets say you are so super thirsty, and its a hot, hot day. Now you can have that cold glass of water, but if you drink it, it will lead to health problems, loosing your family and friends, maybe even your kids, loosing your mind, and everything you own. Still want that drink of water? All of you I'm sure said no. But someone who has an addiction to that cold water, would still want it.

I don't want to get into to much about the chemistry of the brain today, but hopefully that explains what addiction is like for those of you who don't struggle with this disease. Now back to ME :)

I started to use Heroin and Meth in 2014, but my addiction started long before that, in 2011. I hurt my back and was prescribed pain pills. Not knowing then what they would lead me to, it seemed like the best thing at the time because steroid injections and nerve blocks were not working on my back.
Flash forward 4 years.....
I started using Heroin as a substitute for my pill addiction because it was cheaper then buying my meds, it was way stronger, and it lasted longer.... Meth just came with heroin. At least it did with me. Now I only used heroin for my back pain, not trying to justify it, just telling you that I really did hate using it. Now Meth, that was another story. I think the reason why I loved that poison (I say poison, because that is what it literally was.... rat poison and battery acid) so much was because it made me loose weight at a very fast rate. Like with in 3 weeks I had lost 30 pounds.... Now this was a huge thing for me because I have always had self image issues. Ever since high school I have been so hard on myself for the way I looked physically. So bad in fact it let to self mutilation all though my teens and early twenties.  Those of you who went to high school with me, or knew me while I was in high school are probably surprised. I hid my self loathing pretty well, I thought.  That's a whole other post..... Anyway......

So here I am its December 2015, a year and a half into my use, and something drastic starts happening. I start to hear peoples voices. I don't want to be specific because I don't want to freak anyone out, but lets just say the voices I heard were of people I knew. People I saw all the time in some cases.... Now at first I didn't think anything of it. It wasn't until I started to hear these voices sounding like they were in pain, or needed help. It was so real to me that I would run out of my house looking for them. I mean what would you do? You hear someone screaming for help you would do the same thing right? Well this happened every night for almost a year.... I was either running out side trying to help some imaginary person, or I was in my house thinking that people were right outside my windows trying to talk to me. I think about this now, and it makes me sad. Mainly because I would talk back to these imaginary voices, thinking that they were really there, and my husband would tell me that no one was there. I never believed him. EVER. It makes me sad because instead of believing the one person who was physically there, I chose to believe the voices I was hearing.
Now, before you judge me or label me as "a crazy person" let me explain how real this was for me. I would be in the bathroom, with the door shut, and I would hear Russ's voice. The person I love more then anything in this world, tell me that he hates me and that he never loved me (this was just the nice version of what I heard) Now imagine yourself in your bathroom, and the voice of someone you love, clear as day says something like this. What would you do? Open the door right? Well that's what I did. Low and behold, no one is there. But wait.... I do see something.... Its a reflection of Russ standing in the laundry room. Welcome hallucinations! So now I'm not only hearing things, but seeing them as well. So if you hear things, and then what you hear is confirmed by seeing the things that you hear, wouldn't you believe it? Most of you would say yes. And that's just what I did. Believed what I was hearing and seeing was real.

I'm sure all of you are saying "well Mallory, why don't you just stop using the drugs." If you are saying this right now, please refer back to the top where I explain that addiction is a disease of the brain. My brain, at the time, thought  that the only way to survive was to do the drugs. Like I said earlier, even though I knew the horrible effects of these drugs, I couldn't stop.....

So the name of my blog..... It's all in my head. Get it now?

Thankfully I finally got a wake up call after 2 1/2 years of using these disgusting drugs. And being in treatment I learned what was making me have these delusions. I was diagnosed with Meth induced psychosis and Schizophrenia. The drug caused legions on my brain which is what started the delusions. After months of trying different medication, nothing was working. I was so upset because I was sober, but still hearing these voices. I got so frustrated with all the issues with medications, that I told my doctor that I would rather live and deal with these voices then have all the side effects of the medications. So I didn't take anything... and just tried to ignore the voices... Then a miracle happened.

                                                     TO BE CONTINUED.......