Okay, I'm At A Loss, and It's Terrifying Me.

For the first time ever, I cannot explain what is going on in my head. But it's bad, bad, bad.

I can describe how it feels. Just not why it feels that way.

It feels like I am crawling through a cave, through the veins of Mammoth Caves they don't let you into because people get lost, get stuck, and die. You don't even have to be claustrophobic (I am) for that to scare you. Like the crawling scene in that movie The Descent (terribly bloody, but the scariest part is them crawling through a cave).

So this rock is all around me, pressing on me, and I can't breathe. Not just because I'm skeered, but because it's tight in certain spots. This can be attributed to the fact that I have some sort of upper respiratory infection and there are times I CAN'T breathe.

The rock is literally pressing in on me at points, and I want OUT--I WANT OUT! OH, PLEASE HELP ME GET OUT!--but then I fight and scream and I'm through that tight spot. But I'm still in this narrow tunnel in the dark, and the next spot like that could be a few inches ahead. And it could be the last.

I've also been having hallucinations, transparent dreams that overlay reality, actually, that I've been abducted and they've put tape over my mouth. I can't breathe, but I can't tell them I can't breathe because of the tape.

There are varying theories about why this is happening. I think it's a combination of being overworked at my job (my boss is in intensive care in the hospital, so I have no help at a job even the two of us got behind on), and the new med. I pulled a knife, for pete's sake! I obliterated a phone at work. These weren't petulant little rants. These were "breakthroughs" of aggression that broke through the meds.

My psychiatrist thinks the inability to breathe is triggering panic sensors in my brain, and wants me to go see if it's pneumonia or bronchitis or asthma.

All I know is it has to stop. I am crying and pacing again--which is very, very bad. It means I have to get away, but anywhere I go will be just as bad as where I currently am.

The cave analogy wasn't just an analogy. That is exactly how I feel. I can literally feel something pushing my head down.

I just need it to stop. I don't care how , it just needs to. The meds are helping me fight it, but I'm really tired. Hard to sleep when laying down intensifies things, and I can't sleep if I'm away from my wife because I'm sleeping sitting up on the couch.

It needs to stop. It's terrifying me, I can't function, and it needs to stop.