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Mumsnet Discussions: Mental health : A scary hallucination and I'm really worried. (16 messages)
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Contact the poster See this person's profile Contact mumsnet about this post By TheDevilWearsPrimark on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:31:20
This will sound crazy however I word it so here goes.

I went into the kitchen to make a cuppa, as I was filling it I looked down and the sink was full of maggots. I dropped the kettle and ran into the hall. My chest was tight and I was gasping for breath, almost like a panic attack.

I had another good look at the sink, really close, and they were moving. I tried to rack my brain, if it could be rice but couldn't remember cooking rice so recently , plus why would it be moving?

After getting upset and then going to get a glass of water to take to bed I realised it was bits of porridge I'd not washed out of the sink.

What the fuck though? Am I actually going crazy. I really feel like it.
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By PhantomOfTheChocolateCakeAvena on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:34:19
It's alright. It sounds like you have alot on your mind at the moment. Brains can play tricks if we are stressed. Are you on medication? Certain ones can also do this.
Contact the poster See this person's profile Contact mumsnet about this post By TheDevilWearsPrimark on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:35:18
No medication, but I have had citalopram before.
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By PhantomOfTheChocolateCakeAvena on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:38:05
Trick of the light maybe?
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By Mum2OliverJames on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:38:51
god i bet that scared you witless.

i keep thinking i see people in my house and it will be a coat hanging up or a teddy or even just nothing but i absolutlelt scares the living daylights out of me every time!

are you tired? i only ever (think i) see these 'people' when i am really tired!
Contact the poster See this person's profile Contact mumsnet about this post By TheDevilWearsPrimark on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:44:58
it was no trick of light I really saw it as that.

tbh this scares the shit out of me, I'm a newly single parent, and also trying to revive my career. This kind of thing is not goood at alll!
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By PhantomOfTheChocolateCakeAvena on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:48:17
It really does sound like you are very stressed at the moment. You have alot happening, maybe it's you telling you that you need to take some time out. Have you not been sleeping well?
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By Mum2OliverJames on Thu 20-Nov-08 00:48:49
its probably because you are aware now that it is just you at night time, and it makes you very jumpy, thats what i put mine down to, split with XP about 3 months agoo.

i had left a cushion on the back of the sofa one night and i walked past and thought someone had come in and sat on my sofa!

i screamed blushhmmgrin
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By wehaveallbeenthere on Thu 20-Nov-08 01:05:04
My sister had a hallucination when she was younger. She had a baby (a few months old) and had a headache. Her doctor prescribed codeine for something to relieve her pain and she said she was laying on the bed with the baby and there were several babies there. She wanted to roll them off the bed one by one but was afraid she couldn't identify hers from the others.
In actuality she only had the one baby with her. She later found out that she was having an allergic reaction to the codeine. You could be having an allergic reaction to something and the reaction is causing hallucinations. You can mention this to the doctor to see what he thinks. Try to remember as much detail as you can when you do.
Contact the poster See this person's profile Contact mumsnet about this post By TheDevilWearsPrimark on Thu 20-Nov-08 01:17:02
mm I've had awful feelings, out waking and shopping with the DC or on the way to nursery, mad panics and visions of them under a car or in front of a bus (in dreams it's a tourist bys, nice hwy)
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By wehaveallbeenthere on Thu 20-Nov-08 01:24:18
At least you realize that it IS a hallucination. You need to call someone and talk to them. It doesn't matter who...just explain that you are seeing things.
When I was younger I was traveling across country with my husband. We stopped at a hotel (shabby little place) and he was packing the car and I was in the shower. My eyesight has never been great. I looked up and it appeared that a man was staring at me from the ceiling. He had torn up a tile and was watching me. SO I was screaming my head off. My husband thought it was someone else and when he came back he found me crying hysterically and screaming in the shower with the curtain wrapped around me.
There wasn't any man though. The heat from the shower was lifting the ceiling panel and my bad eyesight did the rest. It looked very real at the time though.
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By Ozziegirly on Tue 25-Nov-08 03:35:10
The brain will always try to make "sense" of what the eye sees. That's why the brain is so good at working out things - fro exmapel fi I tpey lkie tsih yuo nac wrok tuo waht I maen - pretty easily I would imagine.

This is why people will often think they have seen "people" - when it is actually just their brain interpreting a shape to be the most "usual" thing that is the particular shape.

Especially when you are tired the brain basically has a guess at what the eye is seeing. Also, to add to this and the scary feeling, the brain will often give you an interpretation that seems frightening as a kind of "fail safe" mechanism. So for example, if you are out walking and you see a stick, your brain may think "SNAKE!" immediately before your logical brain takes over and thinks "oh, no, not snake, stick". It's a survival mechanism.

So if you hadn't remembered that you had put porridge in the sink, your tired brain probably thought "eeek, maggots - RUN!" before logical brain kicks in, quickly goes through what you have done and thinks "not maggots, porridge!".
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By megnog on Tue 25-Nov-08 09:45:25
I don't think this is anything serious or anything to worry about. It is not an indication that you are mad at all, just a temporary glitch in an otherwise well-functioning brain! Brains do this kind of stuff, especially if we are a bit stressed or tired. If things like this start to happen more frequently, then perhaps a trip to a sympathetic GP might be in order, but I really honestly would not worry about it. Lots of people have experiences like this at different points in their lives, including me! I had some awful hallucinations after coming home from the hospital after having my lo, it was a traumatic birth and I was hallucinating and misinterpreting visual things all the time... it faded after about a week, and luckily I knew it was just my brain playing tricks.
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By Fiveplusbump on Tue 25-Nov-08 09:48:42
I had this a couple of years back ,I would see little back bugs crawling on my arm and nearby it was quite scary and I felt I was going mad ..but when I mentioned it to my HV she sent me to gp's for blood tests and I was low on iron so it seemed to have sorted it.

Hope you are ok .
Contact the poster See this person's profile Contact mumsnet about this post By Dior on Tue 25-Nov-08 09:49:06
Message withdrawn
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By BlaDeBla on Tue 25-Nov-08 21:19:28
If you are under a lot of pressure and you're tired, you really don't see things as they are. Try not to worry - it doesn't mean you're going mad.


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