A parallel universe

"I'll remove the CD groups from the equation for this week. That should mean we'll see an immediate improvement in your symptoms. Now we need to know what you're expecting to get out of your treatment here."

My case worker spoke those words as if she's expecting me to make a 180° turnaround overnight. Did she not listen to herself speak? She removed one piece of the puzzle and at this point it's only temporary, then she added two more expectations in its spot. Yes, I have been given a little bit of breathing room since I don't have to worry about having to do the CD group on Thursday, but the ultimatum hasn't been completely shelved yet, so it's still going to produce anxiety because it's still looming just over my shoulder.

In it's place, there is now the expectation that...1) my symptoms are going to dramatically improve by tomorrow, and 2) I must come up with another list of things I'm expecting to get out of treatment (I say "another" because I already gave them a list of treatment goals on my first day in the program). I did give her about three or four things I've learned from the groups that have been helpful, but that's just not enough. Nothing I do is ever enough. It's never good enough.

I'm so exasperated at this point that I'm starting to believe that I have completely lost touch with reality and the world I'm living in is a parallel universe to the one everybody else is living in. Maybe that's why I feel so alienated, why it feels like no one ever hears and/or comprehends what I'm saying. There just seems to be no other logical explanation to it all, as illogical as the thought of living in another world truly is.

I did have auditory hallucinations yesterday. I tried to dismiss them as anxiety/stress-induced psychosis, but maybe I should have listened to the voice in my car stereo instead of being so creeped out by it that I shut the radio off, thus silencing its communication. Maybe it wasn't a hallucination but rather a link to the world everyone else is in.