Phones of any kind had a strange role within my perceptions while I was in the middle of my psychotic episodes. It was simply bizarre during my first episode, which I haven’t written much about yet. During my 2nd episode, I had a few encounters with phones.
I remember making a phone call on my cell to a friend of mine. On my end, I tried to talk to him and heard him speaking, then my whole perception would change and all I heard was static coming from the phone. As it faded back in, I could hear him talking again like normal. Then it would get fuzzy, and static again. I talked to him while it was static and when I could hear him, he asked questions about what I had just said to him, so he could hear me just fine. It’s like my brain was switching channels on me, tuning in and out of the frequencies of the phone. When it tuned out, I heard the static and something… unexplainable.
The other encounter I had with a phone in the hospital on my second break was I felt an overwhelming dread when I saw the pay phone ring, and I rushed to prevent a fellow patient from answering it. I believed pay phones were dangerous from experiences I had in the hospital during my first episode. However, a certain staff member saw this immediately and told me just what I needed to hear, that this is a safe hospital with good staff, who aren’t out to harm anyone. I then thought nothing further of the issue other than remembering phones at the other hospital during my first break.
theothersid3 
I also had some issues with the phones while I was in the hospital! I believed they were not real (I believed all their equipment was fake for a while). I thought they weren’t really connected to the outside world, and for that reason, I declined opportunities to call anyone for a really long time. I was afraid of the phones. I thought the other patients were talking to actors in other areas of the hospital. During one of my therapy sessions, I jumped up and grabbed the phone to make a point, to prove to the therapist there wasn’t even a dial tone. He just calmly told me that if I wanted to make an outside call, I need to dial “9” first. I’m curious to hear what your experiences with phones were during your first hospitalization. Another blog post?
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They were dark and grim… I’ll work on it next. Thanks for stopping by and for the idea!
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