#I’ve never had feelings for him prior to my hallucinations and when my meds started working my feelings for him went away

[rosereign]

My brothers aren’t here but being surrounded by my family just reminds me how much I love them. They are much more than the evil voices in my head 🫶🏽

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Screaming

The screaming started again.

Whenever I looked—hiding in the shadows of my curtain, peering through my window to observe the outside world—I never saw the source of those screams. The world just continued to turn. Life kept plodding along like nothing had happened.

In broad daylight, cars just coasted along in the street. People pushed their baby carriages or jogged down the sidewalks. Birds chirped in the trees. Nobody and nothing whatsoever reacted to this screaming.

During the dead of night, no lights turned on in the darkened windows of other buildings in the neighborhood. Deafening quiet always followed while I strained my eyes to search the darkest spots. Nobody to be seen, nobody out and about. Neither could I spot anybody as the potential source of the screaming, nor did anybody react to it.

It always sounded like a young woman. The same young woman.

The screaming carried no words, no message. At least not anything I could identify.

Only that the screams cut deep. Always blood-curdling, like someone suffering terrible pain, desperate for someone—anyone—to come to their aid.

Even when I heard them more clearly, I had no idea who it was. The melody and the tone color of the screams did not remind me of anybody I knew or anyone I had ever heard before in my entire life.

Sometimes, when I stood there, I despised myself for trying so hard to listen. I felt like a voyeur, spying on a murder happening before my eyes, but doing nothing. Nothing but trying to hear it better. Trying to satisfy my curiosity, rather than getting help.

Worst of all, I wanted to tell someone about this. But what should I say exactly? Anybody would think I’m crazy. Even just writing this down makes me think I’m crazy.

The first time it happened, I didn’t think too much about it. I figured someone else might take care of it. Other, braver people can call the police, or do something directly. I’m too afraid to go outside, and even if I did try to intervene, what would I do exactly? I’m not strong, nor do I truly know how to help or provide first aid, and I don’t even have a gun.

The week after the first time, I remember just how familiar the scream sounded. It wasn’t like it repeated itself the same way—it was unlike a perfect recording. Unique in its texture, outstanding in the terror that sang along in that screaming.

I peered out through the crack in between my curtains, scanning the world for any sort of cue or clue as to where the screaming had come from. But nothing.

Everything else looked and sounded like a perfectly normal world. I had to be the crazy one. I began to tell myself that this was the only rational explanation, like that would make it stop.

But it didn’t stop. It won’t stop.

This phenomenon repeated itself without pattern. Sometimes a day passed between the screaming. Other times weeks. Yet other times only hours.

Sometimes the screams sounded like they came from nearby, like just outside my window, or from one of the nearest buildings. Other times, it sounds like it echoed through the streets to my window, or traveled across the rooftops from farther away.

The world outside always looked normal. Like what you would expect from a world without these screams. And I might have been able to live my life in spite of any of this, if it had not started seeping into everything.

The screaming is everywhere now. It’s infecting everything.

See, I have this ritual of receiving packages at my door. Shipments of medications, food, clothing, or other goods. The delivery workers are always nice, even if some of them give me funny looks sometimes. I mean, I’m hardly the only person like this, right?

After they ring the doorbell and I check to see if it is in fact a delivery service, I open it up, greet them in my typical mousy and shy fashion, and take the packages from them. They use the same handful of different lines to be polite, maybe I have to sign, and then I close the door and life goes on.

But just last week, the delivery man looked at me with a smile after handing me my package. His mouth opened and that horrible scream spilled out. The mystery woman’s scream; the scream I’ve been hearing for almost a year now.

I slammed the door shut on him and immediately felt bad afterwards. I could practically see myself as I was doing so; like I had been standing beside myself. I must have looked like I had seen a ghost, with all the blood draining from my face. I vividly remember how hard my heart pounded, how I needed minutes to recover while I had slumped against a wall near the front door, with the package’s weight and cardboard edges cutting off the blood flow to my legs.

Surely, I must have been hallucinating, right? There was no way in hell that this had really happened. My condition and my meds must be backfiring. My brain must be melting.

Well, it didn’t happen again. Not with any package deliveries, at least. And thank goodness for that. They’re my only lifeline to the outside world.

No, the next time it occurred, I had picked up a call from an unknown number. I normally never accept those calls, but I wanted so badly for it to be something positive—some good news, a friendly conversation, just anything to make me feel better.

When I tapped the button to take the call, the screaming started. My fingers just clawed onto the device, clamping around it like an iron vice. I froze; my whole body locked up. It must have been half a minute until I took control and cut the screaming short by hanging up the call, and I remember so clearly how I had been sobbing and shaking for hours after that event.

One time, when I turned on the TV, the news anchor opened her mouth and started screaming. The same screams, as always. If these were mere hallucinations, then they were flawless, because the anchor’s mouth just stayed open for the duration of the scream. The woman’s facial expression never changed—blank and dead—for what felt like a solid minute of the scream, ending almost on a gurgling note.

She closed her mouth and continued talking on her report regarding something about local elections. Different voice. No more screaming. Was anybody else witnessing this? I couldn’t even dream of asking anybody about it.

And I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to take this. I’d been living my own little nightmares, living in my own personal hell, but this was really making everything unbearable.

I’d sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat. Just expecting to hear those screams, but nothing followed. Maybe I heard the screaming in my dreams and that was what had woken me up. But I couldn’t ever remember my dreams, so I couldn’t tell you for sure.

Sometimes, other sounds would remind me of the screams and startled me, making me drop things or break my train of thought, disrupting every last one of my life and work patterns. Rubber squeaking over a clean counter, like the shrill tone underlining the screams. Metal hinges creaking. Car tires screeching outside. Anything. Like little twisted fragments that triggered the memory of the screams.

And the actual screams, they wouldn’t stop.

I had to do something. But what?

So I started researching online, and found other people experiencing this same thing. The exact same thing.

The exact same screams.

Some of them had managed to capture it by setting up devices to record around the clock.

It’s always the same voice. The same woman. I know it. I can hear it. Sure as I’m about to hear her any time now.

I got in touch with one of the people I had met through a message board. When I had finally worked up the courage to call them, and they picked up, only screaming came from my headphones, just like that unknown caller from a month prior. I hung up immediately and broke off all contact—deleted my accounts, canceled my services, and subscribed to new ones.

Maybe an overreaction, but I am at my wits’ end.

The screams cannot be escaped.

It’s not like I went outside a lot before the screaming started, but I haven’t gone outside in months. At this point, I’m afraid the clouds will tear apart and the sky itself will scream at me if I do actually dare to leave my own four walls.

After brushing my teeth this morning and closing the mirror cabinet in front of me, I stared at myself. Disgusted and repulsed by my own appearance. I am shambles. I mean, I was before the screaming started, but I have really let myself go. What’s the point, anyway?

I wanted to say something to myself, and the screaming now came from my own mouth.

The very same screaming.

My own screaming.

—Submitted by Wratts

[nevercallmeforgettable]

I was up until 6 this morning talking with my brother. His gf has psychopath written all over her.

Friday- fire for Timmy’s bday at the house. While I was at work there was Timmy, Bri, Mom, Gordon, Grandpa, Bris Mom, and Bris moms bf. When I got outta work only Timmy, Ian, and Bri were at the fire. Bri was drunk. I knew she’d been sober for well over a year, but I didn’t ask any questions or pass any judgement on her drinking. I remember wanting to ask her about it, but not wanting to have a conversation with her.

Saturday morning Bri wakes up puking. Drinking will do that to you when you get stay up until 7am getting shitfaced, and your body isn’t used to the amount of toxins you just put into it. Apparently she puked for 5 hours, and had panic attack after panic attack while she was puking, and told Timmy he needed to take her to the ER.

1pm, Timmy takes her to the ER. She tells them she drank a lot the night before & couldn’t keep anything down. Her hands were shaking. She was hysterical. Her body was doing weird shit. She told them how she’d been sober for 14 months, and that the last couple months she’s been socially drinking, and that the night prior was Timmy’s bday and that they drank.... the doctors say shes having alcohol withdrawal, and they pump her full of Ativan. 3pm, she has a seizure. Not the shaking kind of seizure, but the kind where apparently she looks lifeless and completely not there. Then they give her anti seizure meds, and she has another seizure. They give her more anti seizure meds, and she starts hallucinating. So Timmy tells her to just close her eyes and sleep, and she slept for 24 straight hours. While she slept Timmy and Bris mom tried to find a single doctor to speak with, and one never comes, and they wanted to tell them that she wasn’t withdrawing from alcohol, she was just hungover, and that all these meds were fucking her up & to take her off of them, but no one came.

Sunday she sleeps all day & night in a medicated unconscious state.

Monday she wakes up angrier than Timmy’s ever seen. She’s screaming that she wants her dog, that he’s a service dog and she needs him (he’s not obedient at fucking all, never had a day of training), but the nurses say it’s ok to bring him, so Timmy goes and gets the dog, and then they realize the dog isn’t obedient and he’s a psycho and she had 5 mins with him and he had to go. Bri was slamming doors, swinging shit into walls, security had to come, 2 nurses came in to try to control her and she almost punched one right in the face. Timmy finally gets her calm enough to get back into bed & says he’ll bring the dog back tomorrow, and that Bri just needs to lay down and relax, and that she’s coming off of a lot of meds and needs rest.

Well bri starts screaming how this is what alcohol withdrawal will do to a person, and blah blah. So Timmy asks her “how is it possible to have alcohol withdrawal, unless you were drinking more than you told me you were?” And she said “I’ve been drinking at least 5 shots a day every single day”. So Bris mom texts Bris roommate for hidden alcohol, because if Bri is the drinker she’s saying she is, there must be hidden alcohol...and her roommate ya alcoholic parents, so she literally tore the house apart looking in all the weirdest places and obvious places and not obvious places, and couldn’t find a thing. Bri gets transferred to Portsmouth because they have the equipment to handle her seizure issue, and my mom brings Timmy there cuz he was running on zero sleep in 3 days, and while mom was there Bri made a big show about how she’s an alcoholic who needs to go to rehab, and Timmy was like “you could have gone to rehab any time, I told you that I supported whatever you wanted to do, if you felt like rehab was a place you could heal, I was all for it” and Bri said she had to drink or she’d die, and how she couldn’t let Timmy know. And Bris mom asked where all her alcohol was and she said she doesn’t leave it in the house cuz she doesn’t wanna get caught, and that she would go to bars (with Timmy’s money) while Timmy was at work. And then she was realizing that no one was believing her, and made a big giant scene in Portsmouth about how she’s an alcoholic addict who needs help, and why is no one listening to her, and why is everyone questioning her, and why aren’t they just sending her to a facility. And Timmy was like “they need to get to the bottom of your seizures, you’ve had 7 in the last 48 hours” and she was like “that’s what withdrawing from alcohol does! I’m an alcoholic!!! This is how it had to happen! Send me to rehab!!!”

She’s been going to AA for 14 months. Listening to these people’s stories and hers doesn’t match up with it because she ISNT an alcoholic, so Timmy is now like “is she trying to create a story for AA so she now feels like she belongs? Has she been planning this? Was this all a pre planned thing? Is she lying to me about drinking? Was she drinking that much daily and I didn’t know? Or was she not and she’s making up this fucked up twised lie?”

Whatever is going on. I’m literally beside myself in the length she took things to get rehab when everyone told her for months that they all supported her going if she felt like she needed to do that. Now I think she’s got way more things going on in her head than just addiction. She’s def mentally ill.