[geeks] sleep deprivation

[Beth Roberts]

I was going to say something in the sleep deprivation thread ---

Fifteen months ago, I took a certain substance which I enjoyed and then
didn't hardly eat or sleep for three days. (And a cute geekboy was involved,
too. Sigh. Stole and then broke my heart, but anyway...)

Then I (stupidly) took another substance which I enjoyed and which can be
purchased at your local grocery store.

Due some alchemical mix of lack of sleep and food, falling in love with said
geekboy, and the aftereffects of substance #1, substance #2 was WAY more
powerful than I imagined it could be - I became psychotic and went totally
nuts. Literally. Oh, my delusions were benign, silly even. I was in no way
violent or anything like that. I was filled with happiness and light and I
wanted to tell everyone how I had been given this numeric code that was the
key to help avert the destruction of the world and blah blah blah...

Textbook psychosis. Heh. I had been bipolar, didn't know it, and managed to
punt myself into the stratosphere via various substances. I felt my car
psychically apologize to me for having broken down on the highway in the
middle of nowhere several years previously, to give you an idea of the kinds
of things I was thinking.

My family got worried and took me to the hospital, where I stayed for six
days. I got out, and have been on medication and doing pretty well since
then. I am different now - I have a *much* more active imagination :). But I
am not a total loon or anything.

Sleep deprivation can be a key ingredient in the unhinging of the human
mind. Just my $0.02 worth.

-Beth