YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hello everyone,

Do any of you hallucinate while in BP depression? I am experiencing delusions and auditory hallucinations, plus this voice in my head that comments on everything I do. I have had visual hallucinations, although very few over a span of 26 years.

The auditory stuff is hearing my name called, noises in the middle of the night when all are in bed. This weekend, it was a windy sound that had no rational source. The visual thing I'm dealing with tight now is the delusion that I'm losing my hair. My hubby & friends swear that I am not losing my hair... The same type of thing happened to me a few years back.

Anyone else experience this with depression? I am depressed, but functional. Mainly just depressed due to agoraphobia.

I'm not sure I have legitimately had hallucinations, but I use to (and sometimes still do) have very vivid images of myself dying or committing suicide, almost to the point that I felt like it was real.

I think my senses become heightened I guess. I once had an episode (while I was driving...eek.) where I imagined a gun in my mouth. I could actually taste the cold metal. I didn't actually have a gun in my mouth and never had. But it felt too real.

I wonder if your medication is doing it. Are you taking anything?

I was and still am taking lamictal and lithium. Pdoc said I was severely depressed & he thought it was causing the hallucinations. I finally agreed to take Cymbalta, and over the course of the new few weeks all of the hallucinations stopped.