Radio In My Head

There are many different ways of experiencing psychosis, but one that is common for me happened again yesterday.  

I was having a normal day.  It was Sunday and when I came home from church, I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, talking to my husband, and I had just put something in the microwave.  Out of the blue, I heard and felt a loud "pop" in my head.  I guess it's kind of like your ears popping when you change elevation, except it wasn't my ears popping.  It was definitely more like inside my brain.  Then I could hear a constant sound in my right ear that was like someone turning the dial on a staticky old school radio from frequency to frequency.  I couldn't isolate distinct words, but there was speaking happening and muffled background music.  I had to pause for a minute, as I held my hand over my ear, closed my eyes, and dropped my head.  I was trying to focus on what my husband was saying, but the radio noise was very present.  For a moment I was wrestling with my thoughts as I tried to decide if what I was hearing was actually what it felt like, or maybe it was actually just the sound of the microwave.  No, it was not the microwave, or the air conditioning, or a car passing by our house.  Yes, I really was experiencing an audio hallucination.

I have tried over the years to describe what something like this feels like for me.  The best analogy I have come up with is that it is like walking into a pressurized indoor swimming pool area.  It's really loud and echoey and you feel a pressure in your head and chest as you breathe in the warm humid air.  Some things are happening right in front of you and are distinguishable, while there are many other things happening all around you but beyond what you are able to focus on, so there are just a lot of sounds that are loud, yet muffled.  All the while, you try to talk to someone close to you and pay attention to pool safety, but there are splashing noises, the lifeguard's whistle, the spring of the diving board, lots of yelling and voices and laughing and so many things to watch and to divert your attention from one thing to the other.  I feel like that a lot.  It can be quite difficult to accomplish tasks or bigger goals or have a conversation with someone.

Please don't take offense if you are trying to talk to me and it seems that I'm not paying attention or listening or I'm really distracted and keep looking away and seem to be somewhere else.  I'm trying to make sense of what I'm sensing.