[tangerine]

This is my first post here. I've been on and off this website for the last few years, on it when I'm doing bad, off it when I'm doing better.

I started dissociating 3 years ago after a series of traumatic/bad experiences with weed and psychedelics. Have felt near completely recovered twice for a total of half of the 3 years I've been struggling with my mental health. I sorta relapsed big time 3 months ago after a difficult breakup, still having a hard time processing that, I'm feeling pretty helpless again.

I'm wondering if anyone else has a really hard time with language when interacting with people. I make all sorts of weird associations between what people are saying and my own mental health, like someone will be talking about something totally unrelated to me and my mental health and I'll see it as a metaphor for how I am feeling? It feels very uncomfortable and scary when it happens, making it hard to actually focus on a conversation and leaving me feeling pretty freaked out. Words will trigger random memories too, like I have this bad mental habit of scanning my past for memories that I can associate with that thing someone is talking about or something I read or even just an object. It feels really panicky and weird. Another thing I seem to do automatically is compare literally everything to myself/my past/when I used to be doing better/how I used to feel before all of this and it just freaks me out. It feels so so hard to stay in the present moment at all like my brain is working so hard for no reason and adding all of this unnecessary meaning and connections to everything around me. All the while my dr is so bad most of the time I can't recognize my own voice, people don't look real, I don't feel like my thoughts and memories are my own etc...

Really didn't think I would be back in this place yet here I am! A lot of love for everyone still struggling

 

[Al_pk]

You are never going to find someone with 100% the same stuff. But i suffer all the problems staying in the present moment etc. All the scanning past memories and comparisons is something that happens daily for me. My brain is overworked, never relaxed always overthinking outside my control and I feel panicky quite a lot but less now. The DR was thw first thing to go for me, all the mental health stuff has stayed long term. I have roughly 10 months the fix it before I start studying again. My memory has gotten better. Things always improve in time

 

[tangerine]

You are never going to find someone with 100% the same stuff. But i suffer all the problems staying in the present moment etc. All the scanning past memories and comparisons is something that happens daily for me. My brain is overworked, never relaxed always overthinking outside my control and I feel panicky quite a lot but less now. The DR was thw first thing to go for me, all the mental health stuff has stayed long term. I have roughly 10 months the fix it before I start studying again. My memory has gotten better. Things always improve in time

I guess it really just comes down to our brains being overactive and in a perpetual state of crisis/trauma. I'm trying hard to just accept all the thoughts that seem to get thrown at me, like I think a lot of the stuff we think is actually super normal, just the way we are experience them and the frequency at which they occur is anxiety ridden. I think what's been bothering me the most is the effect it's had on my relationships with friends and family, I can barely hold a conversation, feel upset and angry at myself for struggling which leads to resenting people I love for "seeming" to have such an easy time existing. A lot can change in 10 months though, when I've "recovered" more or less it's happened in a matter of weeks or a month. Always sticks around a long while before that though. Keep on pushing forward!

 

[Al_pk]

Yeah the stuff I think is normal and real but there is something in my brain that sees it as dangerous and then it plays on a loop cos I don't want it too. I had all the problems interacting. I couldn't think correctly to have a conversation, for well over a year. In 2020 i'm calm and articulate again but i do lose my train of thought sometimes. I DID resent the people around me for having an easy time, but I'm over that now. I've accepted this as part of me and I'm glad i'm alive and that my faculties are returning slowly. I'm about 70% recovered in 2 years, a lotta existential stuff to work through