G
Guest
·Never fit in well at school, with friends, with peers, well..never fit in anywhere. Felt freaky, different, inadequate?.but underneath I also felt brilliant and gifted and had enormous fantasies of eventual fame and fortune. I couldn?t get the kids in the playground to like me very much, but I knew I could become an adored movie star one day (or a famous genius scientist ? the key was ?extraordinary?). Did fine in school, but was never recognized as the genius I thought I was.
Had a very very close relationship with my grandmother growing up, she and I were best friends. She was the one person I knew adored me, could count on her, etc. No one else in the world could measure up to her treatment of me ? no one else besides her saw my ?specialness.?
I hated my mother and adored my grandmother. Life was very neat and tidy. I always knew my own mind. Very well. I always knew exactly what I wanted and thought.
Second year of high school, the anxiety attacks started. Sometimes panic attacks, sometimes just horrible anxiety states. I was afraid I was dying, was having a heart attack, etc?I became very self-monitoring, checking my pulse constantly, babying myself, watching for signs that my body was betraying me.
One day, out of nowhere, dp arrived. I walked down my front steps on a bright sunny day and blamo! The world tilted, and my own self felt like I had entered a different dimension. Utter and abject terror. I couldn?t ?right? myself, felt myself vanishing, as if I was dreaming. That feeling came and went all throughout the day, and I was terrified to go to sleep.
That was the basic beginning of the end. For the next several years, I was a cripple. Terrified to leave the house, terrified even inside the house?.I found a psychiatrist who reassured me it was ?only anxiety? while I, of course, knew it was the beginning of insanity and nobody else realized it.
Got a scholarship to a very good college, went for less than 2 months. I couldn?t sit in a classroom, was living every minute watching myself, feeling dp and dr states wax and wane?.I had every symptom in the anxiety-book: panic attacks, chronic fear and worry, hypochrondria, morbid fear of losing my mind, obsessions, relentless ruminations, couldn?t sleep right, terrified of sleep, powerful dp where I felt like I literally no longer existed, that I had become something else besides a human, or that I had dreamed my entire existence, that nothing was real (the Matrix kind of thoughts) or that I was the only being in the universe and had invented everyone around me, or that I was already insane and having this reality as a delusion?.relentless.
I spent over a year not leaving the house, then slowly ventured out, taking lots of medications (trying different ones, anything that might help reduce the constant terror). There were days where I felt better, then there were days where I felt worse than ever before.
I was mentally ill. Clearly, I would live the rest of my life this way. Or worse.
Finally got it together enough to enroll in the state college (having lost my chance to go to the really good school), and took a few classes each semester. Dropped out a couple of times, failed some classes, got ?A?s? in others?every single day was a mental challenge. Some days I couldn?t get there, or tried and had to get off the bus and run back home. I lived in terror. The world could tilt for no reason, I could walk across campus and suddenly I was not in my own body, suddenly faces looked odd and the entire end of the world seemed to lie past the horizon. Went to college classes for 6 years. Never got a degree.
When days seemed better, I?d make grand plans. IF somehow, I could only get over my illness, I would be able to do anything. Joy was short lived, and usually the following day, I was positive I?d end up in a mental hospital forever.
I had a few friends (no boyfriends, or lovers, couldn?t handle it; insisted I didn?t want closeness anyway) but I couldn?t FEEL anything for anybody.
Moved to New York with one longtime friend, and had major ups and downs mentally for several years. Almost checked into a hospital on more than one occasion. My friend knew I ?was anxious? but I never talked about dp. It, to me, was proof I was really insane.
Got jobs, quit jobs. Lost jobs. Walked out on jobs. Walked out once during lunch, lol?.was too terrifed to go back into the building. Thought I?d be in the hospital by nightfall. Got more jobs. Quit more jobs.
My plans now hinged on my best friend who was an actress ? I was going to help her become a famous movie star (sound familiar?) and then she could take care of me, have money to protect me, etc. when the end finally came and I could no longer work. My life revolved around her and her career and our outrageous dreams. I was convinced she was destined to be the most famous star of our times. It never happened.
I was in and out of therapy, mostly to get more medication and to have somebody reassure me I wasn?t really insane. I was unmoved by the therapy experiences, and relied only on my needed prescriptions.
One day I stumbled into a new psychiatrist?s office in search of more valium.
That turned out to be the most important moment of my life. It took many years of intense psychoanalytic therapy with this wonderful fellow?.but it worked. He and I were a perfect ?fit? ? somehow against my better judgment, I managed to slowly open up to this human being and we formed a great patient/analyst relationship ? it was bumpy and scary and powerful. And it allowed me to find out about myself more than I really wanted to know, lol?.I came face to face with my own grandiose fantasies (and how I?d jump from being SO special to being NOTHING in my own eyes).
I learned the stuff about myself that all my symptoms had been trying to hide from me.
I learned to look at alot of stuff that I'd known and not known at the same time. I saw my grandmother differently, and my mother differently. I revised the way I saw my younger life. Things WERE unreal, because I'd tried so long and so hard to keep viewing everything one way.
I learned to see the complexity in all relationships. I shook up my own status quo. And that status quo was being threatened back when I first go the symptoms - rather than having break with reality, it was actually all the result of Reality trying to break THROUGH. I didn't want to see. I wanted everything to stay frozen. And the symptoms had arrived.
And as I learned and explored and changed?as I truly allowed change to happen inside me, the symptoms simply went away.
At times they?d try to return, and I learned how to force my attention away from them, to not empower them by turning myself upside down.
It?s been about 11 years since those changes occurred inside me. I?m well, symptom free. Do I still have some neurotic issues? Sure, lol?.I?m no model of mental health.
But I no longer have dp. I no longer have anxiety states or obsessive thoughts that ruined my life.
I am free.
Had a very very close relationship with my grandmother growing up, she and I were best friends. She was the one person I knew adored me, could count on her, etc. No one else in the world could measure up to her treatment of me ? no one else besides her saw my ?specialness.?
I hated my mother and adored my grandmother. Life was very neat and tidy. I always knew my own mind. Very well. I always knew exactly what I wanted and thought.
Second year of high school, the anxiety attacks started. Sometimes panic attacks, sometimes just horrible anxiety states. I was afraid I was dying, was having a heart attack, etc?I became very self-monitoring, checking my pulse constantly, babying myself, watching for signs that my body was betraying me.
One day, out of nowhere, dp arrived. I walked down my front steps on a bright sunny day and blamo! The world tilted, and my own self felt like I had entered a different dimension. Utter and abject terror. I couldn?t ?right? myself, felt myself vanishing, as if I was dreaming. That feeling came and went all throughout the day, and I was terrified to go to sleep.
That was the basic beginning of the end. For the next several years, I was a cripple. Terrified to leave the house, terrified even inside the house?.I found a psychiatrist who reassured me it was ?only anxiety? while I, of course, knew it was the beginning of insanity and nobody else realized it.
Got a scholarship to a very good college, went for less than 2 months. I couldn?t sit in a classroom, was living every minute watching myself, feeling dp and dr states wax and wane?.I had every symptom in the anxiety-book: panic attacks, chronic fear and worry, hypochrondria, morbid fear of losing my mind, obsessions, relentless ruminations, couldn?t sleep right, terrified of sleep, powerful dp where I felt like I literally no longer existed, that I had become something else besides a human, or that I had dreamed my entire existence, that nothing was real (the Matrix kind of thoughts) or that I was the only being in the universe and had invented everyone around me, or that I was already insane and having this reality as a delusion?.relentless.
I spent over a year not leaving the house, then slowly ventured out, taking lots of medications (trying different ones, anything that might help reduce the constant terror). There were days where I felt better, then there were days where I felt worse than ever before.
I was mentally ill. Clearly, I would live the rest of my life this way. Or worse.
Finally got it together enough to enroll in the state college (having lost my chance to go to the really good school), and took a few classes each semester. Dropped out a couple of times, failed some classes, got ?A?s? in others?every single day was a mental challenge. Some days I couldn?t get there, or tried and had to get off the bus and run back home. I lived in terror. The world could tilt for no reason, I could walk across campus and suddenly I was not in my own body, suddenly faces looked odd and the entire end of the world seemed to lie past the horizon. Went to college classes for 6 years. Never got a degree.
When days seemed better, I?d make grand plans. IF somehow, I could only get over my illness, I would be able to do anything. Joy was short lived, and usually the following day, I was positive I?d end up in a mental hospital forever.
I had a few friends (no boyfriends, or lovers, couldn?t handle it; insisted I didn?t want closeness anyway) but I couldn?t FEEL anything for anybody.
Moved to New York with one longtime friend, and had major ups and downs mentally for several years. Almost checked into a hospital on more than one occasion. My friend knew I ?was anxious? but I never talked about dp. It, to me, was proof I was really insane.
Got jobs, quit jobs. Lost jobs. Walked out on jobs. Walked out once during lunch, lol?.was too terrifed to go back into the building. Thought I?d be in the hospital by nightfall. Got more jobs. Quit more jobs.
My plans now hinged on my best friend who was an actress ? I was going to help her become a famous movie star (sound familiar?) and then she could take care of me, have money to protect me, etc. when the end finally came and I could no longer work. My life revolved around her and her career and our outrageous dreams. I was convinced she was destined to be the most famous star of our times. It never happened.
I was in and out of therapy, mostly to get more medication and to have somebody reassure me I wasn?t really insane. I was unmoved by the therapy experiences, and relied only on my needed prescriptions.
One day I stumbled into a new psychiatrist?s office in search of more valium.
That turned out to be the most important moment of my life. It took many years of intense psychoanalytic therapy with this wonderful fellow?.but it worked. He and I were a perfect ?fit? ? somehow against my better judgment, I managed to slowly open up to this human being and we formed a great patient/analyst relationship ? it was bumpy and scary and powerful. And it allowed me to find out about myself more than I really wanted to know, lol?.I came face to face with my own grandiose fantasies (and how I?d jump from being SO special to being NOTHING in my own eyes).
I learned the stuff about myself that all my symptoms had been trying to hide from me.
I learned to look at alot of stuff that I'd known and not known at the same time. I saw my grandmother differently, and my mother differently. I revised the way I saw my younger life. Things WERE unreal, because I'd tried so long and so hard to keep viewing everything one way.
I learned to see the complexity in all relationships. I shook up my own status quo. And that status quo was being threatened back when I first go the symptoms - rather than having break with reality, it was actually all the result of Reality trying to break THROUGH. I didn't want to see. I wanted everything to stay frozen. And the symptoms had arrived.
And as I learned and explored and changed?as I truly allowed change to happen inside me, the symptoms simply went away.
At times they?d try to return, and I learned how to force my attention away from them, to not empower them by turning myself upside down.
It?s been about 11 years since those changes occurred inside me. I?m well, symptom free. Do I still have some neurotic issues? Sure, lol?.I?m no model of mental health.
But I no longer have dp. I no longer have anxiety states or obsessive thoughts that ruined my life.
I am free.
