[dookiE]

Hi All,

at the moment I am in a very weird phase. I started to be more connected in March, but Corona really triggered my anxiety with its rules and regulations. In addition, many more things which are not necessary to go into detail. My symptoms got really bad again, as so many emotions came up and I lost orientation in my inner world.

Two weeks ago I had some findings. I felt that I put myself in check-mate to create the scenario for me that there is no way out. I use the outside to continously relive my experiences and with Corona this reached a really high level. And this time it felt so true and I cannot escape. It is everywhere......so I felt I cannot solve this by thinking which I often heard but never felt.

Some days later I was visiting friends and was lying totally exhausted on their couch and suddently my body went into a really peaceful state and my vision slowly became 3-D. I can see the nature in a beauty I never experienced before. My body is with its symptoms still in DP, but in these moments I can be with the symptoms in the moment. I do not want to talk or do anything then. It is a feeling that is wordless. I can even be with severe brain fog, as I can choose to either look at the beauty of nature or get obsessed about my symptoms. It is both there at these moments.

Unfortunately, I cannot reach this state by myself, as I only experience it with people where I feel safe enough to open up. I cannot do this with my mind, it just happens naturally. When I am by myself again I slowly lose this feeling and even if I feel ok in the evening, then I wake up back again in full DP. In this state I can better be with my current triggers, but at some point they overwhelm me. So it is really tireing to fall in and out of this state and not being able to reach it by myself. Since I know it is both there, it is harder to be with my current state.

Does anyone of you have experience with this "limbo state"?

Many Thanks and stay strong

Till

 

[dookiE]

different than the normalcy I felt before falling in DP - state. Like a new quite and calm level within me. This morning I woke up with the sentence in my mind: "I cannot deal with me" Like there is a sepatation within me. It is quite a rollercoaster.

My sleep depends. I sleep like 6-9 hours per night, but wake up 1-2 times per night. This morning I woke up quite disorientated and it takes some time to get going.

 

[dookiE]

i prefer the latter, rather than the mental numbing state. In this state there is no energy to think, but rather oberserve and be and let the body organise itself again. I feel this state has healing potential, as it is different to the me known mental circulating state. I feel exhaustion mentally and physical, which is a pleasant feeling.

 

[dookiE]

the way to connect to our emotions seems to be our body, as thoughts are also just emotions. It is just soooo exhausting to build up the connection and digest the stored emotions. I remember a book title: "the body keeps the score". Never read it, but it resonates with me. I went to therapy on Monday and since two days my body and brain are so tired, but in a more relaxed way, which is different to the panic feeling. I feel kind of safe from the inside.

 

[AnnaGiulia]

@dookiE,

I am currently reading the book that you mentioned, Van der Kolk, Bessel A., The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma, Viking/Penguin Group, New York, 2014.

I am reading it for the third time in a year, actually, as I was not able to retain the information or to grasp it entirely while I was very DPd, but now it makes a lot more sense (lol)

A great book, anyway, and I completely agree with what you said about the body and emotions, as I am also working on it rn.

 

[dookiE]

@Anna: I remember I started to read this book, but I am not ready for it. I had plenty of trauma books and gave all of them away. I felt it is not the time and I rather follow my inner way, although I often feel desperation to read on this topic. I am doing a trauma - therapy (SE & NARM) several times per week. I am not sure, whether these are also mentioned in the book, but based on my personal experience these techniques help me to slowly, but surely connect more with myself.

@where: With corona I finally came to the conclusion that it is the ideal way to simply believe complete opposite of what the government and the mainstream media suggests. am still in the process, but I feel that this is my main learning from Corona.

At the moment, I feel more present and less present at the same time. I just met a friend and she said that I seem so much more present. More present within me, but less present with my brain. It feels like one part of me which always controlls the outside is more silent at least if I am not confronted with the current laws and regulations, which is really tireing. Brain fog is much more present, but I can much better be with it. Strangely today I feel that most of my inner feelings have not manifested in my mimic, although I look much more soft compared to some month ago. Strange process with so much insecurity.....

 

[AnnaGiulia]

@Anna: I remember I started to read this book, but I am not ready for it. I had plenty of trauma books and gave all of them away. I felt it is not the time and I rather follow my inner way, although I often feel desperation to read on this topic. I am doing a trauma - therapy (SE & NARM) several times per week. I am not sure, whether these are also mentioned in the book, but based on my personal experience these techniques help me to slowly, but surely connect more with myself.

Hey dookiE/Till,

Yes, somatic experiencing of Peter Levine is mentioned in the book, and I heard of NARM as well. I am glad you are doing that kind of therapy - I would have done it too, if there were a place I could go to, but I was not sure about the options offered here where I live. I also think you have a great ally in yourself, as you decided to rely on your inner way.

I have been facing a very old developmental trauma and its consequences for 17 months now, having some CBT guidance only for the first 6 months, until I reached the limits of such a therapy. I was dissociated most of the time in this period, that was a culmination of a process that started 3,5 years ago. Getting out of DP some month and a half ago only made the process more intense and somewhat more difficult for me to bear, both emotionally and physically, as I have some rather bad somatization, and I am in some sort of pain most of the time, from mild discomfort to pain bolts shooting through my body, as my muscles are not able to relax, day or night.

I guess that is what came next after the "limbo" state that you described, at least in my case. I hope that with proper therapy and support you will go through the next stage of actually feeling all the emotions with less hurdles than I do right now...

Best of luck, I think you are on the right path,

A.

 

[dookiE]

Yeah, I am following this techniques for almost a year now about 4-times per week. Almost a year ago I had a big panic attack after a very traumatic event. After that i felt I fade away, until I was fully in DP. Too many emotions for my system. Blank mind and my soul was out of my body. I have no idea, where I am in my process, as I have no idea where it is going. I feel I was dissociated before without knowing it. I still have many somatisations, which are emotions for me that have not come to surface. Every week I get my head above the water, until the next wave comes over night. I cannot put it into words what comes up, so it is pretty old stuff from my early years. I also wake up with realisations about myself. It is quite weird process, as it is on a different level, than the mental level. But I feel that I slowly connect more from week to week.

From what you write it, there might be still be blocked emotions in your system. I experienced that these can only be solved on a different level, than the mental level and in a safe environment. Only if we are safe enough certrain things within us come to surface. We protect them, as they are often painful experiences from our early years. So connected is one step and then they need to be felt. Yes feeling more real, is quite overwhelming.

 

[AnnaGiulia]

I can relate so much to everything you are saying...I came to the same conclusions, as the moment I allow myself the actually feel the feeling, to go through the feeling, instead of avoiding it, the pain goes away.

I experience the similar cycles where I first have the pain, then I resolve it by attributing the adequate emotion to a particular triggering situation/traumatic memory, feel the emotion and obtain the sense of relief, until the pain starts building up again, "telling" me where to look next.

 

[dookiE]

oh yeah at it seems as if the cycle never ends. Often I cannot attribute a story, as the emotion is so deep that there are no words to describe the feeling. For me I try to avoid losing myself in a story, although it is not easy....

in therapy we look at different situations from my life, but always at the emotions behind the "story".

Do you feel safe enough to feel the feeling? This is/was often a big problem of me, to be with me. Got easier recently.

 

[AnnaGiulia]

Well, that is a good question...

I never felt safe to feel any feeling, as my reality and the sense of self (including my capacity to feel) were compromised when I was very little. I could not rely on my perception of reality, due to gaslighting, and I was very cautious not to show my real emotions in any situation, as they were constantly used against me, to manipulate me. The safest way not to show them was to actually anesthetize myself regarding emotions, so that I would just not feel them.

The result of this survival-oriented emotional self-mutilation is my inability to feel the emotion at the moment it is "happening" in my body, as I always have a delayed perception of an emotion, which can be measured in minutes, days, months, or it may never happen at all. So, basically everything is first stored in my body, and only afterwards, if I am lucky, released as an emotion.

The other problem that I have is to actually articulate the emotion verbally. I just know that my emotions are very strong, but I often don't know what they are, or even to which spectrum they belong (happy, sad, angry....) - I don't think that I am completely illiterate in emotions, but there is some kind of denial going on about their nature and quality.

I had a complete auto-censorship regarding emotions of anger, rage, hatred and hurt...until I placed the responsibility for my hurt and anger where it belongs. Now I feel I can tolerate these feelings a bit better, and even express them (rarely), but I still have a long way to go.

What I still cannot tolerate is the feeling of grief over loss, as it throws me right into suicidal thoughts spiral. However, loss is something every person has to face in a lifetime, and when I think that the feelings of anger, rage and hatred used to throw me on the same suicidal ideation path before, I would say that I am improving.

Many times, since I am no longer DPd, I wished for DP to come back, as I could not cope with what I feel. Still, that is just another panicky way of my mind to try to get some (temporary) relief. When I was little, I heard a story about the river vortex, saying that you cannot fight it once it gets you, but can only let yourself being sucked in, in order to get out of it. Every time I think about the emotions that I cannot bear, I imagine being sucked in, letting go, and hoping to get catapulted to the other side unharmed.

 

[dookiE]

oh yeah I feel you. I was really successful in my professional life, but actually never connected to myself. Basically on auto-pilot, but I was "fine" as I did not know anything different.

In the last weeks I have the first moments in my life, where I feel safe enough to really experience the beauty of nature. In these moments, I feel so much exhaustion in my body and my brain. And so much pain in my body. This stays for some time and then slowly I build up my guard again and detach from my surrounding. I start to realise that I am actually afraid of people and it is not yet possible to stay connected outside. I feel then, how I slowly lose the connection and my brain starts to produce anxious thoughts again and anxiety rushes in my body. I always feel I am losing something really precious again. I lose myself again....

I was have the same topic with loss and I actually lost someone really close which overwhelmed me. When this gets triggered it is an unpleasant spiral and it overwhelmes emotionally.

 

[AnnaGiulia]

oh yeah I feel you. I was really successful in my professional life, but actually never connected to myself. Basically on auto-pilot, but I was "fine" as I did not know anything different.

In the last weeks I have the first moments in my life, where I feel safe enough to really experience the beauty of nature. In these moments, I feel so much exhaustion in my body and my brain. And so much pain in my body. This stays for some time and then slowly I build up my guard again and detach from my surrounding. I start to realise that I am actually afraid of people and it is not yet possible to stay connected outside. I feel then, how I slowly lose the connection and my brain starts to produce anxious thoughts again and anxiety rushes in my body. I always feel I am losing something really precious again. I lose myself again....

I was have the same topic with loss and I actually lost someone really close which overwhelmed me. When this gets triggered it is an unpleasant spiral and it overwhelmes emotionally.

I also had my "professional" persona, to rely on for a very long time. Basically, I was using some socially acceptable obsessions (workaholism, losing myself in a particular field of work, or a topic, or a relationship etc.), so that I would not deal with me. I was often quite successful professionally, because I would throw all of my capacities into it, to an extent that most people find unattainable.

I find that it is wonderful that you can connect to the nature, even for a while. I understand that there must be a passage that opens for your emotions to come out, but as they overwhelm you, you detach again in order to protect yourself from the pain. Re-connecting with emotions must be like learning a new language or a skill for us who were emotionally detached for most of our lives. I firmly believe in learning, as you can see, lol...Letting ourselves feel and learning how to articulate the feeling may be our biggest achievement yet.

I am very sorry for the loss you experienced in your life. I never ever let myself experience the loss before, even though I had it, just as everyone else. For as long as I am aware, I would just erase everything that was too painful for me to bear, or to put it more accurately - I would compartmentalize my memories, and push a lot of stuff behind amnesiac barrier. The fear of the emotional pain is so basic in me, that I go lengths to negate either myself or the reality, hence - depersonalization and derealization. When there is no DP to protect me from the pain, my mind starts playing with suicide ideation, because it is still easier for me to imagine that I am gone, than to feel the unbearable feeling.

However, that really robbed me of a lot in life, such as experiencing life to the fullest, and most of all - just as you say - it denied me feeling as myself for most of my life. No matter how horrifying it is, I want to go into that emotion, and I want to feel it without shielding myself with all the coping mechanisms that I have in abundance. As I have often encountered being said before: the child had already survived the trauma, now the adult has to face it/feel the emotion behind it. If it didn't kill us then, it really should not end us now, I guess...

 

[dookiE]

your comment touches me, as I see quite some similarities to myself. I was successful in professional life and only saw this life. It is pretty sad to realise this, especially as this gave me at least some security. You are very brave.

I always relied on my mental capabilities. Since my brain and my memories are still quite blocked I feel really helpless. I felt helpless before, but the lost really kicked me over the edge. My mind was always running on high gear and I never felt any real emotion. The emotions were only mentalised, as I disconnected from myself in really early years. This is quite painful to realise and the way back seems impossible with all its symptoms and emotions.

It is a huge win that you emerged from DP, but I can imagine, how hard it is to face more and more reality. I slowly get in touch more with reality and it is really hard to see how life really can be. It seems so far away.

The last days I tried a new thing and it completly overwhelmed me. So much sadness and anxiety. I have some moments where I feel little more in connection with nature and my surroundings, but I lose it quite quickly again. I accept that I need my shield as long as it is there. And yes we know how to survice, but I have acually no idea how to live:-(

My therapy is pretty intense. I went there on Monday and after that I could neither think nor move for 6 hours. So tired mentally and physically. I realise that over time I can stay longer in this state after therapy without actively activating my brain with its survival mode again.

 

[AnnaGiulia]

your comment touches me, as I see quite some similarities to myself. I was successful in professional life and only saw this life. It is pretty sad to realise this, especially as this gave me at least some security. You are very brave.

I always relied on my mental capabilities. Since my brain and my memories are still quite blocked I feel really helpless. I felt helpless before, but the lost really kicked me over the edge. My mind was always running on high gear and I never felt any real emotion. The emotions were only mentalised, as I disconnected from myself in really early years. This is quite painful to realise and the way back seems impossible with all its symptoms and emotions.

It is a huge win that you emerged from DP, but I can imagine, how hard it is to face more and more reality. I slowly get in touch more with reality and it is really hard to see how life really can be. It seems so far away.

The last days I tried a new thing and it completly overwhelmed me. So much sadness and anxiety. I have some moments where I feel little more in connection with nature and my surroundings, but I lose it quite quickly again. I accept that I need my shield as long as it is there. And yes we know how to survice, but I have acually no idea how to live:-(

My therapy is pretty intense. I went there on Monday and after that I could neither think nor move for 6 hours. So tired mentally and physically. I realise that over time I can stay longer in this state after therapy without actively activating my brain with its survival mode again.

Hey Till, I am still very far from being able to cope successfully even for one day, without feeling a deep desperation at some point. I have a very hard time identifying with the reality around me, but not in the DPDR way, more like being woken up from a coma, and not recognizing my life - because I am basically a changed person after this experience.

However, there are some things that I did recently to help me out of that state of desperation. And so far, they worked for me.

- One is the thought that it is not fair to be hurt so badly in life, only to continue to suffer later. I just won't accept it. I cannot accept that we are sentenced to a life of pain, only because the pain has been inflicted on us when we were not in the position to help ourselves. It sounds so unfair, that I will just not let it happen.

- Therefore I try to isolate that pain in me, to address it, and to make a deal with it: I understand the reasons why it exists, and I will let it exist as long as it is necessary, but I will not let it take over me completely and destroy me.

- I am trying to express my emotions, and it often seems unbearable, but then I just go on and do it. When I manage to say things out loud, nothing is spared from my honesty, and perhaps that is the way it has to be, at least at the beginning. Some fine tuning may come later.

- I feel I am completely alone, even when I am with other people, but there is some familiar feeling to it, as that is how I always felt. All the codependency stuff came later, like one more coping mechanism difficult to stop doing over and over again. I now want to embrace that feeling of being alone...it is not a necessarily bad thing. I think, if I could feel comfortable in my own skin, and not look for other things or people to complete me, I will be a much better partner and a friend, but in all honesty, now I just want to be good for myself.

 

[Cali1234]

Hi All,

at the moment I am in a very weird phase. I started to be more connected in March, but Corona really triggered my anxiety with its rules and regulations. In addition, many more things which are not necessary to go into detail. My symptoms got really bad again, as so many emotions came up and I lost orientation in my inner world.

Two weeks ago I had some findings. I felt that I put myself in check-mate to create the scenario for me that there is no way out. I use the outside to continously relive my experiences and with Corona this reached a really high level. And this time it felt so true and I cannot escape. It is everywhere......so I felt I cannot solve this by thinking which I often heard but never felt.

Some days later I was visiting friends and was lying totally exhausted on their couch and suddently my body went into a really peaceful state and my vision slowly became 3-D. I can see the nature in a beauty I never experienced before. My body is with its symptoms still in DP, but in these moments I can be with the symptoms in the moment. I do not want to talk or do anything then. It is a feeling that is wordless. I can even be with severe brain fog, as I can choose to either look at the beauty of nature or get obsessed about my symptoms. It is both there at these moments.

Unfortunately, I cannot reach this state by myself, as I only experience it with people where I feel safe enough to open up. I cannot do this with my mind, it just happens naturally. When I am by myself again I slowly lose this feeling and even if I feel ok in the evening, then I wake up back again in full DP. In this state I can better be with my current triggers, but at some point they overwhelm me. So it is really tireing to fall in and out of this state and not being able to reach it by myself. Since I know it is both there, it is harder to be with my current state.

Does anyone of you have experience with this "limbo state"?

Many Thanks and stay strong
Till

Yep I can totally relate. That's exactly how I've been feeling for the past yr. it's like one moment I'm okay or when I'm with people Im fine, maybe because I'm just very distracted that I don't focus on the symptoms but then I get moments where like my symptoms come out of no where, then I notice it and then I have to do redirect my mind to something else. It is very exhausting but it's a lot better compared to when I first got the symptoms. I just feel like I can't fully convince my mind.

 

[dookiE]

I am still in a very weird phase. My symptoms are very strong, but too many nice things happen at the moment in my life. A part of myself does not want this, as it does not match to my inner story. I feel that my body cannot really deal with this and gets overwhelmed. I cannot deal with the beautiful moments of reality. This is just scary.....

My brain is so foggy and I am completly confused. These nice things always happened in front of my eyes, but I could never see them. Life is still really tough with these symptoms and every day is just a day to survive due to my body condition. I walk through the streets and see the beauty around me and have a pulse of 100.

Like for more than one year one part of me wants to die every second. 1,5 month ago I felt like my identity collapsed and suddenly I am in this weird phase between beauty and very dark moments accompanied by really strong symptoms. This part within me still wants it to be over and does not want these nice things to happen. This is sooo confusing, as another part really wants to live and keeps and kept me alive, through the last year and in the future.

Can anyone relate?