[pleasepleasehelp]

Please, please please help me.

Less than a week ago, I was in school right before an exam and then all of a sudden I started having a panic attack.

After that, I have entered this derealisation state I am not being able to get out from. I had severe anxiety the first days and was not able to sleep almost all along, fearing that I have entered a psychosis or about to enter one.

I have finally found information about DDD and I understood that's what is going on, so I slipped the psychosis fear and decided to see my GP and ask for help, for anxiety and insomnia.

The big problem is that I am a medical student and psychosis means basically expulsion from school (had a colleague in my first year that has been kicked out because of a schizophrenia diagnosis) and I am sure a DDD diagnosis is not something the school would positively look at. Especially that my supervisor was there all along and given my rather bizarre behaviour after the panic attack (screaming ''where are we'', being unresponsive, frantically touching my face and hand) that means a red-flag. However, I have decided to stop focusing on the school-incident at the moment, because it would only lead to even more distress, my mental issue is at stake at the moment.

Going back to my symptoms and my health. My health is already vulnerable, having chronic Borrelia and other co-infections for more than a decade which i was treating quite aggressively until the incident. So that may have been a factor, plus evidently, the stress school has brought to the table. Also, I had hit my head against my drawer quite strongly probably a week before the incident.

I am in a constant dream-like state, where people and places feel surreal and where I am sluggish confused actor. My senses catch every single impulse and converts it into into crazily intense input. I hear my body hairs touching my clothes, I smell people's breathe from meters away, I see waterdroplets coming the sweat from people's faces...

PLEASE advise me what to do. I understand that chances of this turning into years of nightmare and misery are quite high, but

what would YOU have done to your DDD if you could go back in time in its incipient phase?

(If you wanna reach to me privately, please do so, I need it and will appreciate it dearly)

(My brain feels fried, sorry about the eventual narrative flaws)

*My doctor prescribed me SSRI-s, should I start them?

 

[Phantasm]

Hi,

I'm sorry things have been so difficult, it sounds like you've had a lot of things to deal with that came to a head with a panic attack. Am I right in thinking Borrelia is lime disease? That is known to cause symptoms of DP, and if you were treating it aggressively - with antibiotics? - that can also have detrimental effect on gut flora. Combined with the stress of exams and the pressures you feel, it's understandable that your anxiety peaked.

When we're feeling very rattled it can be hard to focus on something else, but when we dwell on the problem we can be inadvertently fueling it. A pertinent example is someone who spends so much time worrying about failing their exams that they are in effect telling themselves to do so. By focusing on our fears they can become self-fulfilling. I know it's hard, but try progressive relaxation or body scan exercises, and when you're calm focus only on positive outcomes and how you want things to be, to point your mind in the direction you want it to go. This is to keep you from falling into a panic loop.

I know how disturbing anxiety can be, so much so that we find it hard to believe that's all it is, but keep reminding yourself that nothing really happened - you didn't die or anything - so that's all it is, and when you can, keep asking yourself how it will feel to be calm and coping well in whatever you are doing. Suggestion, reasoning, and supportive self-talk all contribute to how we think and subsequently how we feel.

I think it's as easy as not to try a natural route before taking any meds, so you might try something like ashwaganda first for your nerves, maybe with a good multivitamin or vitamin b complex, then if it doesn't help you can think about the med option, and SSRI's are usually what's prescribed first, as your doctor has.