My first blog entry, upon the first day of my admittance to this site. I don't know if this will help me- I don't even know if I am trying to fix the right problem. I certainly can't afford a proper diagnosis, even if I did gather the courage to leave my house for a specifically social interaction.
But on, I suppose, to the meat of the matter.
I am here because I was told I need to talk to nobody in particular; the empty air of the internet would do me better than the silence of the house, or so they- they being a good online friend of mine- said. If I could get it out, somewhere, past the walls of my home, it would help me. I don't know how or why, but an attempt not dealing with face-to-face interaction is one I can manage. I was told to describe how I feel; perhaps in doing so anyone reading this can tell me if I actually have this, or if I am just an over-reactive fool.
I feel... blank. Not empty, per se, and not sad- just blank. Like something is missing that should be there, some tie that was broken a long time ago between body and self. I know I exist- I feel my hands against the keyboard, the chill of an unheated room at midnight, the scratch of the sheets against my foot- but at the same time, nothing feels quite right. I might be in a virtual reality for all the input my mind receives; I know I am here, but at the same time it feels like I might just be somewhere else entirely, and simply dreaming of sitting in front of a laptop. My body is mine and not mine, at once familiar and foreign. I forget what I look like, and when I look into a mirror I sometimes get startled at the face looking back at me, unaware for a moment just who I am looking at. In spring my eyes water from allergies and my nose runs, in summer flies appear and buzz incessantly, in fall spiders replace the flies and in winter it is almost always cold; I feel the irritations of the seasons, but at the same time it feels like it all could fade if I just... looked away, somehow. I write stories, and find myself in the world of my characters just as easily as my own, with memories of events- full memories, with the ghosts of taste, sound, and texture- from the story fresh in my mind. That, I hope, is just the result of an active imagination, but the ease in which I can lose myself is still strange...
But not frightening. Emotions are far, far away from my self; they are not foreign, but they are not summoned easily unless I am in a certain state of being. At the same time, however, there are always days when they appear as if out of nowhere, only to vanish completely just as quickly. I will be typing, and a word will catch my attention and my memory with it, forcing my mind into a near-panic at the sudden flash of emotion that comes with the memory of something from several years ago. By the time I recover from this hit-and-run of emotion it is gone, and I am left blank again.
Although I suppose anxiety is always present. It has been the one constant, throughout my loss of reality, reminding me just how terribly my social interactions always end- thus the reason I so rarely leave my home, except to purchase necessary groceries and to work.
Things can switch so terribly easily in my life, even though I have forced it into a rut of regularity. My days are the same habit, repeated over and over, each time with a different level of reality and stability. Sometimes I am in a fog that can last seemingly forever, only to snap out of it and realize I have been sitting, staring at a wall, for the last few hours. Sometimes I have panic attacks for no reason. Sometimes I cannot function at all, and sometimes I am perfectly fine.
I relate to your comment. I feel that here and not here feeling. And thoughts don't seem to form in my head. There's an empty quality to things.
I do try to do things. Not have this be my life, depersonalization, but my zest ad want of things is different. I just don't feel passionate about anything. And I feel always a step behind.
I started seeing a therapist who is into sensorimotor techniques: that you feel things in your body and that depersonalization was a defense mechanism that is unnecessary now.
I feel good when I see her but I don't feel it carrying through the day, and the week. Today, for instance, I spent my day in bed.
Anyway. Than you for your post. I related to it. I just wish it were easier to function.
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