[Guest]

Well im not sure what is going wrong with me, so will just try and describe what i have been going through the last month.

First a little bit of history...

I have suffered from relativly low level anxiety for several years, i had learnt to live my life around anything that would trigger off my anxiety, which would maifest itself by making me feel sick and losing appetite. I missed out on a lot of things in life but i was happy...or at least thought i was. After a few years the anxiety symptoms of sickness faded, but were replaced with lightheadedness and cognitive functions seemly affected. Processes such as memory, concentration all took a hit. I still managed to live a fairly productive life with only the odd major flair ups of anxiety....sometimes killed with alchohol.

Now its around this time i decided to do some of the things i have been scared of because of anxiety, i moved in with my girlfriend, after living at home for all of my 25 years, i planned a holiday abroad, which i havnt had since i was 12 and various other things. Basically i was trying to get my life sorted out. As i felt i was mentally healthier than i had ever been.

Now...this brings me to the present, or 6 weeks ago to be precise. Where i feel my long time anxiety took a long run up and kicked me squar in the balls.

It was on a sunday evening and i was just watching telly when suddenly it felt like reality had just gone AWOL. I had to look around me and double take as my environment seemed foreign. I had no other symptons just a disconnection from my surroundings. I looked at myself in the mirror and looked relativly normal but everything around me seemed different. Like the world had been gently nudged a few mm off its axis.

This feeling passed after a few hours, i went to sleep and the next day i felt ok and i thought nothing of it.

Then 2 weeks later it happened again....this time, after an arguement with my girlfriend, it last about 2 days on and off. The feeling of reality being just that slightly been askew. I basically shit myself. Thought i was going insane, i had to get away from my girlfriends and go to my mums as i knew there was noone there so i could freak out without anyone seeing me (how fucked up is that..i feel like im going mad and i want to do it in private?).

Over this weekend i felt:

- Disconnected from reality
- Very high anxiety levels (could sleep but up at 6am heart pounding)
- Scared, thinking i was losing it.
- Could not eat

All this while pretending to everyone around me girlfriend etc, that i was ok...how the hell i manage to keep up an act i dont know.

Somehow i got through the weekend...but on the monday i broke down in tears telling my dad about it...i was emotionally battered and so scared what was happening to me. I felt like i was losing my mind...and being consciously aware of it leaving me which freaked me out some more.

The worst thing was i felt so bad that if i felt like this for any longer i was considering suicide.

Anyways, i went to the doctor and told him what had happend, he said that given my history of anxiety it was probably a brutal flair up due to all the recent changes in my life, i.e planning holidays, moving in with girlfriend, splitting up then getting back together with girlfriend etc etc. I kinda bought this theory but told him how i felt like i was going to have to kill myself if i felt so disconneced from my environments ( as in familar areas seeming unfamilar) for much longer as it was freaking me out so much. Because of this he sent me to the hospital to be mentally assessed.

At the hospital i was asked some questions about whether i liked to carry weapons and/or start fires, which i didnt. In fact one of the only questions i kinda got right was whether i felt like i was going to do myself some damage. Anyways, i get prescribed some diazepam to take and that was that with a meeting with a therapist set for a month later.

It has now been one month since the major attack and i just dont know what the hell it was, DR/DP? Or is it just real bad anxiety that keeps stealing my sense of environment from me. All i know is for the last month...2 weeks of which spent on the diazepams...i have been:

- waking up at 6am every morning in a state of anxiety, fearful of the initial attack returning.

- Also my vision and my head, which has always suffered from lightheadedness (feels like im always on the verge of feeling dizzy), feels like it is being totally overwhelmed and if i try to look about to much i feel like im going to have vertigo and/or a panic attack.

- I have constant 'episodes' where i will be looking at the TV say, and look about the room and it feels foreign to me for a second. This has seeminly been increasing in frequency today and yesterday.

My doctor put me on a 50mg dose of Trazodone Hydrochloride on monday, so its too early to say whether they will do anything i guess, also i have a therapy something or other on the 14th April. So while i have got things in place to help me..

....i dont know what the funk i am trying to fix? Anxiety? DP? DR? I dont have this 2D vision thing so does that exclude me from DR? I Just dont know...my doctor seems sure this is all anxiety and once i see the therapist and the drugs kick in i will be able to sort it all out...but when i am feeling like my universe just got up and left and i would rather top myself than continue on in such a state..then well,.,.i dont know.

Sorry for this rambling monster of a post...just had alot of shit to get out my system...as i am scared beyond what i ever believed possible.

Cheers

Jamie.

 

[Guest]

The very short answer is we sure know what you're describing - most of us have experienced something almost identical to what you wrote about up there.

You'll get all kinds of different answers as to what "it" is. My own opinion, and I am recovered for what it's worth, is that you've had a mental breakdown (suffering from anxiety and hyper-alert status for a long time, and eventually that just crumbles...nobody can live so controlled and covertly terrified of their own mind without something eventually falling apart).

You are experiencing dp and dr (to some extent) as a reaction to your massive fears of your own mind. Is it "anxiety?' well, yeah, lol...but is it also "dissociation?" sure, in a way. The name matters so much less than the experience - when we fall apart, we do it in ways that fit our particular brain structure - some people enter massive depression, others create hyper-anxiety and obsessions...often both of those develop into dp states.

Talk to a therapist, try to open up and be as forthcoming as possible. If you need meds, take them. And most of all, TRY to reassure yourself that despite how it feels, you are not going insane (and I KNOW it feels like precisely that....)

Welcome and please know you are far from alone here.

Janine

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the reply Janine. I have admiration for the fact you manged to get to the end of my post, i still feel like i should have put a intermission in the middle just to break it up a bit

I think i agree with your idea that its a mental breakdown as i am, was?, constantly hyperaware of my actions and how others interpreted them. Everything i did was a considered action most the time. But i can't help feel that someone aged 25, who is reasonably healthy and really not under much pressure from work or anything can have a breakdown.

Unless of course all the pressure has come from inside for a considerable amount of time.....hmm.

Weird

 

[Guest]

Don't worry I know exactly what you mean. (I can also sympthise with g/f side of things - any issues there really f*ck me up)

I'm at work but I'll try and do a proper response later.

 

[ShaneSutherly]

I had a very similar expierience about 3 months ago. I was sitting watching a movie and all of a sudden I got this panic and wondered who am I? I felt foreign to myself and surroundings. I have been on medication Zoloft, Risperdal and Trazodone and this seems to have helped me. But what has helped me more than anything is going to a therapist. This has helped me realize that there are things about myself that I need to sort out, and that I was keeping inside for so long that all of a sudden I couldnt take it anymore. Ask yourself what you are hiding from yourself. What don't you like about yourself? Also, I try to tell myself, what is there really to fear? You are making yourself believe that something is wrong. I think the therapy will really help you. Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Cheers for the responses people. I just come back from seeing my doctor as i was feeling pretty rough today. I have only been on the trazodones for a 5 days so they have not had a chance to kick in yet, so he has given me some more diazepams to take for the next 5 days until the trazodone kicks in.

Shit, with trazodone and diazapams in me i better steer clear of booze

..which is gonna be tricky as its me and my g/f 1st year anniversery today. Which is going to be interesting as she will be wondering why i soo unhappy when i should be happy.

...keep feeling like i should tell her about it all...as i have kept my mental problems, with a very few exceptions, seperate from my friends and current girlfriend. But i worry what with the stigma attached to mental illness i will tell her it will ruin our relationship.

...now hows about that for insecurity/fear of rejection :shock:

 

[SillyPutty]

I recomend Janine's book "Unraveling". It has been more helpful than meds and therapy for me.Recovery is possible but sometimes SLOW remember that.

Best Wishes.

 

[Guest]

vexdster I can totally relate to your post. I too am a 25 year old male and I too have just moved in with my girlfriend. Like you, I get attacks on weekends mostly - I've got nothing but time to think and then...bang, it's like a total alternate reality opens up in front of you. When I get it really bad I feel like I'm the only person on earth and I'm completely alone and empty. We will get through this, we have to get through this. It helps just knowing that you're not alone and there's a support system like this out there.

Cheers

 

[ShyTiger]

Hi Vex.
Wanted to just respond to one thing in particular -re thinking of suicide. What got me through that way of thinking was this: 1) Remember that life will not always be like that. 2) Suicide is not an option, Recovery is. Those two statements have saved my life three times now. Hope it helps.