How do I make important life decisions if they snap me into dissociation and panic?

[SeekingAfrica]

Exactly what I said, not much more to it. For example, I need extra side work or a new job or something that makes extra money to be able to pay a debt. But the idea that right now I can't pay that debt, and for about a year, knowing the same things I know now, having the same skills and ideas, I have not been able to do it makes me feel like I'm doomed to repeat the same thing. Suddenly I start counting the days until I need to make the first payment for whatever it is that I lack money for. It can be 3 days or 3 weeks, but it seems impossible nevertheless. All the countless times last year when I thought I can handle things and I couldn't, loom over me.

And suddenly I am so panicked that I start to detach. I start to feel like I'm sleepwalking. Feelings and memories of my trauma start to look at the back of my mind and my body starts hurting everywhere. Suddenly I can't concentrate on job applications or side gigs anymore, because I feel like I'll faint at any moment. All the fears and memories collide and I just can't be present.

I am on new medication and generally it makes me feel better, but when I start to think in this way, things get bad fast. And I tend to lose anywhere from couple of hours to several days just being unable to do any task that may make me panic, because if I try I do end up having huge anxiety or panic attacks. And I recognize that I make it bad by the formulation of my thoughts. Because it's the kind of thing, I might be worried about several bucks or several hundred, it doesn't matter, my mind will still scramble my brain with fear and panic over it... I am trying to put systems in my life and organize myself so there aren't so many things that can derail me, but I am struggling with one such instance right now and I am already having that daydream detached feeling a bit, and I need to snap out of it...

 

[EveHarrington]

Can you find a way to ground yourself?

Then make the decision?

I think that’s the only real way to get through it...

Otherwise you may end up making decisions that wreck your life.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

Can you find a way to ground yourself?

Then make the decision?

I think that’s the only real way to get through it...

Otherwise you may end up making decisions that wreck your life.

I don't know. I guess I'll have to figure it out, like anything else in life.

Today was not that kind of day. I was already set off, I wrote what I wrote and I was struggling to do better, and then few other things in my day went wrong. And then there was this huge traffic in the bus with so many people I barely got in and people were constantly shoving and pushing each other because there was no space. And I had stopped carrying my emergency meds or kit with me because for a while I hadn't needed it. And I completely dissociated on the bus and while I was warming in dance class. The dance class grounded me as usual, but then being on the bus on the way back was pretty much the same.

And I had so much trouble shuffling through people to get off the bus that I almost twisted my ankle again. So by the time I got home I was in full meltdown mode, and I just can't today, I can't... It's just too much pain and I can't.

Tomorrow I have day off from dance to work, and I hope I am calm enough to make decisions. I know work was easier when I was only doing chunks of it and concentrating on that rather than on the result. I think I have to sleep on it and try again tomorrow, I am just...I can't, I just... I think I am having a bit of a meltdown and I can't think rationally.

You're right. I need to be grounded, otherwise I am not making one decision, but it feels like everything is coming at me and I can't breathe and I am sorry. This day, just...it takes me a moment to get worked up again I don't know what it is, but I...I am just so...I can't. I just need to sleep this off. All my coping skills and careful preparation and I let myself think that I'm better and now...I just...just... I am so done with the day I feel like I'll melt into a puddle at any moment and I just can't go back to that time....I-I- I am sorry, I think I can't even think clearly right now, I need to sleep it off...

 

[Bloomy]

Ive managed to take more action with time cause I realise that If I dont Ill have a even more huge panic attack. I can wake up shit scared 4 o clock in the morning. Then the only thing to do is to put on meditation tape until I can relax again. But the pure knowledge that if I dont take action itll get so much worse has finally got me out of zoombie state for the most.