💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.
I spent most of my life dissociated so I don't know. I used it as an escape. If I sit here and think about it I would say, no, for me it is more like a coping mechanism. As I get more dissociated, I feel safer. For me dissociation is a dreamy, soft, foggy feeling that keeps me from feeling the real world. What is dissociation to you?
i'm too apathetic to consciously commit acts of violence when i dissociate, but i neglect self-care to lethal degrees.
starvation would be an easy suicide for me, at any time.
When in my 20s to early 30s, I only rarely and briefly felt suicidal and perhaps only when alone and dissociating. During my dissociation, I’d felt as though nothing were real, including myself. My self-preservation then seemed totally meaningless. Just like my many panic attacks, my dissociations often seemed to happen spontaneously, out of nowhere.
During my 20s, I was also suffering badly from depression. My panic attacks would be brief, about 1 or 2 minutes, yet awful. For some unexplainable reason, I’d suddenly be overwhelmed with the belief that, I was about to die. My heart would pound. My thoughts would blur. I’d fear I might lose consciousness. Sometimes I’d begin to panic during a simple casual conversation. I’d then be fearful that these people might notice my nervous fidgeting or that an expression of fear might appear on my face.
I most often knew these were internal experiences yet, my body would react to them as if, they were real. How does one run aways from their internal panic attack — they’re immobilizing!
My first T said, I should learn to tolerate my frightening imagination. Yes but how? I was then on the anti-depressant, Elavil, which wasn’t helping. I had previously taking Valium and Tofranil between age 20 and 24 -- just wondering, if, these drugs had contributed to my suicidal thoughts. At age 32, I abruptly stopped taking the Elavil when my first T suddenly died. I haven’t taken any psychotropic drugs since that time -- this was over 40 years ago.
Perhaps my method of meditation wasn’t the best for me. It might have worsening my dissociation. I had been listening to and mentally visualizing classical music to alter my mental state. My visualization skills have always been exceptionally keen, I think -- perhaps my best means of escape. However, I later quit this method of meditation, as it seemed to drain me of energy while increasing my anxieties.
Later, my relaxation therapy with my second T, was entirely different. There I was instructed to focus only on flexing my various muscle groups, then, to focus on feeling these muscles relax. This I did daily, at home, from head to toe -- a boring exercise for sure. Visualizations were only applied later during our sessions, where my T would direct the imaginary narrative.
In regards to suicide —I’ve never planned nor attempted to harm myself though, sometimes I’ve feared that I might. My life has been burdened with many emotionally painful obstacles, not of my choosing. Yet as long as I keep my intense emotions in check, I think I’ll be fine. (Being afraid of my intense emotions is another problem for me) Then too, there’s always a little voice inside my head saying, ‘Don’t …you’ll hurt yourself!’