Has Life Ever Just Not Seemed Real To You?

[FindingMyself88]

I am posting this hear because I wander if this is a form of dissociation.

Has life ever just not seemed real? Like it's some game maybe or just….not real? I don't know how to explain it. For the moments I try to think realistically I get incredibly anxious.

Is this part of PTSD, or has anyone else experienced it? Sorry I can't explain more, I just am having a rough day...

 

[Leah123]

Sure, that's classic PTSD, subtype with dissociative symptoms:

"In addition to meeting criteria for diagnosis, an individual experiences high levels of either of the following in reaction to trauma-related stimuli:

1. Depersonalization: experience of being an outside observer of or detached from oneself (e.g., feeling as if "this is not happening to me" or one were in a dream).
2. Derealization: experience of unreality, distance, or distortion (e.g., "things are not real")."

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/PTSD-overview/dsm5_criteria_ptsd.asp

And yes, I've had experiences like that. I hope you'll take good, gentle care of yourself, so that you feel nourished and safe, whatever that takes for you. That is basically the best way I've found to ease the dissociation.

 

[Jane.l]

I get this too sometimes , it is kinda hard to describe but I know just what you mean - also totally agree with Leah .

 

[Mercy]

Yes, I experience this along with feeling like I am a bit shocky. I don't mind it much. For me, it is almost relaxing since I am not easily triggered in this state of semisuspention.

 

[FindingMyself88]

@Leah123 thank you for sharing that with me. I knew I dissociated, but it seems like I live in a state of dissociation almost. Anytime I think about the future, it either seems very unreal or gives me a panic attack. Today I have been bouncing back and forth which has caused even more anxiety and I feel very unstable. I think this may be what my T was talking about when she said that it would take some adjusting to being associated instead of dissociated. I couldn't do it without Bristol. As is, I am still having to take my anxiety medicine on maximum dosage… I just hope she is right that this is a good thing…

@Jane.l It's incredibly frustrating! I am normally pretty good at describing how I feel, but not this.

@Mercy I use to be that way until I started going through this "adjustment" phase of trying to be associated…but I guess it's gotta get worse before it gets better...

 

[macbeth]

Absolutely. I have experienced this sense of unreality many times. I hope it helps you @FindingMyself88 to know that you are not alone is this. Best wishes and :hug:s.

 

[Leah123]

@Leah123 Anytime I think about the future, it either seems very unreal or gives me a panic attack. …..

Panicking about the future's another classic PTSD thing: catastrophizing. A sense of foreshortened future or negative outcomes for you or loved ones is, unfortunately, part of the backlash from trauma in many cases.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@FindingMyself88
It is very disorienting when I get in that spaced out dissociative state. I relate to your comments. It always leaves me anxious. Is this my body? I don't recognize anything...

Sometimes I stay in this state for a couple of days. I wish I could develop better grounding and self care techniques. Well, some days are better than others and I try not to beat myself up about it.

I also struggle with self harm during these depersonalizations states. I come to and discover I've cut myself or taken too many meds. I've been working hard the past three months on this. Now it's summer and I have scars all over the place. Very embarrassing

 

[amy4k]

Sure, pretty much since I was 7 and I decided that I was dropped off here by aliens as an experiment.... seriously I remember standing in the playground and coming to this conclusion. It is very hard for me to stay grounded so I have derealization a lot.

 

[margaret gardner]

Sure, pretty much since I was 7 and I decided that I was dropped off here by aliens as an experiment.... seriously I remember standing in the playground and coming to this conclusion. It is very hard for me to stay grounded so I have derealization a lot.

When I think of the past I still want to believe it wasn't real .blocking out the truth of my history for44years takes time to undo and sme days I just want to dissociate from the truth again

 

[KwanYingirl]

But here we are. Now what? I have been using yoga and Reiki for about three months and I have to say that I get many benefits. Especially the Reiki. I am feeling my body now which is scary but worth it. I feel much more in the here and now and in yoga we practice breathing and again being in today. I've been taught a lot of grounding techniques but when I'm dissociated I'm not me and I don't have access to those tools. Bleechh!

 

[shell]

I feel this way about my past more times than I care to admit, most of the time in fact it is probably my way of coping when things get all too real, and I am overwhelmed.

I think that it is why for so long I truly believed I wasn't affected by what happened to me, because most of the time I feel like I am not the same person that happened to, she doesn't exist anymore, and I am not that person, and never was. But then I will be triggered and it will all come crashing in, and it's all very real.

Some days I question, will I wake up and find it was all a bad dream all the time, and my life is not really like this,that this the alternate reality? If only it was true, but it is just wishful thinking.

As a child on the odd occassion I was told I created a different reality because my life was so unacceptable, I even at times apparently told some of the kids at high school when they saw me on the train, that I wasn't who they said I was, that I was someone else. I thought they were mistaking me for someone else, I had no recall of seeing them, or even being there on the previous day. One person became furiously angry at me, and thought I was trying to make him think he was crazy, whereas I was the one who departed from reality because I was overwhelmed. Dissociation can make the truth feel unreal, the present threat removed, and every thing distant.