Having dissocative flare and hate it

[SeekingAfrica]

In a PTSD dissociating way. I thought it was just a day, but today is worse it's like a... I don't know it's like I was present and had anxieties and depressions of present things, other than being a bit hypervigilant and having nightmares...

And yesterday and today it's like that PTSD snap feeling. Like you're not quite present or the present is like honey, hard to move through and focus on and going through my day is all fragmented. How does one change their life like that? How do I work when I sleep normal hours and still get random flashes and sleep in the afternoon? How do I motivate myself to workout, or clean or ... when I can't even feel like it's the month it is? How do I finish work deadline so I can go to therapy? How do I do anything when in this state each task feels like 10?

 

[arfie]

if hating on my symptoms could cure them, i'd be miss normal perfection by now. hating on a flat tire in the rain won't get the tire changed. ditto for expecting those symptoms to sit in the corner like good children until mommy meets her professional deadlines. personally, i take life on life's own terms, doing what i can and letting the rest go. ply therapy tools, as needed. staying task oriented helps me make the most of the lucid moments where i can actually focus on a single task. reviewing the list of tasks attached to deadlines, etc., sends me spinning psychotically. focusing on the task at hand and nothing else helps stay productive, even when i'm psychopating.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

if hating on my symptoms could cure them, i'd be miss normal perfection by now. hating on a flat tire in the rain won't get the tire changed. ditto for expecting those symptoms to sit in the corner like good children until mommy meets her professional deadlines. personally, i take life on life's own terms, doing what i can and letting the rest go. ply therapy tools, as needed. staying task oriented helps me make the most of the lucid moments where i can actually focus on a single task. reviewing the list of tasks attached to deadlines, etc., sends me spinning psychotically. focusing on the task at hand and nothing else helps stay productive, even when i'm psychopating.

Agree on all, but if reviewing all tasks sends you spinning how do you choose 1 task to do once able to?
Do you feel nauseous if usually you work/clean/whatever for hours but now 10min seems forever? How do you forgive yourself?
I'm scared, it's been a while since I felt this.

Until yesterday I was happily making short and long term plans, breaking them down to months etc....
Today anything beyond some work, going to the store out of need(and maybe taking a bus for 10min walk...) and workout(or possibly occasional breaks for singular exercise sets) seems like a big thing. The desire to forget is both scary(I feel like things to do are falling out of my head) and appealing (I feel like doing unhealthy coping just to not think).

Most of the last months I can think of I've had bigger deadlines or things to obsessively worry about.
But until yesterday I was trying to have a bullet journal, goals, life. Now it's all fragmented and it's hard to remember the point of things and I don't want to write on paper or do things like I did them before. I don't want this me into my other normal systems. So I crave a system that would help me manage this.
I also crave just anything that would make me happy and because I'm so disconnected I think of nothing.
I don't feel like myself and I don't know how to be in the year we're in, in the space we're in.
I'm scared when I buy things because my budget is limited but I can't think about budgets right now because my brain feels in pieces.

I HATED who I was last time I had to break my work in that many pieces and use sensory grounding as much.
I haven't felt desire to hide under the covers to much in a long time.
Also I have to break baby steps into baby steps, it's bad. (vaccuuming one room in parts, breaking shower into prepping clothes etc, sitting for break on the floor of the bathtub, having a break between washing hair and drying it...)

This is BAD, it's really bad and I feel like not being me right now.

 

[arfie]

how do you choose 1 task to do once able to?

i don't choose. i focus on grounding myself far enough that i am ABLE to focus far enough to complete a single task, any task. once i have accomplished that, which task to focus on becomes clear.

Do you feel nauseous if usually you work/clean/whatever for hours but now 10min seems forever?

my digestive tract is sensitive enough that i can feel nausea without apparent rhyme or reason

How do you forgive yourself?

it helps me to use analogies of physical illness. i think of my mental illness as, "psychic flu." i find it easier to forgive myself for having the flu than to forgive myself across the stigma/euphemisms of, mental illness.

This is BAD, it's really bad and I feel like not being me right now.

given my preference, i'd rather be someone else any day, but the cosmos forgot to ask my opinion, AGAIN! ! ! me is all i get to be. that is enough when i let it be.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

@arfie Thank you for all your words today.
Actually even before your last answer, I did 1 task randomly and ended up doing few more before all the actual news hit my phone feed.
So just moving and doing something even badly did help gently pull me out.
Eventually I realized I may have hit a bad trigger on Monday and just rolled deeper and deeper into it each day.
However now there is actual city crisis so my brain snapped in crisis mode(ignoring my issues and focusing on if I can help somehow)- which I am pretty good at.

In any case hoping the 1 think snowball kind of method will work, I want to get back to feeling better.
For tonight it's just dinner and going to bed, happy that I did few tasks, if small, and happy the people I know are safe though sad in general.