Sufferer Reattachment

[lawi]

Hello.

Currently I am on leave at home from a psychiatric ward. I won't be going back which is unfortunate, and due to specific reasons. I have to handle my crisis by myself for now. That's why I am here now.

One part of my issue is the unfamiliarity I feel with life and myself right now, due to suspecting that after having things really well for some years, my detachment or something like that has been lifting and fears and traumas being set aside, some of which I have had since childhood I think. I feel like I was born yesterday in many ways, with unfamiliarity with everything being the theme. I have not been able to find much on this topic. I feel very alone, and one reason I am here is that I feel I need anyone who knows how I feel, to help with the solitude part of this seemingly rare issue.

I feel some detachment from a lot of my trauma has moved aside and now weird things I had blocked away for decades even have come to my attention. Just describing this is a challenge. Thank goodness for modern LLMs or otherwise I would not have known where to begin or have even found this forum.

I have a lot of issues, but I guess one focus is this feeling of hyper awareness and unfamiliarity. Starting from there might be a good idea, and just seeing if anyone has experienced similar things after their trauma has subsided and how they managed it, how long it took to feel familiar or oneself again, just sharing the experience.

Thank you. I really hope I can find some help here, as on the ward things have been quite challenging due to some rare physiological issues leading to treatment not functioning for me, amongst other things. I have began to feel better after getting home and getting some sleep, but my crisis remains and I would love to feel like I have a plan, some things I can do that actually help for others who know what I am going through in their own way, and some human interactions and so on. Thank you so much.

 

[Dark.Green.Feathers]

I feel like I was born yesterday in many ways, with unfamiliarity with everything being the theme. I have not been able to find much on this topic. I feel very alone, and one reason I am here is that I feel I need anyone who knows how I feel, to help with the solitude part of this seemingly rare issue.

Could this be dissociation?

I have a dissociative disorder and sometimes normal things feel very unfamiliar and difficult... I've felt like I've just been born and am starting life again a few times with major crises/trauma awarenesses.

 

[lawi]

It could be, but in a weird way I think it feels the opposite of what I thought that word meant. I feel hyper aware and like I am present for the first time ever, with certain things that I had somehow completely detached from my experience being there now. It's difficult to explain, especially in my weakened state. Like I don't know how to do basic things, just existing feels alien to me. I think the experience is called depersonalization or something, but I also understand it in this way: Let's say that in your trauma or fear a long time ago, you couldn't cope with earthquakes or something like that. So you lived your life knowing that they existed, but as if they weren't a reality, really. Then after decades, you suddenly begin to understand in a different way that earthquakes are a very real thing, or you become very aware of them and realize that you had been blocking it out of your identity, and have never addressed that fear. You are now an adult and not a child, so you have to adjust to this new known but unknown obvious thing, but you still feel afraid like you did when you blocked it as a child. Is this making any sense to you? I told a nurse I feel like I have gotten some brain injury or something, where things just feel weird. One thing I did was give myself a pep talk on something as if I were a child, to soothe me, as a test, thinking "what would I tell a child that had this fear?", and I think it worked for that and I fell asleep, but I don't recall what it was exactly as it was about a week ago. I am definitely overwhelmed for one, where I think I might have too many things I am suddenly aware of at the same time and thus it all confuses me, making it difficult to take one thing and sort it out. Like a huge blob of life just hit me for the first time, but I am a complete adult.

It may be a combination of different things from this single issue that perhaps started this current personal crisis.

This describes the severe anxiety I got from what I would consider getting better. Not being afraid. I called it the fear of not being afraid. The nurse said they think they understood what I meant but had not heard of this. It's been about a month now and today I found this particular podcast episode. I think what I have is relatively rare though in the episode she describes how it is quite common. Maybe my personal reaction to it is rarer, but the issue and what happens from it is according to this, relatively common at least.