Tips On Re-personalizing And Re-realizing? Anyone?

[Hope4Now]

I had a rough night last night. It was the kind of night that epitomizes why I feel like I am completely crazy and why I feel so ashamed that I cannot seem to behave and think the way I always have. I managed for a while. I got myself to the train, the subway, and to the place where I was meeting my husband. The pain wasn't too bad, I walked slowly, but I was okay. Then my social part had to kick in...this was around 5. We stood around blabbing with profs as the conference disbanded, then got a ride from someone to our dinner party. The talk at the conference should have been interesting to me. It was not. I just wanted to leave. This is not like me.

The dinner party was interesting. We were the youngest of the couples (by about 30 years)...and the people were all very smart, well-read, and creative. There were artists and scientists and historians and physicians. There were fabulous stories about their parents in WWII...in France, in Austria, in Russia. I think I did a decent job as my "social self" asking lots of questions, engaging in conversation. But I was not there. I was watching it all from various spots in paintings on the wall. And it went on and on and on. Kept trying to come back into myself. Kept zooming off again.

I was dying to leave almost 2 hours before we could. I felt trapped. I bruised up my arms pinching myself to stay present/focused. Finally, when my husband got the car and picked me up, I collapsed into the front seat. Couldn't open my eyes, speak, or move much for around 20 minutes. The pain in my back and legs was excruciating. Eventually I pulled out of it. Had a horrid night...was completely exhausted but could not sleep because the pain was as bad as it has ever been.

So...WTF? Nothing bad happened. I was not unsafe. I got through the party. I pulled myself out of collapse mode in the car. I got through the night. I wasn't having flashbacks, or even intrusive thoughts. I was fully aware of everything. But I was mostly outside myself. For hours and hours. So, I just tried to bring my attention back to my breath. Is this really all I can do? Bleh. I guess I'm just venting. I need someone with a magic wand to put all my pieces back together again so everything works and I don't feel so awful all the time.

 

[sun seeker]

Thanks for posting @Hope4Now. I'm sorry you are having such a hard time.

The thing is, you're not crazy. You don't know yet what your body is trying to tell you, but you can trust there is something. You've been holding on for a long time, but it's just too much. I'm so glad you've decided to take a leave from work so you have a chance to work on sorting out all those pieces and putting them together, or else finding a way for them to work in harmony. It isn't going to happen overnight, but it will happen.

Your ANP is highly competent, but she has been doing the lion's share of the work for a long time. It's no wonder she is tired.

Wish I had a magic wand for you, but the were on back order last time I checked. I wouldn't mind having one myself.

 

[shimmerz]

I was not unsafe.

I remember when I was in the midst of being stalked, harassed, terrorized, I used to drop in at various friends places rather than go back to my house which was, at the time, the house from hell. I couldn't understand for the life of me why, when I would walk through the doors of some of them I would collapse in silent tears. My body would just give out. It was a consistent reaction though - but only some places. The safe places.

I think, Hope, when we 'get through' something, finally get to safety, where we no longer have to pretend, where the body knows that it can come out of it's perpetually -over the top- stress response, that it needs to process. That may be tears, it may be shaking, it may be collapsing, it may be zoning out. It isn't crazy. You pushed yourself a lot that night to be 'Normal' and Normal didn't feel like playing.

I guess that is what dissociation is, and freezing is further along the dissociative continuum...?

I do feel like it was dissociative yes. Dissociation causes one to 'process', imho. I feel like (although this is far from scientific, just experiential) it is like a bunch of kids clamouring for your attention. The one who acts out the loudest is the one who 'gets' the attention but that doesn't mean the others don't too. So I guess what I mean is that each dissociative part has its own character or personality. Some just are better at getting our attention than others. I didn't see it as a continuum per se.

 

[shell]

Hmm. Good question. My eyes are usually closed. When they are open, weird visual things happen...like I can see patterns moving...energy...in whatever surface I'm looking at. Feels like I imagine a trip on mushrooms or LSD might be.

But when it occurs to me that this is actually me, it is deeply disturbing. Argh.

I get this quite often when I wake up after being asleep and I have been told it is an aura related to painless migranes. It's very freaky, frightening when you think OMG what's wrong with me, but it feels better having reassurance from the doctor it's not something really awful.

I can now enjoy the colour show, and realize that something in my dreams has triggered me again, calm my breathing and once I have stopped shallow breathing, it all goes away. Refocusing to the presence, to the breath, grounding to the floor, to where I actually am, that I am safe, even though a lot of the time I was not aware I was feeling unsafe, because I was so dissociated, has made a big difference in my life.

Daily body scans have made a big difference in reducing my dissociation, I have reconnected with my body, and am more aware of the way I rely on depersonlization and derealization when I am maxed out. Always I find when things are feeling unreal, my breathing is the centre of the issue, I am either breathing so shallowly that I am barely breathing, or hyperventalating and moving into a panic attack, because I feel threatened, even though I am not actually at risk, I just tell myself I am.

 

[Hope4Now]

an aura related to painless migranes

I had this too. It's different from what I was talking about, but it's really cool once you know you're not dying. According to google, it's a "scintillating scotoma." Say that 10 times fast. I was stunned when I looked it up later in google images and found some representations that looked a lot like what I was seeing. I got the headache later though. Not too awful because I ate a bunch of advil.

You are right about the breathing @shell. I worked on this a lot over the weekend and it kept me from spiraling off into very bad places.