Wth: no longer feeling present

[KafRN]

Monday morning, at work, 1.5 hours into meetings, I blink and I no longer feel present. I feel like everything is in slow motion and I can’t seem to register or acknowledge the world around me or anyone in it. My eyes are heavy, I feel like the moment right before you drift to sleep when everything is falling and heavy. I don’t remember much, time is invalid but seemingly only to me.

Co-workers start asking me if I’m ok and Id always reply, “yes, I’m fine, I’m just tired.” My husband notices and I try to explain to him the best I can because I truly don’t really know. He proceeds to be angered, days into the week, because I’m “acting like I don’t want to be here”, which snaps me to reality for a moment to reply, “I’m fighting as hard as I can to come out of this because it’s EXHAUSTING, not INTENTIONAL.

1.5 weeks in, I’m starting to get really scared that my reality is permanently warped. Co-workers still inquiring as to why I’m not myself, husband mad that I’m not myself (he’s very mentally stable and very chemically balanced, unlike myself, but fails to comprehend fully that mental illness is real.)

It’s Saturday morning, my eyes open, I rise, I actually feel and register the world around me and feel present in it. Week 3, anxiety and panic due to fear that 2 weeks prior will return.

What was that? Why? Was it triggered by something? (I’ve had a recent separation from a friend due to problems between our spouses and arrived to work that Monday to the news a coworker my age with a husband and several children suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.) Has anything like that happened to me before? Similar yes, 17 years ago, so twice.

 

[arfie]

I feel like everything is in slow motion and I can’t seem to register or acknowledge the world around me or anyone in it.

in my psychotherapy, this is called, "dissociation." i get vicious levels of it and manage the symptoms with grounding techniques and sharing within my therapy support network. i avoid my too perfect for therapy hub-a-lub as much as possible when i am dissociating. he has no experience by which to understand and anger -someone else's or my own- makes it worse than any response i know of.

easy does it kaf. be gentle with yourself and patient with the process.

 

[KafRN]

in my psychotherapy, this is called, "dissociation." i get vicious levels of it and manage the symptoms with grounding techniques and sharing within my therapy support network. i avoid my too perfect for therapy hub-a-lub as much as possible when i am dissociating. he has no experience by which to understand and anger -someone else's or my own- makes it worse than any response i know of.

easy does it kaf. be gentle with yourself and patient with the process.

Thank you.

 

[parrotthepolly]

Does this happen continuously for more than one day? I relate to everything including thinking this might be a new reality and I'm permanently stuck in this mindset and I've switched dimensions or something.

It doesn't have to be a trigger, or can be late response to the trigger, or be caused by daily stressors if your stress cup is full, when I have a busy schedule it can happen a lot but for a few hours at most but there can be seconds or minutes in-between where I'm not dissociating and when I "relax" my nervous system senses something is "wrong". Learned to just live with it after so many years, better than panicking.

If it lasts for a few days at a time then I understand how it can become terrifying. I suggest explaining this to your partner cause non disordered people will see this as simply not paying attention or you purposely zoning out but it's more complicated than that.

 

[KafRN]

My last most recent episode lasted from a Monday to the next weeks Saturday. Smaller episodes are brief moments, to a couple of minutes long, but the short ones feel more like a power down reset. I haven’t had an episode that long, ever but I have had one other episode, 17 years ago that lasted a few days. It’s almost like when my threshold is surpassed, I’ll shut down for as long as it takes my body to reset.