By: Abigail Anerella ❤️
Part of the reason I was so invested in making this blog was to help anyone going through depersonalization. I used to spend hours and hours online looking for answers about what I was experiencing, and I wish I had something to utilize for myself. But because I never found anything, I'd like to be the person to make something others can utilize.
It always helped me to read other people's stories. Although I could never quite find what I was looking for, and was honestly stuck on Quora reading stories with no faces attached to them. They didn't feel real, and neither did my disorder.
The picture above was taken through a really bad OCD flare up before I went back to college for Winter break.
As mentioned in my previous post (My Struggle With OCD), my Dad had picked me up from school after I started experiencing Self-Harm OCD.
On the ride home from school, I got a thought, "what if the person next to you is actually a stranger?" And for a week to follow, I felt like I couldn't recognize my own Dad.
We stopped at a Longhorn Steakhouse on our way home, and I felt like I was sitting next to a stranger at the bar. What was happening to me?
I could look at my Dad, his face was the same face I always knew, I could tell you anything you wanted to know about him, but I felt no emotional connection, no emotional attachment. I felt like I was looking at him through tunnel vision. Everything was so scary. And the more I looked at my surroundings, the more fake those looked too. Our waitress felt like a robot, my chair felt like it was floating and I was watching myself in a dream.
We got home, and my brother, his girlfriend, and my mom greeted us at the door. I didn't want to speak to any of them. They were all unrecognizable. My own mom, my own dad, my own sibling, who were they?
My memories started to not feel real. Almost like they were just stories I was telling myself. I couldn't function properly, so I swallowed my anxiety until it was time for bed.
I didn't want to tell my parents what I was experiencing. I didn't want them to think I was crazy. So I called my best friend, Alexandra, and cried to her on the phone for 2 hours. It was the first time I had told anyone outside of my mom, boyfriend, and therapist what I had been experiencing in full detail. And instead of thinking I was crazy for how my brain was working against me, she cried with me. Still to this day, that was the only interaction that felt real throughout my depersonalization episode.
Alexandra since I know you'll be reading this: thank you for showing me in that moment what a best friend should be. You've been there for me in ways I can't describe, and you've never judged me for being me, but instead encouraged it. Thank you for that. I love you <3
I woke up the next morning at 7 am and had my first ever panic attack. I cried in both my parents arms as I tried to explain more of the black spaghetti that was my brain.
I didn't want to be around people, and I didn't want to go out of the house out of fear I was going to have another panic attack.
Despite that mentality, I had 7 more panic attacks before Monday hit. At this point, I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I had an appointment scheduled with my therapist in my hometown. I sat in her office for an hour, and in all transparency, I can't even tell you what most of the conversation was about.
I feel like I had blacked out. I remember 2 things, both of which were very specific. She had turned her computer screen towards me and said, "which one of these do you think fits your description best?" I looked at the screen and these were the two images..
The other thing I remember telling her was, "there are so many people around me, and yet I feel so lonely". She responded back and said, "you just defined mental health".
She explained to me that dissociation episodes, whether they be depersonalization, or derealization, are a really high stress response to severe levels of anxiety.
This is a good way to describe how it works...
The most important thing I learned was that depersonalization is not forever. To break the cycle you have to target why the cycle started in the first place. For me, my intrusive thoughts related to suicide were so distressing my body couldn't take it, and it shut down to try to protect me.
I attended an OCD outpatient program at The Anxiety Institute in Madison, NJ, and since then I haven't had another panic attack. I still experience depersonalization episodes when my OCD related to self-harm flares up, but I am able to deal with it much better than I was before.
If you want to learn more about my treatment, how to deal with depersonalization, and more OCD management skills, feel free to read the blog: My Treatment Journey.
Don't forget to be kind to yourself. <3
Comments