# At my wits end



## TickleMeElmo (Jan 20, 2009)

I don't even know where to begin, I feel so lost and confused.

I was hit with a chronic case of depersonlisation when I was 21 that's never really lifted. It was off the back of a panic attack a couple of weeks after taking ecstasy. At the time I was living in Australia, no family or friends and a nuts girlfriend who tied me in knots and in the cheated on me, despite us having a good friendship.

At the time I didn't get any help, well I went to the doctor and she scared the crap out of me with a spiel about drugs punching a whole into my subconcious and being committed. Enormously helpful. As a result I buried my head in the sand and lived with it. So I lived with this very upsetting distuirbed and disconnected feeling for 4 years.

At some point something must have happened at the back of my mind as I decided to return to the UK and be with my family, best decision I ever made but the first feeling i remember having is when I saw my dad and expected to feel the wave of love I had always had for him and instead felt this muted peak of something that disappeared incredibly quickly. I was totally gutted.

Completed my final year of uni getting an ok mark, but the year was filled with alcohol and sleeping with lots of girls. It seemed to be the only thing that made me feel good, but at the same time I think it alienated some people or at the very least made the relationship awkward enough that i couldn't bond with them. Some of what I did was almost, well manic. Certainly hyper.

I suffered from panic attacks on and off, but largely managed to strain far enough away from my own mind to stay out of anxieties clutches.

After I got back, got a good job, met a girl at work there who was lovely but seemed to have issues of her own that manifested themselves as being emotionally absent and unable to acknowledge my feelings...or her own...or say I love you - despite me working really hard to be loved. Sort of like chasing the crumbs for a table, when I got a bit it was enough to keep me in the relationship and keep me going.

I made the mistake of leaving work and working on my own for 3 years largely due to low sefl esteem and anxiety being with people (very often feeling that there was something wrong with me or that people were rejecting me with the slightest action). So i lived with this girl, who I still love really (she was a really good person and lots of good qualities), worked on my own in the house for that period of time until I had a massive meltdown.

It manifested as anxiety extreme enough to have me sleeping by a chimney to feel like I wasn't trapped in the house and sleeping with 1 foot on the floor so I didn't feel like I was trapped in the bed. When I did go out and come home I'd pause before putting the key in the lock with this feeling of dread I had to wrestle down and then walk in. Ironically I didn't really have many panic attacks.

At the start I tried to talk to my girlfriend who didn't want to know being emotionally closed off and all and every time I asked her if she felt a particular way or if she was alright she'd tell me I was imagining it. I got to the state where I thought I was imagining my own feelings...it was really quite disturbed and fucked up.

In the end I had to see a councellor, psychiatrist and tried taking some medication. The only thing which had an effect was venlafaxine which gave very lurid disturbing dreams...one of which I remember was about murdering someone and really feeling like during the day I had done it...questioning myself and trying to reason my way out of it. Dreams were largely sexual or at least being noticed naked. The feeling gradually lessened but i don't think afterwards there was really an affect so I ended up jacking them in.

Being at home my obsessive thoughts went into orbit, I analysed and monitored every single feeling. Each one that came along, everything even though they were happening at a million miles a second. I tried to work round them, escape them, meditate out of them you name it I tried it. Even tried accepting them but that just left me feeling numb.

I managed to just about cope. In the end I went back to work out of the house, went a bit crazy again slept with someone because I was very miserable and unhappy and basically destroyed the relationship sub conciously on purpose.

2 weeks after I was dating again and with a new girl, which I am now still with but I've basically felt like i've alternated between being very angry and numb. I made the mistake of moving in with her far to soon in an effort to forge ahead with life which escalated things. It makes it more difficult that she is so lovely because I've turned the anger inwards which has lead me to a very deep depression.

I'm a whisker away from not being able to cope with my job, I really am at my wits end. I've got into this terrible situation where I zone out all the time, I'm in this constant mental fog where I can't remember what people have said to me or where stuff is in the kitchen. I've got these rising violent feelings which are really freaking me out, because in the fantasy when I connect with them I actually enjoy it.

I've lapsed back into this habit (whilst I've been trying to work out my feelings through therapy) of constant rumination, terrifying moment of feeling like a completely different person with each new feeling. Really honestly like someone completely different - like i've been taken over. Its just so so horrible I can't even begin to describe it.

The only time I feel a bit better is when I sleep, talk about my problems, write or connect with the violent thoughts I have underneath. I'm sure the depression is related to turning the anger inwards but also the depersonalisation and inability to connect with people when I desperately feel like I need someone to help me or someone should be helping me.

My girlfriend is amazing, she has the patience of the saint but unless I talk about it all the time I just feel like I'm going to explode. Not much of a relationship for her.

The strain, disconnection and depression has got worse over the course of this relationship and I find myself unable to love anyone or anything. Even my family which I sought solace in are like cardboard cutouts to me.

At this point after trying various SSRIs I'm back on citalopram which seems to to be having a little bit of an effect in that I am not feeling so anxious about being angry.

I can't truly be myself because I can't let my feelings out, monitor and supress them for fear of doing something truly truly awful. Just feeling like I'm keeping my head above water for everyone else.

Who am I?


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## TickleMeElmo (Jan 20, 2009)

I've got a referal to the Depersonlisation research unit in London, so I'm hopiong they will be able to help me out some how. Fortunately I'm a contractor so I can afford to take some time off work. Might be worth doing so I don't tip over the edge.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

TickleMeElmo said:


> I'm a whisker away from not being able to cope with my job, I really am at my wits end. I've got into this terrible situation where I zone out all the time, I'm in this constant mental fog where I can't remember what people have said to me or where stuff is in the kitchen. I've got these rising violent feelings which are really freaking me out, because in the fantasy when I connect with them I actually enjoy it.
> 
> The only time I feel a bit better is when I sleep, talk about my problems, write or connect with the violent thoughts I have underneath. I'm sure the depression is related to turning the anger inwards but also the depersonalisation and inability to connect with people when I desperately feel like I need someone to help me or someone should be helping me.


Same, constantly zoning out, constantly seething with anger without knowing the source. atleast uve got a girlfriend mate, thats more than most people with anxiety disorders can say.


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## TickleMeElmo (Jan 20, 2009)

I felt like i was really at the edge today of going crazy. Looked for something that was inside myself holding me back...something moral and I couldn't find it. The only thing that made me feel better is letting it all happen but it felt like the ride was never going to end.

Don't know if newly starting citalopram is dumming down the anxiety which means the anger is more free to come out. This is really worrying.


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