# Please Respond



## Surfer Rosa (Nov 27, 2015)

Does anyone else have intrusive little snapshots that feel like dreams or memories?

Does anyone else *know* that this is reality, but seriously *feel* like it is not?

I used to think of this as a passing symptom of anxiety, and a side-effect of going through distressing events. I now, however, feel very alone in my specific situation. I also feel empty in a way that can't be measured or described - I still act the same, and I still have emotions.

My current fear is that my problem is becoming too abstract to describe or even get help with, and that I'll be left to fate as a result...


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## 58779 (Jan 7, 2016)

It is like a primal fear it seems. If you can't describe it, you cannot fight it. What you describe is being afraid of helplessness after all. I really relate to your fear because I have the same fear.

I get random flashes from dreams I had, even of dreams I have forgotten ever having them. Are your snapshots like this? Or are they random new images and have a feeling like it was a dream or memory but you didn't have it? I didn't understand that.

And yes, initially I knew this was reality and still felt like I was in a paralel dimension or a dream but it passed. Now I feel like this is reality but somehow I don't exist.


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## Surfer Rosa (Nov 27, 2015)

@Elliot

They say I present as someone with PTSD. The experience sounds like a flashback. What's bizarre to me is how it feels like being transported to a time that a mundane event, like smelling a chimney or seeing snow, happened. Wouldn't PTSD only take me back to a time I was scared/threatened? Not sure.

They also worry about me being in a psychotic prodrome, but I think that would require something objectively illogical in my thought process? I wish I knew exactly what I was talking about here, let alone what to think. Maybe there is some merit to those recovery subforum posts saying, "Stop listening/paying attention to your own mind!"

Also, I understand that DPD diagnosis is for when someone isn't using recreational drugs or having another mental problem. So, I've come to think of this as the depersonalization symptom forum, as we have people with DP from drugs or panic. They say people with PTSD commonly dissociate? You said it's going to be a subtype?

@the_nomad

The snapshots are of mundane things, that usually have some relation to my current environment.

I'll see leaves.
I'll get an intrusive image of behind my grandfather's house.
I'll get sick and scared, maybe just because of the intensity of the mental image.

Meanwhile it's the present...that memory of a backyard (or house) has nothing to do with my trauma...and I'm stuck in my head, paying too much attention to my thoughts.

-

About you feeling like you don't exist, I understand. I have the thought in my head that I must exist, however I understand how someone would feel like they don't.

This is one of those unintentional trigger threads, titled "Please Respond". Sorry about that.


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## 58779 (Jan 7, 2016)

Don't worry about triggers, writing our thoughts are naturally triggering as we have dp. I don't have random flashes like the way you describe, but I googled random memory flashes and I have seen many, interestingly one was in a PTSD forum. I can see why it is disturbing but it doesn't seem uncommon.

I sometimes think we all have the same off feeling and interpret that feeling differently. The feelings of being non-existent and being without control may be the same thing, who knows, like it is an issue of semantics. You never know with these subjective topics.


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## Surfer Rosa (Nov 27, 2015)

Thanks guys. Nice Google skills, btw.


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## aworthycause (Mar 22, 2010)

I had a lot of those snapshots during August-December, sudden and intrusive memories of mundane events with too much "realism" and multi-sensory detail, such as remembering smells of winter and what it was like to grip something while wearing gloves at some point in childhood. Random stuff. I have some form of C-PTSD and last year I regained my ability to visualize/feel memories and mental events in a 1st person perspective after being without that since my first DP/DR experiences 12-13 years ago.The "snapshots" have decreased in intensity after I started taking a low dosage (anxiolytic dosage) of an anti-psychotic (olanzapine).


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## Surfer Rosa (Nov 27, 2015)

@AWorthyCause

Thanks a lot for your reply.

They think I may have C-PTSD. Small doses of Olazapine helped my anxiety, seemingly more than Seroquel which is so sedating. They took me off for gross weight gain, but that may been the all-you-can-eat hospital cafeteria.

Right now I'm having a battle between anxiety and lucidity. The drugs are a total manifestation of that. If things get out of hand, I'll request a low dose of Olazapine again.

Of course I can't experience what you're talking about with the memory snapshots, but that's as similar a description as I could ever expect on a subject so difficult to communicate.


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