Jump to content

On the edge of losing my sanity


Recommended Posts

For the past month I feel like I'm on the brink of losing my sanity everyday and near psychosis. I'm just dried up and finding it hard to cope on a day to day basis. A little over a month ago I had some mental stability and then all the sudden my hppd which was very mild became 3x worse, I'm constantly questioning if I'm tripping when I look at everything. The dp/dr makes me think and feel like I'm tripping despite not having touched a single drug since November. The whole world looks wrong and I can't tell if it's OCD/anxiety and dp/dr or if it's a symptom of hppd and this uncertainty of whether it's one or the other is adding to all the obsession. I'm close to being mentally dysfunctional because my mind is filled with delusional and strange and random thoughts and I don't trust my reasoning abilities anymore. 

Emotionally I can't handle being around my own family and friends because I can't help but think just how far off I feel from them mentally and emotionally. I'm so short-fueled and feel absolutely nothing towards my family. I get angry and frustrated and negative towards small things and just don't have the emotional and mental capacity to deal with anything. I can't even enjoy playing games and skyping with my friends because I feel like I'm just pretending or have no control of what I say and thinking how they are just living their life and moving forward and I'm just stuck dealing with mental and emotional unstability and insanity. I've become a social recluse and an aloof and it's absolutely shameful that I'm barely functioning. I just want to escape from everything, run away from my own family and friends so I can stop feeling like I'm putting up an act all the time. I'm almost 21 and about to be a college senior and everyone my age group is seeking jobs, internships, permanent relationships, etc. and I'm trapped in a strange mental state and reality. I'm terrified that I won't be able to function socially and academically when I go back to university in 2 months because I'll be going back being a lot worse than when I left it a month and a half ago. The thing that's been the hardest to accept is how backwards this whole thing seems to go. When you think it couldn't possibly get any worse, it does!

Anyway, sorry about venting on here. I wish I could say that this rant made me felt better but I'm about convince that I'm not mentally sane anymore and the lost of self is so great that I don't even feel connected to this post that I'm writing. Peace! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try to relax. 

If possible. 

 

Now is the time to go with the flow.  Or else you will latch onto a distraction that you will become obsessed with.    

 

Turn to cognition therapy (websites that will help with that).  Also study.  Even if you study like shit.  Eventually you will realize 'shit, I know more about ____ subject than I had'.

It's not easy but at least you can work on some things, and you can learn more... (maybe you don't retain them the same way or are distracted or anxious but you WILL retain some knowledge).    

 

Give it a try! :)

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best thing you can do is seek help, start going to support groups, radically clean up your diet to eliminate excess sugar, stimulants, fast food, etc., and of course try and get some exercise. Nothing ever stays the same and you will get through this, despite how difficult it seems, just as long as you get healthy and work your tail off to get better. I've been there before and I've done it, along with many others. But it's very hard and takes more effort and resiliency than you ever thought possible. Life is worth it in the end. This is just a temporary state. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whats happening is that multiple afflictions are happening at once. 

The OCD is feeding the anxiety which is feeding the HPPD and dpdr.

As a fellow sufferer of ocd you need to try whatever you can to get a grip on the illness.

You are not going insane.

This is not going to last forever.

It will pass and you will be able to move on with life.

Every time an objection or counter argument comes up, politely accept the thought as being there and tell yourself that youre recovering and recovery takes time and that you will get better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is some excellent advice in these replies.  There are a lot of bright people who post here. I'm not counting myself as one of them (:

Seriously though, anxiety is something that can magnify any underlying issues.  Then the anxiety can make those issues worse causing a cycle that makes the anxiety worse and worse and making whatever issues you may have seem bigger than they are.  Hppd is no joke, but by itself (at least for me) it's something I can live with.  The anxiety was something I had to resolve or my blood pressure would have made me real sick by now.  As the other replies say, deal with the anxiety.  I couldn't do that until I was sober especially refraining from cannabis because, for whatever reason, it causes major anxiety in some people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all of your encouraging replies.

I think one of the worse things out of all this is the lack of mental coordination and stability and truly not feeling like a human being anymore. I feel like some other entity/alien and sometimes animalistic in a way. I don't have a grasp on what's going on in my head and uncertain of what reality is. I have strange head and mental sensation that I don't know how to describe. I can't even escape in my dreams because the loss of ego is so severe that I don't even have a sense of who I am or awareness while in a dream so I wake up and instantly forget what I dreamt about. Last night I had a pretty bad nightmare about abusing my 4 years old little brother and setting a building on fire and the only reason I remembered it is because the dream about me abusing my little brother caused me a lot of emotional and psychological turmoil. 

Reading is hard now not because of words moving around or blurry but because my mind can't process what I'm reading that well because of mixing up words and meanings are uncertain. I also can't talk properly for similar reasons. Now everyday it's like I'm not even trying to act sane anymore, I just go through life being mentally unstable and such.

I've seen a counselor as well as a psychiatrist several months ago about my dp/dr symptoms and anxiety. The psychiatrist urged me  to take Zoloft despite me saying that I wanted to work through it with good routine and diet but I took it because he was pleading with me to and I suffered with very severe and every possible mental and physical side effects. I stopped after taking it only once because there was no way to put up with the side effects and be functional for school. I dont want to say that the Zoloft was the final nail in the coffin that sent this whole thing spiraling downward but I truly believe I would have been way better off not taking it.

Anyway guys, thanks for your encouraging replies! I'm not one to post and rant about my problems and it took me several months to decide to join the forum  because I needed people out there to know what I'm going through as I've kept it all to myself without having told my friends and family about any of this. Basically if I can at least communicate some of the things that I'm experiencing then I'm not that mental and I still have some grasp that things aren't normal. Again, thanks for your kind replies! 

Edited by NotMyself
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've posted a number of times that I feel like a misplaced alien dropped onto a strange world.  When I read your last post you said "I feel like some other entity/alien" I think know what you mean.  I've felt that way since I was a kid.  

I don't trust doctors much.  If I break a bone or get cancer, then sure I want a good doctor.  However, in the US primary care physicians just come across as pill pushers.  I'm very wary of any chemical that's prescribed.  Then again, for some folks, medication is just what they need.  I guess I just don't trust these alien doctors (:

One of the things I like about this site is I can open up about this condition.  I kept it bottled up for decades and it's very freeing to "talk" about it with other perople that won't just write me off as an old psychedelic casualty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, NotMyself said:

Thanks for all of your encouraging replies.

I think one of the worse things out of all this is the lack of mental coordination and stability and truly not feeling like a human being anymore. I feel like some other entity/alien and sometimes animalistic in a way. I don't have a grasp on what's going on in my head and uncertain of what reality is. I have strange head and mental sensation that I don't know how to describe. I can't even escape in my dreams because the loss of ego is so severe that I don't even have a sense of who I am or awareness while in a dream so I wake up and instantly forget what I dreamt about. Last night I had a pretty bad nightmare about abusing my 4 years old little brother and setting a building on fire and the only reason I remembered it is because the dream about me abusing my little brother caused me a lot of emotional and psychological turmoil. 

Reading is hard now not because of words moving around or blurry but because my mind can't process what I'm reading that well because of mixing up words and meanings are uncertain. I also can't talk properly for similar reasons. Now everyday it's like I'm not even trying to act sane anymore, I just go through life being mentally unstable and such.

I've seen a counselor as well as a psychiatrist several months ago about my dp/dr symptoms and anxiety. The psychiatrist urged me  to take Zoloft despite me saying that I wanted to work through it with good routine and diet but I took it because he was pleading with me to and I suffered with very severe and every possible mental and physical side effects. I stopped after taking it only once because there was no way to put up with the side effects and be functional for school. I dont want to say that the Zoloft was the final nail in the coffin that sent this whole thing spiraling downward but I truly believe I would have been way better off not taking it.

Anyway guys, thanks for your encouraging replies! I'm not one to post and rant about my problems and it took me several months to decide to join the forum  because I needed people out there to know what I'm going through as I've kept it all to myself without having told my friends and family about any of this. Basically if I can at least communicate some of the things that I'm experiencing then I'm not that mental and I still have some grasp that things aren't normal. Again, thanks for your kind replies! 

You may be one of the few who experiences increase in symptoms with serotonergic drugs. I took Remeron Friday night and my gait is off my perceptions are worse and my dpdr is worse. Feels like im looking at things through saran wrap and ive got cotton in my head.

Never again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well.  

SSRIs will give you a headache.   I believe I stayed on them for the whole time.  But when I was really fucked-up, man, they would give some wild headaches and didn't help much at the deepest depths of HPPD.   I can't even imagine Remeron which is a Tetracyclic (which is more similar to the Tricyclicals which were basically the first "antidepressants").  I have a fair grip on the medicine stuff.  I have experienced them first hand too.  

You sound depersonalized.  But the drugs that caused HPPD gave you derealization a bit. 

----------

So you have to come up with a diagnosis.  

Because Dr. A, I heard, was Rx'ing bipolar meds, with good results, specifically for HPPD, it seemed.   

But I don't know.  What I do know is if you go the route that I went, you would be better off on a low dose atypical antipsyche and a Benzo (not Xanax!).   The type of atypical antipsyche depends on what you can tolerate the best.   I would avoid Prozac. 

Eventually, (maybe after years or months), you can start adding a Lexapro and then a Wellbutrin XL when you start getting better.  The issue with Lexapro is brain zaps. Makes it hard to get off them.  A brain zap is like dp/dr.  Zoloft is like the shitty version of Lexapro. 

----------

Once the levee breaks in a good way, you will make headway.   You will know.  And you can consider those last 2 drugs when you get there. Get off the initial antipsyche and end it with about 3 months of Seroquel and you should be back 60-75% or so. Then discontinue Seroquel remain on low dose Escit. & Buprop. XL & Klonopin (or Ativan). 

 

But everyone is different.   Some people are just seeing shit and other people feel like they've lost their marbles.  Certainly when I was at the brink it was like I wanted a communion wafer sized ativan.  But all these antipsyches and benzos are going to make you feel 'dirty' to a certain extent.  I mean dirty as in dull dull dull and achey and creepy crawly.  You have to remember these 2 classes are tranquilizers. 

---------

Make sure everything is at low doses.  Example: Chips of Klonopin, ~50mg Seroquel, 5 to 10mg of Lexapro, 150 of Buprop. XL. etc.  That sort of thing.

If you have any questions, just ask. 

 

Please Always consult the psychiatrist/doctors!!!! 

Edited by mgrade
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.