Hyper awareness of existence and extreme discomfort
Posted , 4 users are following.
Long time weed smoker, smoked weed 2 and a half months ago and had a panic attack. This caused a horrific, life changing experience of depersonalisation and derealisation, everything seemed so bizzare, people, existence and society everything. Got through the dpdr symptoms however got stuck with existential ocd type thinking, everyday asking the same questions, however i was in an okay state and could manage daily life while asking these questions without too much anxiety. To try and reconnect with my old self, last week i added a touch of thc to a smoke. It went well... Then suddenly flipped and i instantly became aware of: myself, what i was doing and sort felt like my mind noticed itself and suddenly zoomed out and put my whole reality into perspective. Hard anxiety ensued and i could not get that feeling and thought out of my head. Had insomnia that night.
From there on, i have been ABSOLUTELY STRUGGLING, everyday, nearly 24/7 i am hitting this sudden realisation that i am alive, in this bizzare world, with loads of other people. I can't comprehend reality, it's like my existence doesn't make sense and i can't quite believe i am here, living in this world. It's triggered almost every hour. I just have to stop and consider things for a second. I look at my family, think of an old memory or look at some object and my brain cannot comprehend it, it feels so surreal and then i start feeling so surreal from being so AWARE. it feels like a step above dpdr. My relationship with reality feels so bizzare, words cannot explain this feeling of utter dread and discomfort that comes from it. Everyday i am on a tightrope, doing something until i snapback into the realisation that i am 'alive' and in this existence. I cannot deal with it, it's waiting around the corner of every action and every thought. I am struggling to know how i can live with eternal dread like this. Really can anyone relate because it feels like the WORST conceivable state of mind. I have no resting place in my head, it's like my mind has tried to comprehend something that cannot be comprehended and it's like a computer that says 'error not found' or cannot compute and totally consumes my sense of peace. I don't have panic attacks from each thought but the anxiety builds from each thought, then when I'm trying to get involved in something the pressure of avoiding it builds and then it snaps to the thought involuntarily. I don't know how i can do this, i really don't. I feel so strange to be alive and all of my familiarity with the world has been distorted, i still have instincts and function but it feels like a separation between instinct and mind. I am in absolute despair.
0 likes, 5 replies
milos92199 david39265
Posted
Hi, I am having the exact same problem. I know how you feel. It also started after a panic attack. How are you now?
david39265 milos92199
Posted
Hey, not good. I can hardly think about anything or recognise my reality in a way that feels okay. I go to sleep with my hard pounding and wake up feeling a deep sense of dread. Constantly thinking about this thing or trying to avoid it. Either way my heart races everytime these thoughts pass my mind. I can hardly do anything, i can't go to work - find it difficult to talk about anything with my family. I just can't come to terms with existing. How are you?
milos92199 david39265
Posted
Yes, these feelings are very familiar to me, I felt the same. I feel better (physically) but I still have these thoughts, and as you've said, they produce intense anxiety.
Sadly, nothing seems to help, not even telling yourself that it's just anxiety and that nothing will happen. It's like your mind actually "wants" something to happen and it wants to escape reality. It's so disturbing.
Have you talked to a psychiatrist about this?
Hammer6969 david39265
Posted
Hey brother. This is the only post i've ever read that explains the way i feel alot of the time. I get this derealization often which usually results in loss of control of my extremites. i suddenly feel like an observer of my own body. i also get the feeling that time is moving so quickly out of control. i wonder why we are all here and become obsessed with human behaviour. Why do we talk and communicate the way we do. i feel like I'm the only one around that knows our lives are just going through the motions for no defined reason. i look at small children and how they will too get old very quickly and die like the rest of us. I lead a normal life and know alot of people have these kind of invasive thoughts but just never share them. Being alive for a brief time is a weird experience for sure. Living things on Earth will all crumble away some day and this rock we call home will just another pebble in the universe landscape. i know i must sound crazy but consciousness scares me alot. i hate how fast everything changes and also hate the unknown. i'm trying to live in the moment and then the moment is over before i can fully appreciate it. i'm sure this didn't help you at all but felt good to get it out.haha
JeSi8811 david39265
Posted
yes!! i felt this way when i was 15,16,17 then somehow got better and better at basically blocking it out of my mind when it arose. I dont believe that is the best way to actually work through things or understand things further. but it felt like the more i tried to "understand" it at the time, the more crazy i felt and the more i realised i didnt know what tf is going on , where i came from, where im going, and how any of this is working at all. it made me feel crazy and isolated and sort if a doom feeling of knowing that i know me and all of this is temporary in this lifetime.. the dissasociation aspect of it oddly enough made me see overwhelming beauty in colors and shadows and "normal" day to day things. i felt so aware that my soul or whatever it is exactly is constantly looking through this body. it felt like an incredible blessing to see frozen moments in time through this perspective im constantly in. so im grateful for how it changed my perspective for some good things. but the negative aspects got too overwelming and i had to block it out. im very relieved to read your post and all these responses. this feeling has been starting up again in waves, where ill intensely feel present and feel stuck in a ticking timeframe, yet also forever existing. ive just been freaking out a little bit and decided to start searching things up and came across this!!!