I feel like I'm on the edge

The edge of something. Either insanity or some kind of epiphany. I've been very depressed and anxious. I had a terrible panic attack at work yesterday. I'll write more later, I have to go to work. But I just wanted to get this out there. I feel just awful. I have for days. I have more to say but it will have to wait until tonight.

Ladywith3cats wrote:The edge of something. Either insanity or some kind of epiphany.

I hope you feel better. For me, that was an "and" condition. Those two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Maybe it's an epiphany about how to be better reconciled to yourself (more comfortable with, less reactive to the insanity)?

Truth too late wrote:

Ladywith3cats wrote:The edge of something. Either insanity or some kind of epiphany.

I hope you feel better. For me, that was an "and" condition. Those two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Maybe it's an epiphany about how to be better reconciled to yourself (more comfortable with, less reactive to the insanity)?

No, it could definitely be both, like you said. I've often felt crazy just before an epiphany. I felt this way before I became self aware and it was another of those situations I couldn't explain until it happened.

Today was better but overall I've just been much more anxious than usual (and I've always been high strung and nervous even at my best!). I have this sense of foreboding that's largely dissociative and this leads to the panic attacks. I feel sometimes like any second I'm going to go spinning off into the void (I've seen the void, it really exists) and get trapped there. I think about death a lot, not suicidal thoughts, just how much I fear it. I fear it because it means losing control, having no body. Maybe I need to embrace that and accept it but I just can't right now.

I think some of this is self-suggestibility though. If I start thinking about dissociating and having panic attacks, then I'm more likely to have them! And the more you try to fight it, the worse it is. I apologize for the drug trip analogy again, but it's just like that. The degree isn't as severe of course, but the same sort of thing happens to a tripper--if they go into it feeling anxious, the anxiety will be 1000x worse. Drug induced panic attacks are horrific (does it really feel that way to be psychotic? ugh) but they also lead to incredible realizations and spiritual growth (if you don't go insane first). This is similar to that, but the degree is less severe. Mostly, I just feel depressed and tense. I feel slightly out of my body and ungrounded. I don't like that feeling. It makes me feel out of control. Right now, I'm avoiding even weed because of how dissociated I feel generally. I think narcissists are very uncomfortable with losing control, just "going with the flow." We have too much to hide, too many demons. I know I have to face these demons. I WANT to face these demons, but it's frightening and depressing.
Sometimes I wonder if schizophrenics know a lot of things and see a lot of truths the rest of us can't about the nature of reality.

It does feel good to realize that as awful as I feel right now, it probably means another layer of my FS is peeling away and/or another level of my TS is about to be revealed to me. I'm spending time meditating, trying to just accept these unpleasant feelings and trying to connect them with things that happened in my distant past. So far, no luck but I'm at a point I'm no longer trying to avoid feeling this way. Of course, as the N part of myself becomes more transparent/has more holes punched in it, the underlying BPD makes me feel out of control too. My narcissism developed after the BPD and protected/still protects me from the worse ravages of BPD, if that makes any sense.

Keep meditating, it is the best thing ever. It will take you to next levels you never imagined.

I meditated for about 18 years on and off. The results no one will believe here so it doesn't matter but the one who meditates will know.

TheLord wrote:Keep meditating, it is the best thing ever. It will take you to next levels you never imagined.

I meditated for about 18 years on and off. The results no one will believe here so it doesn't matter but the one who meditates will know.

I would believe you. But why don't you send me a PM if you don't want to post it on this board.

Ladywith3cats wrote:I think about death a lot, not suicidal thoughts, just how much I fear it. I fear it because it means losing control, having no body. Maybe I need to embrace that and accept it but I just can't right now.

I can relate to that. For a long time I have seen my condition as a fear or mortality. I've never existed with the ability to get to reality (mindfulness) and realize: I'm just another person who makes mistakes, blew his past in a way a convicted killer does, can't change anything, and will soon face the ultimate surrender. It's icy cold reality. It's a recognition of mortality in its most basic expression (not the glitter-filled mortality I imagined and expected more of).

I typically exist with one foot outside that focused, reality-based awareness. I still enjoy some mild confabulation. I can balance the two. But, there's no dismissing which foot is the one I am leading with. And how losing sight of that fact wasted my life. (In fact, that's kind of what my avatar says today.[1] I was a kid pretending to be an adult. It would have been a lot better for me and others if I had known that.).

In other threads I've mentioned how I had an experience at a boat dock (a man who had drowned was laying there and I was overcome with pity for him inconveniencing his family's day, revulsion at the awareness I could inconvenience someone, etc.). I think my aversion to intimacy was an aversion to being vulnerable to someone inconveniencing me (in the ultimate way which they nor I could control) and vice-versa. I think I was so focused on controlling the outcome of my life that I absolutely could not comprehend the reality that I could die today, or next year (or that the person I am with could keel over this very minute and ruin my "now").

I'm serious. A month ago I was thinking about how I cannot fathom what it would be like to wake up, share the bathroom with kids and spouse, everyone rushing to live another day of their life, carefree and living with how nobody is in control of how the other person's day-life will go...

I cannot imagine that, at all. I come up completely blank. I get the same icy reality. I could not care about someone the way I could now (as a person, not an object in my life) and make it through the day. It would be overwhelming to think about how life is risky, we do the best we can, nothing's perfect, take it one day at a time, kiss the kids goodbye... knowing how life is THIS REAL in a way I never knew it to be. My mind fractures thinking about that--I could be THAT enmeshed with other people, that vulnerable, and this aware of what is real, and be able to live with that like it's "just another day in the life..." It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.

Back to your point. That realization has made me less "ideating." It's a relief that it's going to happen. The fact that it could happen with my next breath makes me more "here" and experiencing life instead of narrating away (on the other foot, which I'm so accustomed to standing for long periods of time). So, it's like a disturbing awareness of death, but not ideating in the unhealthy conflict-riddled way. This seems more realistic (which has its positives and negatives).

Does that sound a possible way to see it? (better, worse?).

Ladywith3cats wrote:I think narcissists are very uncomfortable with losing control, just "going with the flow."

Absolutely. The icy reality is exactly what I felt with cannabis the first few times when I felt overwhelmed with losing control. That's why it makes me wonder if this is a "better" state to be in, because those initial experiences were not pleasant and it can feel like that for periods of time now.

But, it's reality. Better to face it now than later when we're less equipped, elastic, etc?

Ladywith3cats wrote:Sometimes I wonder if schizophrenics know a lot of things and see a lot of truths the rest of us can't about the nature of reality.

I doubt it. What I associate with reality is the opposite of what I associated with my warm, cozy schizophrenic-like Narrative-Process. Maybe what they have going for them is they'll never have to face it? E.g., The elderly N never breaks, never seeks help, proceeds into the angry senility (an angry, defiant narrative). Maybe the schizophrenic is delusional enough to never care (not be angry, not feel cheated by reality, etc.)?

Ladywith3cats wrote:I'm spending time meditating, trying to just accept these unpleasant feelings and trying to connect them with things that happened in my distant past.

What do you feel when you meditate?

You'll recall I've posted about how I identify what feels like dysphoric emotions that come from a "reverse narrative" (if you will. The same narrative process, but with a different "downside" tone, a more concentrated or deliberate purpose).

The reason I ask about meditation is because I used to hit a brick wall (by comparison to my mindfulness now). Not just meditation, but anything self-help related. I always wanted to be into self-help, but when I read a book it sounded like foreign words (or touchy-feely dribble). Nothing happened. It meant nothing to me. I didn't know how to apply it. I had no idea I was out of touch with my true feelings because I could "make myself feel" through rumination (the funeral part of my mind, versus the forced march).

Meditation was like that too. It was little more than closing my eyes. I couldn't get past that state of "being" or sensing my self. If I went deeper, it would be ruminating on the things I think should be important to me. Making myself feel (instead of feeling myself, my state; just listening instead of talking to myself). In that sense, it think it was "productive" in the same maladaptive way which I believe dysphoria is too.

So, I'm curious if you're meditating like I would (noisy, self-talk, creating feelings as a noun, a product). Or, if you're "letting go" and feeling yourself as a verb (not making feelings, but feeling what you make)? I think the difference is how well you can quiet your thoughts, get beneath them.

Sorry if I'm talking to you like you don't know this stuff. But, I didn't. The mind*less*ness state I can get to (without meditation) is remarkable compared to how impenetrable I was. So, I would emphasize working toward that non-interrogative meditation; feel only what you are in reality at that very moment (if you don't already).

[1]

Ask him his dream / What does it mean? / He wouldn't know / “Can't be like the rest” / Is the most he'll confess / But the time's running out / And there's no happiness (Curtis Mayfield, Superfly)

I fear death too, lw3c, but for a different reason. I fear death because it means eternal abandonment and aloneness, losing the ones I love. Annihilation anxiety.

Sorry to hear you're going through a rough time right now. Anxiety is very hard to deal with, but if you had a panic attack at work and you still have a job, you might be dealing with it okay.

Let us know how you are today.

i don't read all your posts in depth for some reason but skim them and its strange how I feel that how and what you write is what I went through 25 years ago. I don't identify with NPD except in some traits and I would not have described what I went through as 'shedding a FS" but giving name to my true self. All of my 'selves' have been me but I never owned them. Total dissociation. it was more a process of discovery. I do remember being very afraid at times. Like jumping out of my skin to find the words to describe who I was. And seeing how terrifying it was to often not want to! its just interesting how I can feel your experience but would have described it so differently.

Three Cats Lady.... Hope you are feeling a bit better.
hugs to you (not the suffocating type)
: )

Lady, I hope that you're feeling better. Someone I know who had panic attacks for years told me that they stopped when he learned to control his breathing. I don't know how useful that is to you, when you already meditate, but it was the main thing that helped this man, and it was very effective for him.