My struggle and my insights

Hello,


I write to you all to share with you how it was for me in the beginning…I call it Time “0”, that is the first moment when all the symptoms begun…I am 30 y old now

…First of all, for me it was like a big bang, intense, and acute…it happened in a summer afternoon, 5 years ago, and I mentally refer to this moment as the moment that halved my life into two distinctive eras:”before” and “after”

So, I was under some stress, I was studying for my exam, and when moment I started to focus on my hand…then my mind started focusing on my existence, on my self-awarness; so I continued to focus on me, on my “self”, and as I did that, I started to feel something very weired, a restlessness, a little fear of my own existence, as I was then and there simply realizing that I WAS REAL, EXISTING, and then the little fear turned into a bigger and bigger terror, I remember as the time and place froze for a couple a seconds…
…then I desperately made attemps to reenter normal consciousness, which I did, but sadly the damage was done, as the weired state was immediately followed by another state which I didn’t at that time knew it existed: full blown panic attack with high agitation, restlessness, weired feelings of unreality, weak legs, sweat, running in the house not knowing what just happened…I tried to put myself to sleep but my racing mind and heart wouldn’t allow for that….felt also drained and exausted, with a weired feeling of a tight band around my head…
At night I had insomnia and restelessness and I hoped that in the morning the nightmare I was leaving would disappear: unfortunately, the morning saw me in the new state, depressed, melancholic, detached, unable to gather my “self”, prone to feelings of depersonalization and derealisation, panick attacks,
I could’t concentrate, work and study was awfull as leaving in a dream, scary of my existence, not at ease with my self, depressed and frustrated…

I took medication for 6 months then gradually renounced at it, and my state improved…my life was manageable, no more panic attacks, BUT the feeling of depersonalization/derealisation, never went away: it was like a invisible veil before my eyes, like a shadow of doubt, like a witness of my fear inside…
My life since was affected, with bad consequences (symptoms) but also with good ones (I changed myself, starting to have relationships, starting exercising); I had periods of relapses and recovery, but not complete…I am still struggling

So, if anyone experienced the same beginning of anxiety, please share

Thanks

Hi, umbertos! How odd, I remember feeling like there was a veil over my eyes too. This happened when I was a teenager and I also had some anxiety and depression. What do you think caused it for you?

To be honest, it makes me wonder if maybe that wasn't truly the "before" situation, but maybe you see it that way since that's when it started to truly reveal itself outward symptom wise. I'm no doctor by any means, but from what I've noticed about depersonalization, it tends to happen due to trauma. Trauma usually is the trigger. Heck, it was my trigger due to my upbringing. So I wonder if there's some underlying trauma that maybe your mind has tucked away somewhere that you're not yet facing and it's coming outward through depersonalization as a form of "protection." I don't know, I apologize, that's just kind of floating in my head there.