berryman
10-16-2007, 12:02 AM
I get this weird feeling when I’m in certain social situations. My mind goes numb. I become unable to think. My eyes start to burn and water. Everything becomes really fake. It’s almost like I’m in slow motion. I look around and see people, but they seem far away and totally disconnected from me. Things become cloudy. Things just happen in front of me. My brain feels slow, and unable to focus and keep up with all that is happening. It feels like I am not in control of my motor activities. My body seems to move on its own, without me consciously making it move. It’s as if I enter this new reality of disconnect where things just happen at a pace that is too quick. I want to remove myself from the situation. I sometimes just want to shut my brain off completely. I get this weird feeling in the back of my neck. My heart seems to beat irregularly. Time becomes distorted. My short term memory becomes terrible. I lose the ability to remember names. My face twitches. I become very shifty and move around a lot. I worry that my heart is going to stop. My body twitches. I feel like sinking into the floor. There is a weight it seems tied to every muscle in my body so it becomes hard to move. I feel this overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. I feel like I could sleep within seconds of closing my eyes. Simple situations make me feel like this. The movies does this to me, drinking does this to me, social events do this to me, riding the bus does this to me, the transition from day to night does this to me, traveling does this to me, certain songs do this to me, people I love do this to me, intimate situations do this to me, darkness of any kind does this to me, someone mentioning the word “depression” does this to me. I've become afraid of people. I've become afraid that they can see through me. That they see that I'm weak and that I'm just not worth the effort. Most of the things I used to love to do, have become painful. Alcohol does weird things to me. IT makes me scared, it makes me even more disconnected. Caffeine helps, but the crash is sometimes unbearable. Sports help. Masturbation helps. Family helps. Religion helps. Eating doesn’t help. Smiling sometimes hurts. Too much sleep and I’m exhausted. Very little sleep and I feel ok for some reason. I NEVER EVER wake up feeling rested. I find it very easy to fall asleep. I’ve had 2 or 3 events in my life that I would define as panic attacks. During those attacks I had periods of intense fear. I sometimes picture my future life of suffering and look forward to the day when I die and the day when this pain is finally gone. I wouldn’t actually define this as pain. It’s more like this sort of ever-present numbness. I just wish I could live a normal life where I could enjoy the little pleasantries of life. Basically I just want to live. I don't define what I'm doing right now living. I define it as surviving. I have support. I have a girlfriend. I can keep a job. I keep an A average. I have a great family. I play a lot of sports. I’m involved at my University. I have friends. However all of these things, in the past few years have become a huge struggle. An almost insurmountable mountain. But I just keep struggling on. Life it seems, is about pain, about suffering. I try to think positively. I try to tell myself that these feelings will leave, that when I wake up in the morning it will all be a bad dream, and life will become fun again. But it never happens. My symptoms aren’t getting worse. They remain the same. My future looks bleak, my past has become cloudy. What should I do people? Is it depression? Is it anxiety? IS it a combination of both? Can anyone relate to what I’m feeling? It would bring me great comfort. Thanks.