Sunday February 28 10:45 am The pain is intense. Feel extreme hopelessness and alienation. At one point as I'm turning I feel completely afraid of my consciousness. Almost as if I'm conscious for the first time. My waking hours feel like a dream. Thinking about things that happened yesterday feels like a distant memory. As I'm writing this the pain is less intense but still around.
Sunday March 3 Felt foggy before and after 10:00 am basketball game. Still having this feeling as if I'm in a dream. Still have this dissociated from my actions and my being. Still having difficulty overcoming sensation of being curious about my consciousness. My mood is ok now but I find myself able to get through day by not focusing on that scary feeling. I've noticed that I feel a lot better when it's dark outside. During the evening with friends I don't feel connected to the moment. More like I'm coexisting but find myself wondering about others and my own humanity. Having a difficult time remembering what it felt like to see the world before. I feel as if I'm seeing things as they are for the first time and that I lived my life before with a veil over my eyes. Like I was never connected to the moment. I don't remember my mind being as active as it is now with this constant wondering about what am I. I miss the feeling of just reacting and living.
Monday March 4 Woke up feeling just awful. It was overwhelming and for a moment I thought I would lose control of myself. Felt better after I got up to use the restroom but still had residual anxiety. I went to the gym but it was closed so I did errands. Felt a little bit better after. I find myself wanting that physical hugging comfort from my mom. I've been having a difficult time concentrating long on books and even basketball games. It's 12:30 pm and I feel better than when I woke up.
Tuesday March 5 Have felt uncomfortable for a good portion of the morning. Have this sense of being in a dream/being an automated. Having a hard time living in the moment. The most helpful thing is becoming preoccupied with other things, but when I return to the moment and my environment I feel disconnected from myself and the environment again. If I had to set a goal it would be able to get through the day (or at least portions of the day to start with) where I'm just able to perceive and react with no thought attached to it. Another goal would be to feel connected to the environment and not having this sense of me being something different or unattached. When I feel like this it gives me the impression that life is an illusion and that its all just happening to me. It makes me feel that others and places are a creation of my mind. Intellectually I know this to likely be untrue. However there's also no way to prove that. If I am unable to overcome these thoughts in the immediate future I would like to at least have a zombie like feeling where I'm not attached to the anxiety of this dissociated state. Ultimately I just want to feel comfortable just being and I want my mind and body to feel connected. I often feel that I am many separate entities and my goal is to be just one person who is composed of a mind and body and spirit. It's hard when I go from focused on a task to not because I immediately become aware of my plight again. I've also been feeling detached from things in the immediate past. Yesterday feels like a distant dream. If there's one meaning in all this I'm hoping that it will allow me to connect with others better than before and I'm hoping that there's something to do with anxiety that is preventing me from connecting at this point. I generally prefer dark/dim environments recently. It gives me a small amount of calm.
10:36 pm. Took dog out and had strong sense of detachment from my body. Almost the sensation of watching myself let the dog out. This lead to the feeling of going through the motions and not controlling my actions. I keep going back and forth between thinking my thoughts organically and then being uncomfortable with having thoughts in the first place. The scope and miracle of it all is overwhelming.
Wednesday March 6 10:44 am. Been feeling the disconnect from body for most of the morning. Have the sensation of being programmed to do all my actions. Afraid of my own existence in the sense that I wonder what makes me me. Having a difficult time not focusing on these feelings and the only respite is when I become preoccupied but then when I return back to my environment I get that dream feeling. This feeling is more pronounced when I take the dog out. During these times life feels like a movie in front of my eyes. I wonder about agency of self.
Friday March 8 Strong sense of being in a dream today. Don't feel completely human as I once did. I feel like I'm going through the motions and that I lack agency. Don't feel connected to environment or myself. I feel like I'm floating through he day ie I'm just a part of a scene. I don't feel the connection to my friends and my partner. My anxiety about this isn't terribly high though I'm worried about this relentless feeling of detachment from myself and my environment. I really just want to be able to just be without this constant discomfort of self and feeling of being a part of a scene. It sucks because while it feels like I'm going nuts these circumstances and feelings are very real to me ie its harder to feel like these are symptoms rather than just what will always be. Felt really disconnected from body today. I can hold an intelligent conversation but my mind feels disconnected from reality. My day/life feels like a dream.
Tuesday March 12 Symptoms of detachment from self started immediately upon waking up. I wonder a lot of the day about who or what I am. I've been thinking that were all just matter and in some sense everything is one and this is a distressing thing to me. When I say life feels like a dream it means that I feel like I'm somehow not as much in control of the moment as I'd like to be. When I walk it feels like its part of a routine set out for me. I feel a certain lack of autonomy. Time has been an odd thing, particularly as it relates to my day. It's hard for me to imagine hours ahead. I grow fearful when examine my environment and start to have doubts about the reality of it all ie somehow this is all a figment of an imagination. Mass, 3D objects and other people don't appear as they once did. Out of my hope of hopes this is a perception issue.
Monday March 18 I have a recurring feeling of not being a part of it all. I find myself really concerned about the miracle that is life. I wonder how much agency I have in decisions and thoughts. I constantly feel anxious about my own existence. I struggle with the concept of who and what I am. I feel so detached from everything. I know that I live on earth in the us etc but its hard to live comfortably as I am.
Wednesday March 20 The past two days have actually been more manageable as far as my DDR symptoms. I have still had times of anxiety. This happened today before yoga class and around 530 when I transitioned at work. So I didn't feel anxiety symptoms during work today. However I did feel anxious/awful when I woke up in the middle of the night. One of the problems that has been bothering me is this seeming duality of consciousness. I will find myself focused on a task for a period of time and then I will "switch" back into this preoccupation with my own ability to be real and function. I spend time thinking about the essential elements of consciousness and reality. I'm mostly bothered by my inability recently to connect as human beings do (ie I find myself either above it all or detached from any feeling toward things). I often get the sense of being in or observing a play or a show. What drives me to do each and every thing I do? Perhaps the scariest part is that there is no escape that I know of from these thoughts. I feel best when I'm talking sports with others. Yoga has been an interesting experience in that my anxiety is low during it, but I will admit that having my eyes closed for the practice helps ease the anxiety. I often feel a disconnect between minutes or moments and certainly between parts of the day. I don't conceive of time as I once did in that its not linear to me any more. I'm getting the sense that all happenings are pushed into one existence. I feel a certain meaninglessness about life when I think about how short a time we get which is exacerbated when I feel like all time is happening at once in a sense. I move from moment to moment feeling like I am a robot. I still have the hardest time when I wake up in the morning. Again it's this transition of consciousness from being asleep to awake. I'm uncomfortable with my own consciousness in thinking about the miracle of it all. When I awaken its like a scene before my eyes rather than an environment to start my day. There's a certain disconnect in my actions. I feel like I'm just doing things but there's no reason. It's weird because I'm apathetic to most things right now but still follow my social norms of going to work doing housework etc. I feel like there's a me that has been lost somewhere and I'm hoping to reconnect but don't know how to. I want my mind and body to be integrated and not feel separate. I want my mind to feel more autonomous and not automated. I still feel somewhat alien in my environment despite knowing the area well. I feel disconnected from the environment. Places I can zone out and at least relax a little: treadmill, yoga with eyes closed, talking sports, talking with my therapist for a good amount of the time, checking phone, sometimes listening to music, playing Madden, doing things on the computer.
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