Lost in non-reality

I don't know how to explain it.

Although my family never pushed me to study hard, since I was 5 years old, I have been an extremely ambitious person, unhealthily focused on one feature - intelligence. I used to boast about my skills, unable to see that some people could dislike it. When I skipped the second grade, I didn't even have to start talking about my achievements - the teacher made the class hate me and I had been bullied for four years. In primary school I used to be very nervous before each exam or competition. I made silly mistakes, suffered from stomachache, couldn't focus. We had four attempts for mock exams in the last grade - at the first time I got 35 out of 40, what made me so stressed that next time I scored only 28, then 26. Calmed down I managed to score 39 at the last attempt, losing one point due to ugly writing.


As a kid I used to be very talkative and aproachable, liked making new relationships etc. It has changed and I don't know wheter it is a matter of my personality or the result of being bullied. I am not scared of humans, just don't enjoy spending time with them and prefer solitude or a chat with the closest people.


When I was fourteen, my father left my family, taking the whole money and contacting me once a three months for one hours or something like that. Due to poverty I started to work a bit, saw my remaining family suffer, hurt them myself and started to push away all what made me. Now I struggle to graduate but my results are that terrible that I am ashamed of myself.


I don't know if I always was to blank and empty, but right now I don't even see myself as a human being - just a machine, a tool. I don't know who I am and what do I feel, I can tell that I am probably stressed because I feel dizzy. I have outbursts when I shout or cry, although I don't feel sadness or anger (although I think that the anger is the source of it). The only emotions I feel are shame and feeling of control or lack of it. I don't panick, don't feel anxious, am not afraid of anything (besides lack of success, what mades me worried). I noticed that I almost compeletely lack affective empathy even towards well-known people but there is a strong outweight on the opposite side - I have strong feeling of duty or responsibility, forcing me to help people even if it is exhausting. I think that I like the feeling that these people are somehow dependend on me, though, I guess. I hope it doesn't make a horrible person out of me.


I have been trying various therapies for four years and no one helped me. I only heard that my way of thinking was stupid, that they didn't know how to help me or that life gave me important lessons. I visited eleven specialists and feel no better.

Recently I have been diagnosed with dissociative disorders because I started to have up to five faints and seizures a day. I heard that I was over-intellectualized, that I didn't let emotions in, had trust issues and survived huge trauma. They suggested autism, but I don't belong in the spectrum - was diagnosed long time ago as a healthy child. I have been suffering from OCD since I was four or five, but this thing could be a kind of dissociations, too.


I was trying to self-diagnose myself with mixed personality disorder - OCPD + NPD + AvPD, but I don't know if it was correct and my therapists only said it was "possible but not for sure". One of them advised me making more plans - it sounds like a trees genocide, using so much paper for that because I already plan and sort everything everywhere. They also advised me to enjoy life and spend more time on fun things, which also wouldn't work... I already spend much time doing what I like doing. Especially because last year I spend 80 hours a weei outdoors. It gives 12 h 20 m a day remaining (including weekends) for sleeping, eating, having a shower and studying.


Now the main problem.

The seizures and faints are over, beacause my brain knows that I have no epilepsy and feel deeply ashamed that some people could think that I am hysterical - I hate, hate, hate this word. Although, for many years I have been suffering from derealisation-depersonalisation disorder. As a writer, I also spend much time separating from myself to get in my characters' shoes. It happens even if I focus on doing important tasks. All my life plans are like creating a likable character our of me, trying to set me in interesting plots, far away from this boring life. I can't wake up in the morning because I want to dream further - I can even set the alarm clock once a ten minutes for four or five hours, turn it off and dream further. Due to this I am late everywhere and don't have time to finish anything. I spend around 85% of the day, including sleep, "out of myself". Some time ago I had a psychosis attack (no schizophrenia, diagnosed), so I wonder - maybe I am inside of a wrecked dream, maybe nothing is happening in real. I want to get lost in a non-existing world. That all has a bad influence on my life.


Some time ago I watched "The Inception" for the first time. I think that you can imagine how much I related.

Please, could someone tell me what to do? Are these the dissociative disorder, hysteria, something else? I am during therapy now but I am worried that it won't help me again. I feel worse and worse. I don't even know if I explained it all correctly.

Im sorry but we can not tell you what to do, we cant tell you if something in you is a dissociative disorder, hysteria or something else.

only your own treatment providers can do that for you.

since you are new you may have missed the disclaimer at the bottom of every page on the forums... to find it just scroll down to the bottom of the page... in short what it means is that no one here can diagnose or tell you what to do. for those things you need to contact your own off the computer treatment providers.

my suggestions your post mentions you are in therapy, your therapist would be the one to talk to about these things and what they are and how best to treat it so that you will feel better soon.

Okay, I get it and I probably expressed myself incorrectly. I know that there is no possibility to be diagnosed online, of course.

My question was rather about if there was someone else on this forum who had similar symptoms and could relate.

Hi there.Welcome.

I'm sorry for all your struggles.I wish I had some answers for you but I don't. I have never experienced seizures and faints,that sounds more like a medical issue and maybe something to talk to your doctor about.All the other stuff,it's probably best to talk to your therapist about them.

Hi and welcome. I am wondering why you were so quick to throw out the suggestion of autism spectrum disorder? Many children miss an autistic spectrum diagnosis when one is actually valid. This is especially true for young girls who present differently than boys on the spectrum (can't tell from your post if your are male or female). Reading your post I did get a sense of many autistic traits in you. That is not to say you ARE on the spectrum... we all have autistic traits to one degree or another. Traits do not a disorder make!
But I do wonder if it revisiting ASD as a possibility might help you find some answers.

Welcome

To me you do seem intellectualized... you seem to present a problem you're experiencing and then immediately dismiss it. I relate to that... I usually try to minimize the impact of my problems on others or make them seem like I don't need help, I don't want to feel like a burden to others mostly because I fundamentally find it hard to believe that others are able to help me.

Hi AlphaOrionis,
I read you post. I am also pretty new around here. I was also dioagnozed with DPDR three years ago, but I suffered from it for most of my life, on and of, I just didn't know it. It started as early as my childhood, but back then I did not know how a person is supposed to feel, so I just though that I am stupid or something, constantly detaching myself from reality, not being able to keep track of classes, even though I scored very high on IQ tests.
You already have your diagnosis in place, so I guess it is not against the rules to tell you that I identify with a number of things that you wrote about.
I never had seizures that you mention, though, but I know how it is to feel as if you are a machine or an automaton. To be so detached from your feelings so much that you think that you have none. That is the DP part. And then, with DR part, when world becomes distorted, to the point that you think you are loosing your mind. You still know that you are not hallucinating, and you know that the world is still out there, but that there is something going on with your connectedness to it.
Having said that, each one of us is different, and there can be a number of things going on with each and every one of us. I find it is really great that you have used your unique perspective of the world to write, as I believe there is no better way to work your issues through than writing - apart from working with therapist, of course, on some concrete issues.
I am very sorry that you found yourself in a situation that a therapist or a doctor, I did not get it from you post who exactly, tell you that your way of thinking is stupid. It obviously is not. You are trying to get the grip of what is going on with you, and there's nothing stupid about it.
I do get a lot of "intellectualizing" etiquette myself, and I realize that it is a very difficult coping mechanism to let go of. I still find it so much easier to analyze than to feel. It is not to say that I am not an emotional person, it is just something I learned to do in order to keep the magnitude of unbearable emotions at bay.

You did you best until now, and I know the feeling when, at one point, you need to put you thoughts in written there somewhere, for strangers like us to see it, because it might make your thoughs a little bit more real for you.
I hope that you will get back something from this exchange, and I wish you all the best!
A.