My shrink says I dissociated and I think I might have PTSD.

[fyrefly]

I think my past is affecting my present and that I might have PTSD. In my late teen years I had a friend in school who was terribly unwell and suicidal. In her distress she did many violent things to herself including multiple suicide attempts; I often went to school not knowing if she would be alive and spent a lot of my time trying to keep her around. In 2018 she died of suicide while in a psychiatric hospital. She was then brain dead for three weeks; it was a very prolonged and painful event. I didn't really have a relationship to her as an adult, so that time was the strangest limbo-grieving the past in the present; of finally being 'allowed' to grieve, I guess.

I saw a good shrink, I graduated from a degree, I spent 2019 collecting myself.

Fast forward to now. I went back to study post grad journalism, but soon dropped out. I was already unemployed when the pandemic hit, and I struggled to cope with the anxiety of the 24 hour newsreel alone in my house. I was vomiting from anxiety. Couldn't concentrate. I got a job at a supermarket shortly after the first restrictions and layoffs were announced. I was grateful but still anxious, as one of my housemates has early onset Parkinsons' disease, and I couldn't live with myself if I gave her corona.

One evening, without realising what I was doing, I cut big chunks out of my hair. I had to go to the barber to get it fixed with a number one shave, at a time when it felt irresponsible even to go outside. So I moved back to the folks and felt better. A month later, I told my therapist about the hair cutting incident and they were immediately concerned. I couldn't understand why they were worried for me, since I was feeling better. They told me they think I dissociated while cutting my hair; they know me to be quite a conscientious, measured person, and it was out of character for me. Since then I've spent excessive time questioning my sanity and trying to think of other times I might have dissociated, and does this mean that what I thought was garden variety anxiety might actually be something else.

I'm okay. But I'm a 25 year old woman, washed up living at my parents, working minimum wage, and don't really know what else I want to be doing. My bachelor degree is in creative writing. I don't know how I feel about writing. It used to be my passion and now I find it very hard to put myself out into the world. I think I'm too sensitive for journalism. I'm okay but lost. At least the world is adrift with me.

[Sophie_M]

Hey fyrefly, welcome to the Beyond Blue forums. We're glad to have you join us here. 

We're so sorry to hear about everything that's been going on, it sounds like it's been a really stressful and intense two years for you. We're sorry to hear about the passing of your friend, this would have been such a difficult situation to go through. 

We can hear that your therapist has really concerned you with their comment about dissociation. Are you still seeing this therapist? perhaps you could arrange a session with them to discuss these concerns.

If you feel up to it, we'd recommend reaching out to our Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service. The website will be regularly updated with information, advice and strategies to help you manage your wellbeing and mental health during this time. You can also call our dedicated support line, staffed by mental health professionals, which is available 24/7 on 1800 512 348.

You might also like to view the resources at Support after Suicide. They provide information, resources, counselling and group support to those bereaved by suicide. 

If you would like to post further, please tell us more about what's on your mind and how we can best help support you  

[therising]

Hi fyrefly

You've definitely been through a lot, especially being caretaker for your friend who passed. The stress and heartbreak must have been overwhelming.

Wondering about the hair cutting incident, whether it held deep significance for you at the time. You know that old saying 'To be in 2 minds'; while it can be a fleeting statement when we're basically undecided about something, when it involves a deeper significance, it can become rather questionable. For example: Society has led us to identify strongly with our hair. It's become part of our identity, therefor our relationship with it is ego based. The other mind is not ego based. It can be the mind that says at times 'I don't care'. I recall standing in front of the mirror some months back lopping a lot of my hair off. My 'I don't care' moment involved me not caring about/letting go of the superficial just so I could experience freedom. I was fully conscious of what I was doing and why I was doing it. We may not be fully conscious of what we're doing at times although the action can still hold significant meaning. Can you think of what this action may have meant to you? Letting go of something? Letting go of parts of your self? Cutting things out of your life? Searching for drastic difference?

Sounds like, now, you're at a checkpoint, where you're checking yourself/where you're at in life. Sensitive folk tend to do this, as they're typically sensitive to the need to evolve. I know it may not feel like it but where you're at is good, it's safe at a time when things are uncertain and a little all over the place. You've risen to a huge amount of challenges over the years, so it's time to take a breather in a safe place. You won't always be there but, for now, you are...so, again, take a breather before the next stage of your journey. Some folk never seem to cop a break. Wondering if you've considered flexing your creative writing muscles by looking into entering into writing competitions. It can be a way of earning extra cash too. Keep submitting, as practice, 'til you win a few. This process may also open up certain opportunities that naturally end up leading you away from journalism. You never know. Once a writer always a writer, I say. It's a part of your sensitive nature which involves attention to detail.

Speaking of attention to detail, working in a supermarket provides a perfect opportunity for observing people. Pay closer attention. Observing the behaviour of others is a fascinating study.

🙂

[fyrefly]

Hi, thanks for those resources and your responses. I have an appointment in two weeks, and my last session was two and a half weeks ago. Just have thoughts spilling over all the time, it's a long time to wait between sessions sometimes. I honestly think the hair cutting was a symptom of extreme stress, like a monkey in a cage picking its fur. I guess I understand what you mean about hair and its social meaning. I wear my hair short in a pixie/ undercut and like appearing androgynous ( I'm a cis, queer woman). I think in this case the hair cutting was more about trying to unconsciously control something in the midst of uncertainty. Ironically it's unsettling to me to think I lost control. Could be worth adding I come from a religious family who are essentially warm and loving, but I don't really talk much about queer stuff with them. For a long time I felt compartmentalised in my identity, I suppose, between my Christian heritage and queer identity, though I've done a lot of work with myself to reconcile that. I do feel safe and cared for here and know I'm relatively fortunate to have time for pause. I certainly have observed a lot of humanity and its quirks in my years working in customer service/admin. It's become part of my writing before, but the idea of writing still makes me very tired. I'm looking at courses in helping professions: teaching, counseling social work, psychology. I think I'm introverted but good with people.
I've been constantly googling dissociation, trying to understand exactly what it is. Am reading the Body Keeps the Score for a second time. I think I must have dissociated through the grieving process; I got into a lot of trouble at work, in fact, for lapses of attention. I stopped being able to recognise customer's faces, and missed bus stops and couldn't figure out how to get home, felt punch-drunk like I was constantly trying to wake up but couldn't. Triggers sometimes still get to me, depictions of suicide in media and I feel very fuzzy and a distinct pain in my head. But sometimes I watch things deliberately; I just got to the last season of Please Like Me which does an excellent job of portraying mental illness in a nuanced way, but is triggering. Anyway I'm essentially fine currently, just feel like an amorphous void sometimes who can't make up her mind and is living in the past.

[ecomama]

Hi firefly, cute name and welcome 🙂

I extend deep compassion for the loss of your school friend. May her soul fly high and be free from torment now. Hugs.

Things are really happening for you atm. This hair cutting has shaken things up for you hasn't it? So basically there's the event, then your reaction to it emotionally, then getting a Number 1, then you heard your therapists reaction and now you're having a worse reaction, right?
Ok with everything else going on between and a rugged year for you full stop.

But in a nutshell, right?

I really want to explore this with you....

But I digress lol, OFCOURSE you are a writer... look at your writing and command of the language omg, you were writing then, look above... about your OWN experiences through this. PLEASE start a diary and record this journey! I would pay to read it and atm I am getting the story for free lol.

Please write about this.
On Netflix there is a great doco called 'My beautiful broken brain'. It is an amazing journey and if you watch it, I hope you don't trigger through any of it. She gets to be ok, so there, spoiler alert lol but what a beautiful insight in to one person's life as she experienced it.

Ok, back to the chain reaction … the only thing I can draw on from my own life experience to gain some parallel is what happened to me over a period of about 2 years or so. I tell you this in hopes that you may gain reflection from my experience as I see you in a similar place.
Disclaimer: listen to your own powerful instincts and mental health professionals.. mine is merely for reflection. Thank me in your book lol! Just joking.

I will run out of words FOR SURE so I will continue in another post after this one.

Happy ending here too. So, many years ago I was pregnant... EVERY doctor, specialist, professor told me to do a very extreme thing because the babies were not supposed to survive. I saw a label on my file one day, something like "RECALCITRENT PATIENT" ewww meaning I was NOT doing what any of them told me to do. I was going through with the pregnancy.

I was probed, prodded, examined in every possible way, a lot, the entire time. Warned. Those warnings felt like threats to me and one even called me a control freak.... wow. About 2 years of it.

Fast forward to my beautiful adult twins today. Freaking perfect. They really are.

xxxxEM

[fyrefly]

Hi ecomum, thanks for your compassionate message and for sharing your own story. Yes I think you're right about my therapist's reaction, and mine in turn. As for writing about my own experiences, well, I keep my own journal, and write a page or two to my therapist in between sessions, because it seems to help our work, and I do have a first person piece I wrote last year that should be published soon, though I don't want to say more in case it affects my anonymity.

I guess this is a non sequitur: something that troubles me is that I can't position myself in my grief. Can't own my feelings. I knew her when we were sixteen but when she died she was a stranger to me. She was a stranger because I'd made it that way. I couldn't stay with her through her illness, and had to look after myself. She never got better. I just wish we'd got to a high school reunion and we were old acquaintances and she was there, surviving, carving out some kind of life. But instead she died in a psych ward bed where she had spent a significant portion of her adulthood, and our high school reunion was five years too early, in a church foyer huddled over stale funeral sandwiches. I felt alienated from the whole affair. I didn't know what our relationship was, I didn't have that to grieve. I had already grieved our friendship. The old thoughts of denial go: it was something that happened adjacent to me and not to me, I've never been assaulted or abused or have anything horrific happen to just me. She was some girl in my circle of friends, in three of my classes. I wasn't even that close to her, in the end. And like yeah I can rationalise as an outsider, I know that witnessing someone try to kill or seriously violently harm themselves on a regular basis would affect anybody vicariously, especially at a tender age, with little support from real adults who assumed you were doing just fine. (Turns out that perfectionism and overachieving in academics, though rewarded by teachers, and usually a sign of a thriving and chipper young person, is actually maladaptive in the real world. But I was second dux, so my feelings didn't matter. I became the desired capitalist product of the christian private school system. Trophy kid millennial, minted, ready to go!) I'm very good at rationalising and intellectualising as defence mechanisms. Sitting and accepting the feelings is the hardest thing.

[ecomama]

What a poignant piece of writing, I really felt you through reading your writing.

And what you said about your high school reunion.... God that is so sad. You are noting more losses in that one paragraph than only the recent passing. You have suffered more than you think, I think? The passing is huge enough. The grieving of a friend you couldn't help, and you couldn't not matter how hard you tried. I am so sorry, that is painful enough, not being able to help her.

Is now a time for forgiving? Maybe even being angry? Forgiving yourself, her, your younger self, the bloody system, everything and everyone.

Anger would be a natural emotion too. I am angry that this all happened.

Perhaps in dealing with these emotions with a professional you may also make a decision to be in a place of acceptance. As much as we may want to fight acceptance, there is freedom in this position. It may release us to venture forward in creating the rest of lour lives.

You have so much creativity. Your personal and intimate perspective you are describing in your posts is such an insight into you as a person. I am so glad to have met you.

I hope you can travel well through this. I'm confident you can!

If you copied and pasted your last post, it needs to go in your book somewhere lol.

I am also grieving, but for a living family member. I am about to embark on a journey that I don't want to take with that person. I hope I can do it distantly. But it's grief that I have to acknowledge again.

I Pray you may have peace.

xxxxEM

[therising]

Hi fyrefly

Once read a great article which spoke of a search for identity, where the author stated 'Do not ask what do I want to do, instead ask who do I want to be'. I have a 17yo daughter and 14yo son and I give them this advice when it comes to being true to their nature. My daughter, although a little introverted, is a natural leader. People tend to look to her gentle yet strong nature. Choosing a course of study at school has been challenging. I asked her 'Do you wish to lead children (a teacher), people with mental health challenges (a psychologist), a misdirected society (an effective politician)?' and so on. My son, on the other hand is a nature boy. He wishes to enter into a field where he can make a difference to the environment. Marine biology is something he's been passionate about since he was 4 years old. They both wish to be guiding lights in the lives of others, making some positive difference in this world. You sound like a guiding light person yourself, based on the professions you're considering.

As you'd acknowledge, there can be a lot of letting go when you're trying to discover and follow your true nature. I understand that upbringing aspect. I was raised Catholic (not too strict). I began to raise my kids the same way but too many red flags kept coming up. 'Is this natural?' became my mantra in questioning the traditions of this faith. While letting go of my connection did bring about some guilt and mental torture, I gradually began to gravitate toward aspects of natural (non organised) spirituality. This came with challenges.

I find spirituality (the nature of life) challenges a lot of social conditioning. While it has brought me much in the way of my quest for self understanding, it has led me to question the highly questionable, which has led to mind altering conclusions (in a good way). It's led me to challenge myself and others mentally, regarding long held beliefs that often serve the purpose of sufferance. It's led me to wonder extensively through the help of imagination (like imagining yourself as a professional in the way of helping others) and above all else it has led me to a healthy sense of self-esteem I once only dreamed of. If I hadn't let go of religion, I would not have taken this path. It's a path that has also included a curiosity regarding quantum physics and epigenetics. I just love energy based topics.

I believe when we begin to question much, we're on the right path. It's in our nature, to question.

🙂

[Blue_healer]

Hi Fyrefly,

I wanted to make a comment about dissociation, as I feel I have experienced it too. A mental health nurse suggested it to me when I described my experience, so I researched it and believe I have experienced it several times. Each time I have been under extreme stress, which fits with my research into dissociation. It is one of the mind's ways of coping with stressful or traumatic experiences or memories. I have experienced an out-of-body experience where I watched myself do something that I felt I had no control over & I wouldn't rationally choose to do. I grabbed a police officer's gun - something so totally out of character, I still can't believe it happened. But my psychiatrist said that I knew what I was doing, and still had some control over what I did. When I tried to suggest dissociation, he shut me down and refused to discuss it.

I have also experienced dissociation where I passed out unconscious with the stress of being very upset. I have tried to talk with my psychiatrist about dissociation & my experiences, but he continues to refuse to discuss it. I found the dissociation very scary, and I am very anxious about it happening again. I had a psychologist who identified symptoms of PTSD, and dissociation can often be linked to PTSD.

I understand your anxiety about dissociating, but don't have any answers for you, as I am still trying to find out myself. I empathise with your worry about dissociating again, as I feel the same. All I can do is try to manage my mental health so that I am not highly stressed, so hopefully reduce the risk of it happening again. I did try some trauma therapy, but found that too stressful to go though previous traumatic experiences, so I stopped that.

I wish I could help you more, but unfortunately am in the same boat of not really understanding what happened or why. Continue to look after yourself and your mental health, and keep seeking explanations from your mental health professionals, so you can understand yourself and hopefully be less anxious about it happening again.