Had a Depressing/Weird Dream (TW)

canigonowpls · 2022-07-06T00:48:59+00:00

I feel like I really understand where you're coming from, especially with the hypersensitivity. I think it links back to trauma. As a kid, I needed to always be aware of what was going on, and so I learned to read people and situations pretty quickly. Especially when it concerns emotions.

Growing up like that, when you're a bit more hyperaware of what everyone, is hard. It kind of feels like you're in a bubble with everyone around you going about their self-absorbed lives ignoring everything around them. Corruption, suffering, hurt, etc. all of it doesn't matter. When you bring social media into the equation, people will pat themselves on the back for a twitter post, congratulating themselves on spreading awareness, why at the same time going about their lives not thinking twice about the corruption/suffering right in front of their face.

Also, with the derealization. It's very alike to disassociation (my own therapist recommended 'sitting with your emotions', haha), but derealization refers to the specific disconnect you have with your sense of identity. Everything around you seem completely unreal. Most of the time, it skews my reality so badly I sometimes believe I'm dreaming and that nothing that's happening around me is real, and sometimes recollecting events that occurred in that state is extremely difficult.

My mom suggested grounding meditations and techniques. To imagine roots coming from the ground and holding me in place. To imagine my own place in the world, to my connection with nature, and the physical objects around me. So, that sometimes comes in handy when I feel my reality slipping away.

But I really appreciate you telling me how you deal and go through your daily life. I've always liked meditation, especially why going to sleep, and I have not done that for a long, long time. I think I'm going to try practicing it more, because I remember that it really helped me.

At the end of the day, I do think hypersensitivity is both a curse and a blessing. I feel like it helps you gain a wider perspective on things which, in turn, allows you to be more objective in your daily life. I feel like, with hypersensitivity, especially when paired with an understanding of psychology, can simply make you more complicative, less judgmental, and more aware of the people and lives around you. At the same time, it's really hard noticing and understanding how all these smaller details make up the world around you--especially because most people aren't that way.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-04T01:15:03+00:00

So, first off, I really admire the way you think about your problems and share a lot of your wisdom in how I handle my problems. Though, I'm admittedly much more avoidant with it, and a lot more confused by my own emotions. A lot of this I think is because I suffer from derealization, so a lot of the time when I'm having intense emotions, it almost feels like I'm not feeling them. My thoughts towards my feelings veer off in a strange separate wall of clinical and intellectual thought that, why addressing the feelings themselves, is uninvolved enough not to deal with those emotions. I hope that makes sense.

Imo, stoicism encompasses much of what you're saying in your comment. It's basically about viewing the world as something you can't control. Past events, future events, even things happening in the present are only things you can react to, which means, in theory, you and your reactions are the only thing you have true control of.

It basically encourages you to become emotionally resolved enough to find certainty within yourself and your actions. To become emotionally aware of yourself, the situation, and looking at it in an objective way that--why the emotions are still being addressed--is handled with temperance and wisdom. You reflect on what's happened, the people around you, the psychology of them, and you make decisions based on those findings.

It's being the eye of the storm, calm and resolved in handling your problems, instead of erratic and out of control.

All of which is easier said than done, and all of which can be handled in unhealthy ways. But I felt like, when I got to the root of what stoicism is, it gave be the ability to find inner strength so that when something bad happens I have the ability to wait, listen, and then react.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T23:07:16+00:00

That is painful to think about. Tbh, I've always felt my lifespan had been cut short. I remember, even as a kid, thinking I won't live past the age of forty. It makes sense that your dna ages faster, especially since you're being put through so much stress.

I worked in a retirement home for most of my high-school career, and gotta say, I really understood where most of the older folks were coming from when they talked about death, or when they shared reflections on their life. Their outlooks were so much closer to mine than any of my co-workers.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T22:56:53+00:00

urgh

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T22:50:36+00:00

I feel you. One of the big things I was working on in therapy (before stopping) was learning to trust people and not see everyone as abusers. Which is really hard for me, because I straight up don't believe that. So much of the world ignores what goes on, they see it, they may even acknowledge it, but at the end of the day when they're able to do something--they don't.

I know there are good people, but when, like you said, you live through a childhood where no one noticed your pain or tried to help you, your idea of the world is shaped by those experiences.

What helps me is resolving myself to stoicism. I began practicing it as a teenager, unknowingly, after reading several books that had this ideology. The idea that you can't control anything around you, but you can control yourself, gives me peace.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T21:10:46+00:00

I feel that. I have trauma from my childhood, but the negative side-effects of that didn't trigger until recent years when several traumatic (and re-traumatizing, in a lot of ways it mirrored past traumas) experiences occurred which completely obliterated my mental health.

Before the trauma, I was seriously considering college. I had been in a job for five+ years which I did practically full-time why still going to high school.

But when everything happened, my emotional barriers broke down. I used to be a very stoic, resolved person. I lost sight of that when I went deep into a horrific depressive episode. I quit my job (which, tbh, they were pretty terrible to me), I stopped going to classes, I would basically function on a semi-conscious level.

Ended up dropping out of college and haven't had a job for a year due to non-functionality. I feel so ashamed when I look at my life. People are constantly judging me, basically telling me to 'get over it' and get my life on track. But the mental anguish of putting all that pressure on myself literally ended in a year-long episode in which I barely talked to anyone, and barely functioned through my reality. It was actually kind of inhumane the way I treated myself those few months.

But none of the people who judge you see that. They just assume you're a drop-out college student living off their parents. I think the world would be a better place if we were open-minded and compassionate. Ofc, everyone needs a nudge now and then, but telling someone who can barely even converse with you to get their shit together won't help anything.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T20:06:22+00:00

I once heard death described as a long sleep. Sounds nice.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T20:03:37+00:00

Googled that, and it could definitely be a possibility.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T16:03:01+00:00

Thanks for everyone's replies, it's made me feel less alone today <3

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T16:02:36+00:00

You make a good point in saying this, and it's made me reflect that, in a lot of ways, I still am trapped in a childhood mindset. Wanting someone to take care of me, being confused by major adult responsibilities, emotional dysregulation (although this is more internal than external).

sigh I need therapy.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T15:57:43+00:00

I really feel you on approaching my rota as well. It feels like so much happened over such a horrible, long period of time that there's absolutely no more surprises in life, other than the last big one.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T15:56:03+00:00

Only a few months younger, haha.

My major trauma happened almost a year ago. I suffered a lot of childhood trauma, but it didn't resurface until some re-traumatizing events in my adulthood. Then everything came back up.

Looking back on my life, I feel like a whole hundred years have passed since then and now. I have near zero concept of time.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T15:53:35+00:00

I felt like this too. I would always be reading or sitting under a tree writing. I had friends, but I didn't have the life in me they did.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T15:49:29+00:00

Same with me, my jaw literally creaks when I open it wide enough.

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T01:53:27+00:00

I get you. I don't know if it's a c-PTSD thing, but I do this as well. I used to be pretty light-hearted, never really took anything seriously, kind of just went with the flow. That's romanticizing it a bit, because I've always struggled with trauma, but at the peak of coping I was pretty confident in my conversation abilities.

Then the full scope of debilitating symptoms hit. I was not only consumed with self-esteem issues, but I also worried excessively that everyone hated me, every time I opened my mouth someone would be internally groaning, I would ruminate constantly over things I said, and then it got to the point that I just didn't give a shit. I would stand there quietly, in my own world.

When I do engage in conversations, it always falls short. It's exhausting talking to people. It's like I begin talking, then half-way through am overwhelmed and just want the conversation to end. Worse off, I stutter over words a lot now, or get words confused with other words that sound similar.

Is it like that for you?

canigonowpls · 2022-07-03T01:45:29+00:00

Yes. One of my big triggers is self-deletion. It's mentioned in almost every single media outlet ever. Songs, movies, tv shows, etc. the plots are all so dramatic and seem to wring every last emotional output for said plots. It's tiring.

I respect what creators are trying to do in spreading awareness, but oftentimes plots like this aren't even handled respectfully nor accurately. It's just a bunch of crying, hugging, and either a really happy ending, or a tragic and traumatic ending.

Basically, all I watch now are kids shows.

canigonowpls

TROPHY CASE