This morning I had a meeting with a social worker and it completely messed with my psyche. I am not very good at describing what was destabilizing about this person but, triggers aside, I found myself with basically a dissociated part of me anxious, another dissociated part of me attempting to simply get me completely dissociated to not have to deal with the whole thing and me caught in the middle trying to manually drag the rising anxiety down to be able to listen and fighting off the instinct to detach myself from the other side. I mean good enough I guess that the third of me I identify with was staying on top of both and handled the situation, albeit barely, but I am still shook after hours that passed and the part that got anxious is still getting reabsorbed into the part that kept the homeostasis and my focus is still strained at best.
I felt like I was losing my grip very rapidly and it’s kind of disheartening. After I got done I even started talking to myself on the street like a full blown mental case because I was that dissociated from the part that got anxious. Now, there were four people in the room other than me and only this one social worker was destabilizing, heck as long as there was a male collegue of her, who had to leave halfway for an emergency, she was still destabilizing but not nearly as much.
I am a bit disheartened by the whole ordeal. I handled it rather decently but it’s tough to think stuff like this can happen at the slightest psychological pressure, which make no mistake she applied but it was such light pressure that I shouldn’t even have noticed it and instead it caused me to split in 3 with only a third actually able to deal with the situation.
This stuff is technically due to not having enough serotonin to work with in my assessment so we can wrap this up as a side effect of the AP but since I ain’t getting off APs how am I supposed to deal with this so that it doesn’t happen again in the future? For people who had similar reactions, perhaps worded differently without implying dissociation(since it was rather mild and after the fact, once I found myself getting anxious and seeking escape I quarantined the two areas instead of letting this unwanted stuff get integrated in order to keep functioning, which caused the perceived dissociation), is exposure therapy going to help or am I just going to get worn down and I’m better off cutting off anything that causes me such a loss of balance in your estimation?
I think I dissociate during panic attacks. Actually, not sure what exactly happens, I can’t explain. They are rare, but happen sometimes. It is because of coming off Klonopin rapidly, and I hope it goes away with time.
I ask because I think I dissociate. I don’t truly understand what happens to me in those moments when I have panic attacks. Very strange things happen.
For me its in the form of derealization. Surroundings get a bit warped, maybe objects start to look bigger or smaller than normal, corners seem rounded. Maybe my arms or hands feel like there not mine. Generally feeling disoriented.
I dont get depersonalization which i believe is where you feel like your watching yourself from a distance or something
I get these panic attacks for 4-5 hours. I get command hallucinations, my sex drive goes away, I sometimes even feel like I am watching my actions from a distance, like my hands and body are not mine. I prefer to be alone in these periods, as if someone comes, it triggers the voices even more. I get heart palpitations, sometimes even feel like having a heart attack. Then, suddenly, the voices also make me masterbate when I get libido towards the end of a panic attack.
I also feel under external control somewhat. I don’t even know whether this is a panic attack, but whatever it is, it is related to Klonopin withdrawal, and it is very, very painful sometimes.
Well if you currently hear voices and your getting an anxiety attack, that panicky energy could make the content of your voices frantic.
Dissociative symptoms are closely related to psychosis. Some say its sort of a stage removed from psychosis.
Benzo withdrawal is basically rebound anxiety. Apparently it takes a while for it to go away.
I do hear voices in those periods when I get these “attacks” which is like once in two weeks.
Benzo withdrawal can do maybe a hundred different things to you for upto 5 years ater quitting them.
I can understand why my sex drive changes during these attacks. It is because I had no sex drive on Klonopin. So, when the withdrawal affects the brain, it also impacts the sex drive. Because of psychosis, it seems like it is something external manipulating my sex drive.
As for dissociation, my hands sometimes feel lighter, and it seems like I am seeing myself “externally”. In fact, it is impossible to describe what happens in words, it is just too unfathomable.
Yeah i had some weird dissociative symptoms. Id see myself in the mirror at the gym and id feel like my head was disconnected from my body my eyes or mouth. Hard to explain lol.
Or plants and other inanimate objects took on a life like persona as if they were concious. (That might of been a psychosis symptom)
Or i would have the opposite of deja vu a lot where i thought everything changed like the walls got painted or furnitures re arranged it just seemed like something changed.
Yeah, but the strangest thing is, though I am not gay, the external force makes me masturbate on a particular guy in those strange periods. I like women all my life though. These are very strange experiences for me. So, I don’t really know, how to convey this to a therapist. I feel slightly uncomfortable.
It would take a high level therapist to deal with this stuff. The problem is that there aren’t too many here.
In fact, most of themselves say, that they are not working on the schizoaffective side, but on the anxiety side (probably because it is much easier).
I have tried a lot of therapy in the past but to no avail.
So, I am just going to ride this wave, and hopefully it is over in a while-- after sometime, Klonopin should stop affecting me.
Yeah they prob wont be able to help on the sz side but the anxiety/dissociative stuff probably can help. Or you could get a book on cbt for psychosis that will likely cover a lot of what you deal with. The one i have had details on how to deal with command hallucinations.
I agree. I asked because I am really unsure about what I am going through. So, I just call it a panic attack. But, really, it is a cluster of strange things that happen.