This Stuff Sucks - Tumblr Posts

Sorry it’s so long, I just wanted to post this.

Feeling trapped outside your own body, on the outside looking in, is not how most 10-15 year olds want to spend every waking moment. It’s called depersonalization. A form of anxiety defined as the mind being disconnected from the body. Feeling like a shell of the person you used to be, just functioning, not living. Ever heard of an existential crisis? If not, it’s basically when you question life, you feel disconnected and alone. You could be with hundreds of people and still feel alone. My first experience with anxiety was too long ago to be memorable. The most memorable attack was at a 4-H meeting, doing what I love, and yet something came over me. I was asked to practice showmanship in front of one of my club co-leaders. I said not yet, and I was told I had to. Immediately I broke into tears, I was confused because I had never done that before, and I couldn’t stop myself. I sat in a stall, on a hay bale until I had somehow calmed myself down. I was nervous, but for no reason, I was never nervous like that before, and why over showmanship, of all things. But that was just a normal panic attack, like the ones I had for a month straight, where I would come home and just cry for hours. Anxious about school, friends, or how no matter how many people and companions I surrounded myself with, I still didn’t feel like myself. I felt alone.

My bed underneath me, a smooth, cold book in my hands, the quiet bass of my music. And suddenly I’m not longer processing the words on the page, I’m not listening to the music, or the birds. I only hear my breath quicken and my heart racing. Feeling lightheaded, I grab my face in an attempt to steady my breathing- how that helps I’m not sure, just an instinct- and feel my face soaked. When did I start crying? I look at the clock, it’s 3:01, and look at my book sprawled on my bed. I try to pick it up, only to find that I can’t move. Telling my muscles to move is like trying to yell at someone through a soundproof wall- impossible. I begin to wonder why me? Why now? Why? What did I do? What can I do? I see my bed, my room, everything normally, but my hands and legs seem as if they are in water, as if I’m looking through a fisheye lense. Not my body, but it is. It’s my body, but it seems other worldly. Then I think about how this has happened before, but not as bad, and how I will never get better, and I begin to shake. It feels like time is racing past me, leaving me in it’s memories as the girl who couldn’t. I stay still while time passes me by, ignore my mind’s pleas of help, and my senses focus back in. A new song, a car driving by, my steady breath, and my cat in the middle of a meow. Turning to the clock, my eyes focus on it: 4:06. An hour and 5 minutes of me trying to calm down. Trying to snap out of this, by far the worst, episode.

I remember watching a video by my then favorite youtuber, who talked about his anxiety, describing it. I knew exactly what he meant: I lived it. He explained what it was called, and told a similar story to mine. He was in the shower, and broke out of his episode only to find himself crying on his mom’s bed, the shower still running. He had blacked out. Which is exactly what happened to me. Blacking out, a feeling of being in the wrong body, etc. And that was just the beginning. Ever since watching that video, I felt more comfortable with my attacks. Except that didn’t make them any better. It only told me what I didn’t want to hear.

There was something wrong with me. No one wants to think something is wrong with them. But at least I knew what it was. And along with depersonalisation, there’s another thing called derealisation. Both of these disorders make it feel like you’re living in a dream. Or maybe more like a nightmare. Derealisation is described as the alteration of the outside world, so much that it seems unreal. In other words, derealisation makes the world seem unreal, while depersonalisation separates you from your mind all together. Often found together, these two make a deadly pair (not literally- I hope). It’s hard to tell them apart at times, but either way, it’s not fun. Now enough with the pity party. Both of these things have made me more appreciative about life. I’m not sure why, or how, but somehow, they changed my perspective. With these attacks, I find that I have a new perspective to look from. You know that feeling when you realise that you can do anything, like really, anything, and you don’t, so you wonder what holds you back? That is how I feel everytime I get an attack. Like if I really wanted to, I could just scream as loud as I could, but I don’t, why? I have no reason, it also reminds me that I could do those things, but I want to live the best possible life I could, and some things I think about doing would definitely affect that vision. I’ll always remember this stage in my life, but I don’t dread doing certain things anymore, I don’t give myself a panic attack waiting for another to hit. At times I will be left with an attack for months, it comes, but never goes. I’ve been dealing with one from two months ago still. I kind of respect what happens, and I allow it to make me a stronger person.

Wow, that was a lot of mushy feels. Way more than I expected. I was actually hesitant to even turn this in as my narrative because I felt like I was being too vulnerable, but then I realised that there’s no harm in sharing this, because it just shows, or at least gives me the idea that I’m “strong” enough to share this. I feel like I’m saying strong too much though. Thank you for taking your time to read this, and don’t worry, if it’s super touchy, I cried while writing it so..

(p.s. this was my english narrative, so that explains the last paragraph