Hi all!

I've been lurking on the forums for a bit, and decided to reach out.

Today is one week since I was discharged from my first stay at a psychiatric hospital.

While there really isn't an overwhelming pressure from my family to ‘move on’, I’ve found myself tiptoeing back into what my life was.

My therapist and I will begin working on outpatient things next week, but for now, I’m blindly navigating what I thought was my life.

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this - I feel like a stranger. My school seems unfamiliar, my home is like a copy of what it used to be. I’m struggling to feel the connections I felt between my boyfriend, friends, and family that I held before I left. It’s a total disconnect.

Aside from feeling like a stranger to myself, the silence of others is driving me up the wall! I know people are trying to be courteous/they don’t know how to address it, but not talking about it all makes it feel like it never happened.

And that’s the last thing - I feel like I was never there. Three weeks that simply feel like a fever dream. I finally cut the hospital bracelets off today, and now it really feels like it didn’t happen.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? If so, if anyone has coping/grounding advice, I’d love to hear it. Love