[WinterRose]

Do you ever feel like you're in an alternate universe? Sometimes, it's like I'm in an altered mental state and there is heaviness and darkness and panic. Then I'll go to bed and in the morning I'll wake up and wonder what all that was about. It's like it didn't happen. It doesn't happen as intensly or as often as it used to, but I still feel like I go through these cycles - I'll get depressed and cry and then I'll be fine and then it will sneek up on me again. I alternate crying and feeling ok just as quickly as starting a letter ok and crying at the end or vice versa. Then I get to the part where I think I'm making it up or just trying to get attention and I totally discount it and dis-affirm (what's the right word?) myself.

[CastlesMadeOSand]

I would like to have an answer for you but unfortunately my post is basically just to say that I completely understand everything that you are saying. The alternate universe was definitely right on!

[Jkeyz]

Yes, I have felt the same way. I am a single mom of a 7-yr-old son. We live with my 81-yr-old Mom. Neither my Mom or I are able to live by ourselves so we help each other out.

It's like I have my "alternate universe" when my son is at school, but then when he comes home, I snap out of it into the "real" world. But which world is really real? Sometimes I feel schizophrenic, but don't really think I am.

I have 2 things to say to you: 1) I understand. and 2) Maybe you should talk to your pdoc or therapist. You may very well need a medication change. A change helped me. I used to be alot worse than I am now!

Best wishes on everything!!!

[WinterRose]

Thanks Jkeyz. I keep in contact with my psychiatrist weekly it seems - I email him alot. I email him so much I think he worries when I don't. He's willing to change meds if I want to, but I get scared because last time I made a change it made me feel so down I wanted to die. That's scary. Since it's just crying fits right now and not plunges I'm going to endure.

[Meta]

((((Winterrose))))
I can relate. When I wake up the morning and it's a different (much better) universe than the one I was in the night before, I feel like I must be crazy. I've sort of tried to look and see if I had a lot of stress and anxiety the day before, but it never seems clearcut. And it happens in reverse too--I will go to bed feeling fine, and wake up and feel like I've descended into hell. I refer to it a the trap door springing. I talked a little about this in a previous post. Years ago, it seems to me that I could connect up hypomanic episodes and depressions to what was going on in my life. Now, just as often, it seems to me, the episodes come from nowhere. I wonder if on some subliminal level I am still having stress and anxiety, but I don't experience it until it reaches some kind of tipping point and depression or hypomania breaks thru.
Crying usually helps when I get depressed. But if I am very depressed, I don't cry-I can't.
I also can get really down on myself and think I just don't have any moral character or I am lazy or I'm a whiner when I get depressed. I guess I have to be thankful for my rare "normal" periods to reassure me.

Years ago a therapist talked to me about maybe trying not to struggle so much when I get depressed. I think she was referring to how self-hating I became when I got depressed. Like your signature line, I think she was trying to tell me if I accepted my feelings, it might help. Well, I will stop rambling now.
Meta

[RedFusion24]

I also just wanted to add that I often feel that way, as well. It usually happens at night and then I realize it in the morning and then feel bad about it and tell myself I must be really "crazy".

Additionally, there are days when I know I have done something or gone somewhere but can't really remember the feeling of being there. Like, I know I went to the grocery today, but I don't really feel as though I've left my house. That kind of thing. It's very odd.

So, I don't really have anything wise to say, I just wanted to add to the list of comments so you see how really not alone you are.

[bailey33]

I think I understand what you are saying. Most mornings I wake up wishing I never woke up at all...wish I had never been born and gone through everything I have been through. I feel like I am somewhere else at the same time aware that I am right here. Weird...hard to explain...everything feels unfamiliar. Then I will just snap out of it...I feel just fine. All of a sudden life is worth living and all that.

[ManicMania]

I feel like this a lot. Usually when I am depressed. When I am depressed I feel very cut off from the world and I feel very alone like I am on some other planet.