[Kellarella]

hey everyone,

I have posted in the anxiety area a bit but wanted to put a post here so that hopefully someone can tell me whether what I am experiencing is disassociation or depersonalization....

I had a stress reaction resulting from having my first panic attack when i was on a jury a month ago. Since then I have been seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist and am on anti depressents for the anxiety part of it....

But over the past week or so, I have been feeling so out of it... Like I am living my life but not really... it's so hard to explain... Everything scares me and it's like I am constantly triggering the thoughts that I am crazy and I feel so foggy which makes me really anxious all the time.
Over the past few days, the feelings have not left me at all.... I still logically know who I am and what I am doing, but I feel like I am in a dream all the time, and I keep getting really upset thinking that I can't live like this, and I will never be the same again (before the first panic attack, I had never had any experience like this before. I don't take drugs or drink either).

So I was just wondering if anyone knows whether this would still be part of the anxiety and stress reaction I am experiencing. I have been told that what I am going through is temporary and will stop but I am not convinced!!

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks

Kel

If it was dissociation it would be something that has been going on your whole life. Everyone dissociates to a certain point normally anyway such as geeing so interested in a movie that you dont notice what is going on around you, driving the car and thinking of other things then focused on the mechanics of how to drive, daydreaming. A person who dissociates beyond the normal rage is a person who has experienced a trauma or abuse that they were not mentally capable of handling.

If being in the jury was the cause for dissociating beyond the normal rage you would have felt this way at jury and after jury duty on up to the present. Dissociation beyond the normal doesn't have a sort of incubation time frame. It happens during the situation and after.

Since this has started not a month ago but a week ago my guess is that this is a medication reaction. I say this because you started feeling this way after starting medication.

Talk with your prescribing professional - the dosage may be too high or that medication may be one that you can't take. Also this spacyness and out of touch is usually an antidepressant side effect. Anti depressants are a suppressor which means they shut down or slow down the brains chemicals. So again talk with your prescribing professional. Dont be afraid to ask him/her questions especially when going on meds that professional should be telling you what the medication does and its side effects.

[silver_queen]

I agree with "myself" in that it could be a med reaction, but I would also say that it could be dissociation, the depersonalisation you suggest. I have not constantly used dissociation throughout my entire life but I do occasionally have episodes of depersonalisation with symptoms such as you describe - the fogginess, feeling of 'not really being here', feeling like you're living in a dream - and they have been triggered by high anxiety, which sometimes is the result of a specific event but othertimes comes out of nowhere, with anxiety having been high for at least a few weeks. When I have had this, the maximum time it lasted was over a week, and sometimes it lasts only a couple of days. You do say though that you still have quite high anxiety, and from what I remember when I have been through similar episodes, I was emotionless, and of course, dissociation is an escape from feeling things, either physically or emotionally. So I would say that the fact that you are still feeling things emotionally would suggest more a medication side-effect... how long have you been on the antidepressants for?

[Kellarella]

Hey, I have only been on the antidepressents for 4 weeks. I went to see psychiatrist today, she isn't sure what it is, hasn't heard of it in my circumstance before, so that scares me!!!
She is taking me off them to see whether it is the medication, or it's still anxiety... So will se how it goes!!

[mlyn]

What ever it is be kind to your self no matter what it is. It helps no matter what dx is. your journey is your journey no matter what dx.

Glad to hear you were able to get in so fast. By the way I recieved your pm, pm me any time and pm'ed back atcha.