[SS8282]

This morning, I felt like I was disappearing - just slowly fading away. Felt numb too. I wanted to hurt myself just to feel physical pain, and if I see 'red' then I must be 'here', 'solid'.

What was that - what I was feeling? I get that way sometimes, but I could never put a name to it. Why does that happen? What started it? I have no answers....

[PlanningtoLive]

I got that feeling everytime and that's when I would SI......for exactly that reason.

I would lose track of my surroundings and just focus on what I was doing, so that I would know I was alive, because I couldn't feel anything. I always called it just going into a trance like state of mind. I'm sure there is a medical word for it though.

In some ways it is scary, in others I welcomed it.


Money changes people just as often as it changes hands.
~ Al Batt

[SweetCrusader]

It sounds to me like dissociation, which can take a lot of different forms. It's a way of coping with overwhelming feelings or situations. The numbness is part of that, too. It's a common thing among survivors of abuse and neglect.

I don't remember whether or not you're in therapy, SS. Are you? If so, this is something to talk about in therapy. (I don't say that to discourage you from talking about it here, too, though. I think a lot of us can relate!)

SweetCrusader

comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable

[Zenobia]

I used dissociate all the time. When the emotional stress level would rise I would fade. Have you been under more stress lately? I have put a bunch of effort into learning how to let myself feel more where as before I was afraid to feel because I never really knew which feeling would overwhelm me so I just stuffed them all. Since working on it I find I rarely ever fade away now. I go fuzzy around the edges and become what the average person would simply call distracted but I no longer totally disconnect. When I was disconnected I would have the over powering need to hurt myself to prove that I still existed in this world.
Carrie

<font color=blue>If you have two dollars, spend one on bread and the other on flowers. The bread will feed your body and the flowers will feed your soul."--Arabic Saying

[SS8282]

I SI for more than that reason. Am glad (in a way) that I'm not the only one that does that.

[SS8282]

Thanks for helping with the 'name', SC. I am in therapy, though I see the shrink only 1 a month.

[SS8282]

Don't know if I'm under more stress. It just happens, and when it does, the feeling stays for a long time - hours at least.

I can understand the 'stuffing' part. I tend to bury my feelings and put a lid on them.

Glad to hear you're getting better. More control of it.