u/DoubtReal3844

I walk through the grocery store I used to shop in with my mom as a kid, I imagine myself as a 10 year old that felt the whole world was ahead of him, I think of my 20‘s as the most fun time in my life and learning who I am, what I am. then at 29 im slammed with this, my life changed forever. I’m now going to be 34 and I’m nobody, nothing, nowhere. I long for those old days even though they were filled with trauma. I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all. this isn’t just feeling nothing, it’s being so cut off from yourself, your past, your identity, your entire world.

i miss the way the summer smelled in the morning, I miss the airport terminal waiting for a flight. I miss the way an autumn day would peek through the hills and leaves of the trees, I miss my mom. I miss my world that was me. every little detail. I know it’s in my mind but completely inaccessible. the world that felt safe, alive, real, and meant something. the way id go to bed and get the best sleep, and not one dream. how I’d wake up in the morning and it would feel like morning. that feeling of Friday before the weekend. all of it. the pain of it being gone for this many years is killing me. the first few years of DPDR I had some sliver of hope. that hope is completely gone. no human was built to be in this state for years. it’s meant to be a temporary state during a car crash, or something traumatic. but my nervous system is stuck, so stuck. like a lock without a key, and here I am dying every single day and my body doesn’t know it’s the one with the keys

I have these deep fears of reality because ive been cut off from it for so long. today everything has felt very intense yet unfamiliar. I went and sat at the park and my mind kept telling me I was in danger, I wasn’t really here etc. these are fears I’ve not had in a while, and they’re so convincing. I can’t describe it. It’s like I’m not even here, but also afraid that I am actually here.

idk how I’ve survived this long, I guess I just keep hoping one day it’ll go away. But I can’t even imagine that being possible, I’m afraid of everything, even exisitence. I remember the way my old life felt, and sometimes I’ll get fragments of memory coming up reminding me of my old life, then I realize how deep I am in this, and how utterly terrifying it will be come to come out. I feel quite literally trapped. I didn’t know a human could even experience what I’m going through. after 4 years, even focusing on other things and not thinking about it is impossible. The fear of this state and the dread of it, is keeping me trapped. I know that my response to it isn’t helping, but idk how to have a neutral response when my mind feels like it’s broken and that reality doesn’t even make sense anymore

I’ve seen the pattern that when life stresses become too much, you know normal things everyone else deals with - money, relationships, work, etc, my system goes into complete dorsal vagal. I can’t move, I can’t be out in the sunlight, I sleep all day, my body won’t move. when some of those stressors ease, such as money - I move into functional freeze. I don’t feel as bad, but I’m still dissociated and frozen. but I can function, and my thoughts are less hopeless. but I never go into sympathetic or ventral vagal. I’m basically stuck in these 2 modes for years… no amount of safety or regulation helps me get into a place of presence. I still live in my head all day long, nothing but fragments of thoughts and music in my head. my ability to comprehend or make new memories is 0.

what else can I try? I’m utterly exhausted. Doing nothing hasn’t helped, and 4 years of therapy hasnt changed this cycle either. I feel like my nervous system sees literally everything as a threat, my own existence, my thoughts, money, living. you can’t escape the stress of being alive, unless you dissociate, so my mind has got itself completely stuck in this state.

DPDR ruined my life. I’ve been diagnosed with DPDR disorder, and it’s been 4 years of this 24/7. there’s no panic, no anxiety, nothing. I’m stuck in an endless void of no emotions, nothing sensory stimulation from the world, no memories, no peace or joy. I remember loving summer, loving travel, loving looking forward to things such as dancing and being able to explore. all of those things are gone for me, and if I do them, there’s no point. I can’t make new memories or actually be present for anything. every day I mourn my old self and life, and asked what I did to deserve this. I was finally happy in my life, and now I’m just alone. no one understands the hell im living. the non stop dreams, the loss of self, time, holidays. I cry all the time but never feel any better. I’m not alive, I’m dead. there is no me.

my entire life is sleeping, dreaming, and being in physical pain yet emotionally numb. I’ve lost my sense of self completely, as well as access to all my memories and sensory input from the world. I’m losing my ability to cope, because I know coming out of this is going to be torture. I can’t go back to being agoraphobic and in fight or flight 24/7 again. I didn’t leave my house for a whole year because of it.

right now I’m in extremely bad neck & shoulder pain, and all I did today was sleep for 14+ hours. I can barely be outside in the sun, or anything. my mind just wants to be in the dark and shut off from the world. I’ve lived in pain and emotional disconnect for so long, I dont even remember what it’s like to feel. my dreams are these random, lucid sagas all night long about the DPDR, about my life and my past, but none of it feels like me. my therapist diagnosed me with DPDR disorder. I’m chronically disconnected from reality and myself, yet I still have to function to keep a roof over my head. I’m horrified of feeling again because I can’t go back to the state I was in. I’ll end up just completely unable to function.

the neck and shoulder pain are so awful and it’s been days of this. and 4 years of this total. I’m losing my ability to cope. nothing is getting better, it’s getting worse

I’m in dorsal vagal shutdown and DPDR, and have been for 4 years. the pain in my neck, traps and shoulders is very bad right now. usually always have soreness on the right side of my neck, but now it’s only both sides and it’s very severe. lifting my head up, or leaning back hurts very bad.

I haven’t done any major trauma processing but am in IFS/ somatic experiencing. we are just working on resourcing. I’m continuing to have horrible vivid weird dreams all night every night and am cut off from reality and myself during the day. I’m also experiencing profound dissociative amnesia where it feels like I have absolutely no past, no identity and no self. when I think about the past I only get tiny fragments of imagery and it feels like it was never me. it’s been years since I’ve felt anything. I haven’t even had a panic attack in about 3 years. don’t even feel anxious. I’m just completely shut down and in muscle pain. chronic fatigue as well. I sleep so much, and never feel rested.

would a muscle relaxer maybe help me? my friend felt / massaged my shoulders / neck and said there’s huge knots. I can feel them too

I know all of this is protecting me, but it’s also terrifying what is happening to my memory, perception and senses. I’ve lost all sensory processing, time is just passing so quickly now, but it’s almost like I’m out of time completely, I don’t experience time at all. my memory of myself is basically completely inaccessible now. before it felt just far away. I’m in physical pain all day from my neck down my back. I’m exhausted, out of body, and just completely fragmented into a million pieces is what it feels like. the distance between the parts of myself that create my sense if self continues to get wider and wider, which is what I am experiencing as getting worse, the dissociation is becoming stronger no matter what I try.

my dreams are becoming more strange, more like a bunch of random fragments that dont go together or make any sense together. I miss my old life so much, I miss being a person, having a life, doing things I enjoyed. I’m in pure survival, and the world around me doesn’t even feel like it’s there. my derealization is getting worse again, and so is the DP. there’s no bottom to this, it just keeps going, and that’s the most terrifying part. I’ve become stuck in a never ending loop, a void that just keeps getting darker. it doesn’t matter how much I tell myself this is not dangerous, it feels like I’ve completely lost myself. my identity, my senses. it’s close to being dead, while still being conscious of it. what do I do? im in IFS therapy, I’m taking meds, I’m resting and sleeping a ton. but I continue to get worse..

I’ve been doing IFS for less than a year now but I’m learning more and more about my system. and why I built dpdr to protect me. But my biggest fear is of coming out of this. That’s truly what I can’t get over. I havent felt anything in so long, the idea of feeling or the process of coming out of this state is terrifying. It’s the only reason I’ve been able to function, by shutting off the panic and emotions that overwhelmed me. I can’t seem to find anyone who can explain what healing even feels like, or if it was scary? It feels like it will be scary because I haven’t felt reality in literally years. For anyone who’s had healed, what did it feel like?

I think have dissociative amnesia and it keeps getting worse daily. it’s like my mind has completely erased everything about me. I’m not panicked, I don’t feel anxious, I feel completely like i have no soul, no person, no history. my dreams every night are completely shattered, surreal, dark, make no sense. I dream that I’m back at my childhod home, or lost in a mall, or that my mom is alive again. but every single dream something weird, bad or scary is happening. my entire life has become surviving these dreams and sleeping all day. I can’t feel a sense of anything anymore. it’s like ive died and all that’s left is a body. no spirit, no soul. how does the mind just completely block out your own life, idk what im even afraid of, or what im anxious about. this state itself has become the trauma.

I’m unable to live life like everyone else. I have no identity at all, no energy, no emotions and no connection to life. I can’t travel, date, even workout. it feels like slowly every memory has been deleted from my brain, every sensory experience, every ounce of energy and desire. it takes me all my energy just to get through half a day, let alone travel, date etc. there’s no “me” experiencing anything, just a robot. I have been this way for so long, I’ve given up all hope I’ll ever get out of this. my life is reduced to nothing, absolutely nothing, and there’s no point in living this way. my mind is afraid of life itself, of feeling, of being alive and present. all night long I have the weirdest, darkest, surreal dreams. I don’t get one millisecond of peace, or even quiet. my mind is just completely melted down, don’t even have an inner monologue or sense of self anymore. I can’t feel time or seasons. I have no past at all, and no future either. haven’t even had a panic attack or anxiety in years. I’m just rotting away waiting to die

ive had this for many years now and have given up all hope of ever recovering. but I’m getting worse as time goes on. complete loss of identity, of a sense of self, of seasons and time. just in a void of absolute nothingness. and a huge fear of going back to feeling & reality after being stuck this way for so long. I have horrible vivid dreams all night long and looping thoughts that never stop. I don’t feel panicked; fearful, I feel absolutely nothing. I feel like I’ve lost my entire memory and sense of who i am and what the world is, yet am scared of what feeling again will do to me. I’m in SE/IFS therapy with a great therapist and understand that my system is trying to protect a vulnerable part of me, I just don’t know how I’ll ever show that part that it’s safe to feel. I’m quite literally terrified of any sort of overwhelming feelings and I can’t tell you why. I had horrible panic attacks 4 years ago and never have been the same. I’m functional and have to stay functional to keep a roof over my head. I feel like no one sees what I’m suffering, they see me as just a normal person. Yet i feel everyday like I’m dragging through mud, unreality, a loss of all self, and expected to function just like everyone else.

my dreams are dark, weird and nonsensical, the same loop over and over. You’re telling me that all of this is caused by an incomplete threat response? That seems way too simple. I feel like I have brain damage from the loss of so much of my functioning

I have a complete loss of seasons. loss of time. I remember how beautiful fall used to feel, the colors, the cool crisp in the air, the sunlight, going for a walk and just feeling the feels. for summer, loving the sunshine and warm temps, the smells of BBQ, the sunsets.

all of that is gone now. just totally gone. I don’t experience life as a human being, I experience it as a dead corpse. no change daily that I can feel. I’m in a glass box of nothingness. even morning used to feel different than evenings. I hate living this way, the purpose of living is gone

there’s so many things I want to do, places I want to experience, people I want to meet, that my body has completely cut me off from. just a ghost, completely unable to feel or be present. spent nearly 5 years like this, it’s so beyond sad. My mind can’t solve this, I know that. I’ve tried through my body to show it’s safe, but my mind won’t accept it. I wish I could just reset my nervous system. i loved life and who i was before this state. It’s like I’m in prison.

my nervous system thinks its protecting me, but there’s no danger. my life is the best it’s ever been in every way, but my nervous system doesn’t see that. it just sees that I should be trapped in nothingness. If I woke up tomorrow completely normal, I’d be the happiest person in the world. But that’s not my fate. Normal doesn’t even exist anymore. I see my friends traveling and experiencing life, but I’m not even in the same dimension as them it feels like.

I haven’t had a panic attack in 3 years. I dont feel anxious at all. yet my dissociation is getting worse and worse. it feels like my brain continues to delete more and more memories, I feel completely identityless and can’t even remember my own history of my life. totally blank. I have music in my head 24/7 and random words. no inner voice at all. i absolutely dread going to sleep, because my mind tortures me all night with these insane dreams; sharp objects all in my body, being unable to get home, seeing people I havent in years. I’ve been having sleep paralysis a lot too where I’m awake but can’t move.

I don’t want to die. but I can’t do this anymore. it truly feels like I have nothing inside me at all. no emotion. no memory. no sensory experience at all. I can’t even explain how bad it is, it’s like I’m not even here. sleep is not rest, it’s like living in a movie I’ve never seen before, a virtual reality, they don’t even feel like dreams, they feel like I’m wearing a VR headset and experiencing another world. I can’t do it anymore, I’m this close to just giving up. too many years like this with no end in sight, and it continues to get worse no matter how much therapy I do. I’ve faded into absolutely nothing.

I feel like I’m completely losing my mind. I can’t process anything, I can’t even think. my mind is filled with junk all day long. my body feels like I have lead weights attached to it. I can’t remember anything about my life emotionally, just facts.

the biggest thing is the dreams, I cannot even put into words how real they are. my mind comes up with all of these random realities in my sleep. story after story, all night long. even a short nap. it feels like my mind is AI and it’s just generating all these random things, that aren’t even scary. they’re just completely real and alive, and when I’m awake - I’m dead. I feel like my brain and body are on ice. it’s getting noticeably worse every day. 4 years of this same thing, dreams all night long, dead during the day. but it’s deepening as time goes on.

I can barely function. I’m in therapy and it’s be my mind is completely stuck in survival / threat mode. my mind doesn’t go to sleep, it simulates a whole other life and timeline, while my body is asleep. im so tired I can barely function and going to sleep isn’t helpful because I go right back into the dreams. what am I supposed to do? I’ve tried every sleep medication, every anti depressant, every therapy. even accepting that this is my life hasn’t help. each day I lose more and more awareness of reality and myself, I lose more energy. I feel like Ive been dead for years now. I’m experiencing severe sleep paralysis, I’m dreaming that I have nails all over my body and the more I pull out, the more come. the dreams are like mot even anything I’ve ever experienced. my mind has created a whole other world in my sleep. I guess it’s my subconscious. it’s like being on alien planet ever single night.

im at a loss of what to do, i can’t keep going like this. my mind is creating its own trauma, keeping me stuck in dissociation like a never ending loop

I’m working with a therapist on parts work, and they specialize in dissociative disorders. I’ve been this way for so long, I can’t even remember normal. I’ve been cut off from my senses, my body and my emotions for nearing 4 years. I’ve hit this state of complete burnout. I feel no joy, no motivation, no purpose. I can remember things as facts, but with absolutely no emotion. my therapist said I had to cut off parts of myself to survive, and with the loss of my safe person, my mom 8 years ago, I no longer have anyone to feel safe with my feelings anymore. so my mind cut them all off.

all I do is work, eat, sleep. every single day. and before this i used to love life. loved so many things. even with the trauma. I pay bills and that’s my whole purpose now. I have no sensory experience of the world, and my nervous system is afraid to feel anything at all. I can’t even remember what having physical sensation feels like. idk how to keep going and living life when im essentially in a coma. no one sees what im going through on the inside; the people who just want my money, who just want to me to perform normally and function normally. they can’t even imagine what im experiencing. my mind doubts everything, all day long. doesn’t believe ill ever get out of this, that therapy is a waste etc. it’s so hard to even move, even to get out of bed. it’s getting harder as time goes on, the hopelessness is just who i am now.

it’s like my life before was in technicolor and now it’s a black and white film. devoid of anything, including a sense of self, memories, emotions and an inner monologue. my therapist said thats likely that the rest of my brain has shut down and my survival brain that controls breathing and eating is all that’s online. and I’m having to override it daily with will power, otherwise I’ll be homeless. this world isn’t built for someone in total nervous system shutdown. and it’s not living. what’s the point even?

even though it’s been 4 years, she said the reason I have the symptoms I do is because the panic attacks themselves and the dissociation itself traumatized me. the panic was hours long and felt like a near death experience. it’s so nice to feel like someone finally understands what’s going on with me. this is the first therapist that just knows, completely understands all my symptoms and doesn’t gaslight me. we’re doing parts work/IFS and this polarization I have between the numb self and the emotional parts I had to exile to survive is what is causing so much pain & suffering. the emotional parts are coming up in my dreams, because my conscious mind has pulled the plus on the connection to them.

she was explaining to me that panic is our body trying to release something violently but when we fear it, the mind stops the cycle. it’s like a baby throwing a tantrum to release the feelings. because I have a very analytical and strong thinking mind, it fights the feelings instead of letting them dissipate. there’s a ton of fear around my feelings and being overwhelmed , because at the time of my panic I was living in a new city with barely any friends and my mom had passed, no one to see me and witness me. to this day I don’t feel like anyone could save me if I were to have a major panic attack, I dont even feel safe around my best of friends. it’s the hardest thing to explain, to not feel safe in your own body. My mind made the only decision it could which was to cut off the connection to that fear, that trauma. Leaving me a complete robot, numb, unhuman being.

I told her that I feel like I’m getting worse and she said you’re not imagining it. The amount of energy you’re having to use just to make it through the day and survive is getting harder and harder to find. im having to perform daily to look normal to the world, and that mask I have to wear, it’s taking every drop of my energy.

I feel completely devoid of anything, memory, feelings, motivation. it’s like someone deleted my entire identity. yet I have to keep going so I don’t end up homeless. but I feel like I’m in this never ending cycle of nothingness. for 4 years I’ve lived like this, and it’s getting deeper.

after years of suffering i finally have a diagnosis of structural dissociation and cPTSD. but I don’t know even know if you can heal from this. it started with DPDR after panic attacks and years of trauma, then slowly turned into this. I am highly successful in my career, but numb, detached, selfless on the inside. my mind has completely split my normal self from my emotional self

I knew something more was wrong with me, after meeting with someone who specializes in cPTSD, I’ve been diagnosed with structural dissociation. it’s why I’m so functional and successful in my career. but my emotional needs and self are buried and compartmentalized. it’s why no meds or acceptance has cured me. my mind learned at a very young age that because of my trauma, the only way to escape it was to lock it away. it’s also why psychedelics are very dangerous in my state.

my mind has locked away all my emotions, including anxiety. after my mental collapse 4 years ago, my mind tried using DPDR to distance me from the pain, but it didn’t work. so it went to the next step, structural dissociation which I think lies between DPDR and DID on the dissociative spectrum. my mind couldn’t escape or solve the trauma so it just pretended it never happened. I can function, I can handle normal adult life. but I have no emotional experience of anything. I feel real, I just lack emotional connection at all. like the volume being way down.

dpdr is a highly anxiety driven state, it’s the brain dumping opioid chemicals to numb you from the fire inside. Most of the time it’s temporary once the nervous system realizes it’s safe. but my whole life was never safe. I went back through messages before my mom died last night and my chest literally started to hurt. I was reliving the trauma subconsciously. My mom loved me but she lived in her own never ending crisis, and she dumped it all on me. And my dad was an angry controlling abuser who ruined all our lives. I had a disabled sibling and he also died, but took the attention away from me growing up, on top of me being a gay child. When I look back at it all, it’s no wonder this happened to me. Too much feeling, for someone who never had support.

the numbness is protecting me, the issue is, there’s no more trauma. My system believes it’s still happening. Like a never ending spout of water. I don’t think I’ve felt safe my entire life. I don’t even know what safe is. My environment was nothing but complex trauma until my 20’s when i could finally escape, I finally was happy. But then at 29 the collective trauma had its final word and unleashed it all. My mind has never been the same. I’m now going to a therapist that practices IFS and understands structural dissociation. This won’t just go away, it’s not DPDR. It’s something much deeper, much more entrenched. And only slowly working through all ive suppressed to survive, will set me free.