u/FlanInternational100

I spend 3-4 nights completely wide awake with not even chance of falling asleep. Just wide awake, not feeeling the urge to sleep at all. Nothing.

There are no words to describe anything I went through for the past decade. This cannot be explained to people. I cannot explain it to myself.

I entered this bizzare neuropsychiatric state in 2016. I never "woke up".

When I talk about this state, I don't talk metaphoricaly, I don't use hyperbole. This is even far more bizzare and confusing then I can even try to explain.

When I say that every moment of past 10 years felt literally like dementic REM sleep, I actually mean it.

People don't understand. They say: "yeah...I also feel kinda weird sometimes, did you try connecting with someone or drinking more water? Sports?"

Or: "I understand, I am also kinda in aimless period of my life and I think about universe and all this existence a lot".

NO.

THIS IS SO RADICALLY DIFFERENT THAN ALL OF THAT.

This is so way beyond any existential crisis, any simple anxiety, any "weirdness" or being "a bit confused" in life. No.

When I say I feel like being in confusing half-aware REM sleep for 10 years, I mean it, fully.

I really can't comprehend anything that happened for the last decade. I don't remember or do partially but every moment of that time was spent in deep confusion, dementia-like state. A whole decade of...I don't know. I truly cannot describe just how bizzare this state is.

I cannot comprehend time. I cannot perceive it, everything feels like one big day to me, or one eternity, I am not sure. Sometimes I am 100% convinced it is actually still that same day in 2016. when it all started but I am not saying that as a joke or metaphorically like people usually do. I REALLY feel like that. But rationally I understand that A WHOLE DECADE passed and I cannot describe how deeply terrifying and confusing and bizzare this is.

My existence somehow suddenly turned into this uncomprehensible chaos that I did not even think is possible to feel and live like this. I don't know is this all just one big dream or psychosis that I am going to wake up from.

Every moment passed without me being able to integrate anything into memory, without understanding or being aware of where I am, what is happening...I just live completely robotically. Like a zombie in full sense of it.

And no, I cannot "just stop thinking about it" because it is so drastically more serious and impossible to ignore or "not feel it". Even if you spend years just trying to live, you don't. You can't. You cant ignore dementia, loss of cognitive functions, inability to understand what is even going on or who you are...

I tried everything. Nothing helped me. And there is no "worse and better period". There are no periods at all. I am in this 24/7 every minute for 10 years.

I cannot even recall what happened during this bizzare period. I cannot even recall how my family looks like even tho I am with them every day. It's like I don't even know what did they do during these 10 years. It breaks me to the core because rationally I understand that I am locked behing this bizzare glass and a whole decade of experiences, actualy memories and life just...passed in dementic state.

Imagine feeling like you were in coma for 10 years. Imagine looking at wall every minute, 24/7, for 10 years straight, while being constantly drunk and having dementia at the same time.

And mostly I completely lose awarenes of even this what I am writing. I completely live awareness-less. I turn into robot without consciousness and just exist but without any comprehension or awareness, no memory...

There are no words, no possibility to explain this to anyone. And even if I got out of it, whole this period of my existence would just be bizzare and unexplainable. I could not recover in 200 years.

I spend much time alone. But even when I am alone, my internal and external behaviour is "acting". For the sake of who? I don't know but I can't help myself.

And it is everything I do. Looking around, walking, my thoughts, the way I move head or limbs...

It is all acting. Trying to "be normal". It's like I am always mimicking "human". As if I am in some kind of dissociative state where I just look at things or move towards them only because "that would a normal human do".

And I actually radically try to strip off this masking but it is impossible, or to be more precise, I don't actually know what would I do or how would I behave if I were the "most true", deepest "me". I sort of try to simulate it but I don't come to any conclusion. I just freeze myself. Somehow I can reach that feeling but only for a moment amd I actually don't know what to do in that moment or if that actually continued. So I automatically quickly return to my mask automata.

It's like being that "unmasked me" requires infinite meditation or energy and it feels terrifying.

What are your experiences?

I understand that "universe owes me nothing" and "this is toxic mindset" but I have right to be angry.

I spend my youth actuvely trying to live healthy, never drank alcohol, almost never partied late, no drugs or cigarettes ever. Active athlete for years.

And then, all those people who spent youth in almost most unhealthy way now have super healthy bodies which are not even damaged because they managed to regenerate and now they are striving in every possible way.

I basically helped some people to even finish highschool and get into college - all for free. And all I got was severe illnesses, tumors, chronic conditions, constant pain, nausea...

And the worst part is those people now spreading negative gossips about me and mocking me for years, although they know nothing about my conditions and life.

And they finished colleges, started working out just a bit and their bodies instantly give them all positive feedback. For them it is enough to just start drinking water and their bodies get super healthy. I should be happy but I am not sure I am. I am not angry at their health. I am just angry at my imaginary need for some kind of justice that does not exist.

It's like god just loves some people and hates others, metaphorically speaking.

All my life I feel like I don't actually live.

I always felt like I am waiting for that moment when I will finally be free from chaos in my mind to be able to actually live for the first time. It's like I never even lived. I don't know how it is to experience reality with clear, stable mind.

90% of my brain power is spent on these decades-long obsessions, compulsions, disgusting things in my mind that is forced upon me over and over, every second of my life, non-stop.

I feel like I am so frozen in development, so late in everything that I could ever do or achieve in life, everything I could feel and experience.

I am in my late 20s but I feel as if I never actually started living. Never truly looked and talked to my family, never hugged them, never thought about basically anything with normal, healthy mind.

Life goes on, I am standing still, in deeper and deeper mud nd darkness.

I am interested if anyone had burned out, almost nonexistent mass in testicle itself but cancer spread to lymph nodes around kidneys, causing pressure to blood vessels and pain?

I desperately want to just express and explain how horrible existence is with severe DPDR for almost a decade.

This illness is seriously a real psychological horror in every sense.

It is impossibble to explain how bizzare, weird, scary and terrifying my life became 10 years ago.

I entered into a state where time does not exist. I cannot perceive or experience anything. I am completely lost in deep labyrinths of subconsciousness.

I don't even understand what is happening at any moment. I don't know what happened for the last 10 years. It is almoat the same as being in REM sleep constantly for 10 YEARS. Not a single moment of "normality". Radical confusion, my memory is non-existent. Every day I wake up in severe confusion and unawareness, just ssomehow exist for whole day, then I go to bed and don't even sleep because of my thalamic damage due to paraneoplastic encephalitis I had.

I forget that I have a family. I cannot recognize or remember anything. I forget that I even live. But the most horrifying thing is that this actually ISN'T DREAM. It is real life. I cannot believe it. I honestly cannot.

Years pass like seconds but not in a sense how ordinary people "joke". I am as serious as possible. Often I think actually only one day passed between that day when I entered into DPDR and now. Or even just an hour. But it didn't. All these things that I experience in a day just feel extremely bizzare, dreamlike, uncomprehensible...

I don't know am I dreaming every single moment or not.

I am often completely sure this is a dream.

Psychological hell, torture...

Unbearable life. I think people, even here, often don't even understand how serious, severe and long this can be.

Nothing helps. I tried various approaches, medication, therapies, supplements, food, activities, exercise, work, hobbies, socialization, meditations and relaxing. Nothing.

Because it is not just "anxiety" or feeling a bit odd and confused or thinking about universe too much.

Nothing like that. It is so deeper and stronger than that.

You are severely alone in this condition because people actually really cannot comprehend what you experience and how is this even possible. They are in a completely different reality.

You feel so alienated, confused...

At the same time I don't feel anything and I feel severe existential panic. This condition actually is how people with serious neuropsychiatric illnesses feel. And people can't even imagine it.

Just how bizzare it is that my life ended up like this. Decade...completely fallen out of reality, asleep, psychotic... I never thought anything like this is even possible.

I personally have serious problems with the concept of physical beauty.

For example, I cannot escape feeling attracted towards, let's say, a woman that I think is beautiful.

And even if beauty seems "pure" at first sight, if you dig deeper, you will find that whole concept of physical beauty that we feel towards a person is because of sexuality, fundamentally.

Everything that we find beautiful - arms, eyes, face, lips, legs, muscles, shoulders, breasts, etc... - all is evoking feeling of beauty because it is attractive for reproduction, even if we don't want to have intercourse with that person. The fundamental reason is sexuality and genetical advantage.

Ans that applies even for non-usual concepts of beauty becaue it doesnt matter. Concept fundamentally arises out of sexuality.

When we dress nicely, we may tell ourselves it is because we want to "feel good" for ourselves but even the reason we feel good is because we judge beauty through lens of some kind of attractiveness. Nobody dresses up to look as bad as possible.

And that attractiveness is sexuality.

I feel disgust towards myself when I both find someone beautiful in physical sense and when I try to "look good".

What do you think about this?

I don't understand people's obsession about calling evolutionary things "good". If you simply think about it just once, honestly, you will see the absurd of it.

People will say they are atheist, but as soon as you say sex is not good, they turn into religious fundamentalist-level of believer.

"But humans are sexual beings!" - literally, what makes you think this claim is correct? Says who? Universe is chaotic. Just because something was consequence of evolution does not make it good or "fundamental" in any sense. There was no "meant to be" universal script for humans where it says "humans are sexual beings". We are not "created for it". It is how natural selection played out.

This behaviour of pretending as if sex is somehow "meant to be" or "fundamental" makes no sense to me.

Meant to be by who? Fundamental by what rules? There is no epistemologic confidence to claim such things if you are an atheist.

Nothing is carved into stone. Humans evolve constantly. Humans change constantly.

I don't know what to put as a label. I would categorise this post as "internal struggles".

NOTE: Without hate towards neurotypical people, everything I write here was not intended to hate. Only to discuss. Not all NT are like this. Not all who are ND are as described in text. But I simply try to communicate my thoughts as simple and honest as possible.

(Most!) Neurotypicals live in this "collective" state of consciousness. They move through reality like a wave. They are completely "social". Their "mask" IS their reality. Even their internal sense of self IS that mask even tho they percieve it as "real self" because they lived like that their whole lives. They are almost without self-conscience in that sense. In mythological sense, they are "humans before the fall". (You don't have to be religious to understand this type of myth).

They just move. Nothing seems to affect them radically. They are easier to sadden but also easier to make happy. They find full meaning in collective, in "social organism". Constantly driven towards comformism or minimal non-comformism, but again in order to appeal to another group.

And yet...

I see so many "flaws" and problems with rhat kind of existence. Mostly for others who fall outside of that "illusion kingdom".

They are like robots, but happy robots.

No radical obsession about problems of reality. It's as if "god" loves them and babyfeeds them with reality. And I'm not saying that in some edgy way.

They respect biology, and biology respects them. They seem to live to unified with their animalistic side and they somehow handle all of those aspects of their being very well. They integrate it well.

But for me, that kind of life is full of, if not completely delusional and based on so much irrational, ignorant, awareness dosing, reducing. But the thing is they don't see it. For them - it is the wholeness of reality. For them, life is often completely good, acceptable, balanced. They tend to be so deeply immersed into "social kingdom" that they become alienated from deep tragedy of the world. And when confronted with it, they tend to either lose their minds or again, dose it and involve themselves into delusions. And their mind, again, fixes everything for them. It gives them the feeling of fullness without fullness.

And I am jealous of them but also I genuinely dislike that kind of life because it falls short for so many problems in world. It is closed world, mostly. Or at least it is "dosed", when reality doesn't care about dosing anything. So, someone will always genuinely be victim of neurotypical society, but without anyone seeing it. And it is really tragic.

I need infinite amount of mental preparation and peace/freedom to prepare for something (and I never do).

For example, even if I have something scheduled weeks or months in advance, that period until that moment does not feel "free". I am in that waiting mode but usually people have it during 1 day. I have it for much longer. Actually, the mere fact that something is simply set up in future is making me extremely anxious and agitating, unable to calm.

Somehow, I constantly need this "infinite freedom" towards future. Even slight thing can ruin me completely.

I also have severe OCD so I understand it is comorbid and goes hand in hand aswell. And I also understand perfectly well that it will not be perfect but no matter how much I try to accept it and work on that/expose, it never gets better.

I cannot describe how severely lost in time and space I am, every second of my life for the last 8 years.

It is, with full honesty, a psychological horror material.

Past 8 years are like one big...day...hour. I simply don't know.

I am not simply "a bit zomed out", "having brain fog" or "confused with existence". No. I am seriously in onstant state if something like REM sleep or stupor. I mean it as honest as I can.

I can't "come to myself", I cannot get out of this asleep enough to actually become aware of this enough to even do something.

I am completely trapped in this horror-like drugged state.

One second I am in some weird state, another second I already forget that and move to next bizzare mental state. All while forgetting that I live, not perceiving time, forgetting literally everything. Or at least not being aware of it. It is EXACTLY like REM sleep.

And I cannot believe it has been 8 YEARS. Thisbis seriously some bizzare dream that I simply have to wake up from, this can't be true. It can't. I don't know what is happening or where I am, how is this possible or what to do...

I cannot imagine this actually being real. I cannot imagine myself regaining my consciousness. This is exactly as bizzare as in dreams.

I'm in mid 20s. Before CFS and my other health problems, I was an athlete, training 3-4x per week.

My body looked "young". It had that fairly healthy youngish look. Now, after almost 4 years of onset, my body looks like that of an old person. My muscles atrophied, I got random bumps on my tendons, bones... all over my body. My body became asymetrical. One side of face randomly dropped, I feel like my bones and muscles randomly degenerate and rot.

From inside, I just feel that constant "rotting". As if my organs are failing and turning into rotten meat. Everything aches 24/7, I feel "sour" from the inside, constantly. My body feels like a piece of frozen meat that you left outside of fridge for too long.

My hair falls wildly and not in that bald pattern but systemically, everywhere.

I look 50 years older and I am not even joking. My skin is so loose, swollen, ill-looking.

I understand this is confusing but please let me explain.

The obsessive and forced thoughts are well known to everyone here with OCD. And most of people are encouraged to ignore them, "be above them" and observe them. And I completely umderstand what that means.

But often, my mind is in full control even over that "step above".

It somehow creates conclusions for me but I cannot differentiate between conclusion that OCD made for me and the one "I" did. They are the same experiential mechanism in my mind and that is the most frustrating.

Let me just give you a random example, not related to me : a thought appears in my mind: "I am so angry at this person, I want to seriously harm them". And mostly I am perfectly capable of observing my forced thoughts and I know I do NOT want to harm them. BUT, randomly, in literally miliseconds, I somehow internally completely agree with it and I instantly feel immense guilt, distress, sadness...basically like I literally agreed with it but I didn't. It just somehow happens inside me, I dont even know how. Somehow all those pathways get activated to create exact same willfull experience to me who observes it, just that it's not actually willfull but by ill process and ill brain fumctioning.This is so hard to describe because brain is complex and there is this unclear line between internal pathways that OCD affects. It genuinely deeply disturbs me because I cannot know if I am even in control of anything. My brain can literally do whatever he does in that chaotic ill state. It's like I cannot go against neurons inside but yet I dom't actually want any of that. That is too distrubing to me. I ended up in psych ward on multiple occasions in my life, as a young person. I never did any crime or harmed anyome but I am severely disturbed and afraid of my brain.

I get insanely frustrated because it literally feels like I personally agreed with that thought fully, emotionally, rationally. OCD makes me insane. It completely warps my whole mind to the point of not knowing what I even think or which decisions am "I" and which are OCD because it uses the same neural pathways, so it is impossible to differentiate. Even if you say "you know it by the fact you feel guilty that you didn't agreed wilfully" but it actually isn't enough for me because it still feels like I did it willfully.

I am deeply ill.

Love in its true (and only) meaning necessarily excludes sex and everything related to it.

You cannot love someone and have sex with them, no matter if you're man or woman or else.

Love and sexuality are mutually exclusive.

People just aren't aware of that. Even in marriage or relationships, people mix love with other concepts, mostly lust. They either aren't aware that they do not love the person because they lived with idea (that love and sexuality go together) their whole life. Or, they compromise, selectivelly mix romantic love, lust, friendship - turning certain aspects on or off sometimes.

I am saying this as a man but I am sure many men and women will instantly label this as projection and say "if YOU cannot love and have sex, that does not mean others can't". I actually completely understand them because I was once like them. They are severely deluded, unaware and with too little self-awareness and without ability to self-analyse to realize it.

In past, many people recognized it, even in marriage. They never claimed marriage or romantic relationships are love. No. They understood that they are mutual agreement between man and woman, in order to have children. Nothing more. They understood the nature of it but also, they simply made a pact (assuming it was voluntarily from both sides) that necessarily, involves sexuality in order to procreate. They had to make that compromise.

Sex MUST come from lust. There is no other cause of sexual attraction. Otherwise you would feel it towards everyone or everything you love.

A man's penis can only become erect due to lust, not love.

Men who say they love the woman they have sex with are either lying to others or themselves.

Women who say they love the man they have sex with lie to themselves or others aswell.

Base of all sexual relationships is lust. I would go even further and put even all romantic relationships in that same category but I understand that's too much for most people (although it is true in my opinion).

Anybody else feel like their whole life just stopped at that moment when they started to develop severe OCD?

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At this moment, OCD is my whole life. I never felt mentally "normal" or good at all. While other people lived their lives and could face life with healthy psyche, I was always tortured by internal world. I could never even get out of my mind towards external life. I could never even start to live. I feel like I am 7 my whole life because that's when I started to have severe, nonstop OCD that lasts for 2 decades. Few times in those 20 years, I might experienced how ut is to be mentally healthy and how normal people feel and it was unbelievable. Suddenly, everything felt like it should. I didn't feel any of those internal hells, I felt appropriate emotions, had normal thoughts, was able to somehow get out if my head and focus towards actual life. But it lasted 10 minutes and as much as I tried to keep that feeling, it just quickly faded.

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People my age are like gods to me. They lived completely different lives. They lived life so much. They lived their whole life in that "normal" mode. I cannot even imagine how it would be. To wake up in morning and just not have severe OCD. To go through all life happenings with healthy brain. To make memories, feel like a normal person, be able to do things as normal person...

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I will never know how it is. My life is ruined already, completely. My physical health is destroyed, I am basically awaiting for death now. Destroyed education, family, never had any normal experience in life or even if I did, it all got destroyed by OCD.

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I am sorry about ranting.

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I've been severely ill for 8 years now but it got much worse 3 years ago when I got severe neurological illness on top of everything.

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I often have cognitive and psychiatric problems, I get lost in space or time, I sometimes struggle to percieve where I am, who I am, I struggle to remember things and on top of all that, my body is extremely weak and in pain.

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During these 3 years, for the first time I experienced how it is to be completely fragile and dependend on nothing but mercy and will of others to help me to try to understand me.

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That fear and terror of realizing you actually cannot work, you cannot take care of yourself, you cannot think through basic tasks or get basic things done...

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It is just extremely horrifying.

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I am afraid I will die or get lost like people with dementia and be unable to understand who I am or to explain what I need. I am afraid I will become unable to speak, to show anything with my body.

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I am afraid people will leave me or put me in some facility.

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When you gradually lose your mind and body functions, your subconsciousness creates severe panic attacks as attempts to urge you to do something RIGHT NOW but you CAN'T.

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I often have parasomnic terrors about being left in war or apocalipse without being able to defend or eat by myself. I have daily panic attacks to the point of vomiting.

This condition severely disturbed my life and me as a human.

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8 years ago, I entered into this bizzare psychotic state from which I cannot get out or heal, no matter what I do or try.

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Time is completely warped. I have no sense of time whatsoever. Often I think it is the same day as that 8 years ago. I forget who I am, I forget that I have a family or that I am supposed to live or do something.

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I am almost bedridden, severely isolated after multiple attempts to do something over the years.

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But somehow, I cannot fantom the severity of the condition I'm in. I am so deeply "asleep" that I cannot become aware how dead I am.

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Very rarely I remember that my life is actually deep catastrophe and that I should do something about DPDR very urgently but I just cannot.

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It's like a dream veil or multiple layers of glass in between me and reality. And it is so disturbing if I somehow manage to get a glimpse of that awareness.

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You know how, for example, if someone gets cancer, they urgently go on tests, operations, organize life, etc. - this condition is for me even more destructive than cancer and yet I just cannot do anything.

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I cannot be "awake enough" to actually realize how bad I am.

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It's almost exactly like being in coma or half-aware state. You can understand that you are deeply ill but somehow you just observe it for years...decades. Terrifying and bizzare...