Depression, dissociation, panic disorder...screwed

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Mon May 22, 2017 11:30 am

Hi

I'll try and make this cogent and keep this short, but really can't promise anything right now!

I'm a 27 year old female living in the UK. Objectively, my life is pretty much ruined. I've been living with a jumble of inter-connected mental health problems, probably largely due to trauma that even I am struggling to recognise as such. This is due to the fact that it doesn't fully fit with the popular notion of trauma/may have only been a trauma for me because I have suspected Aspergers (autism spectrum condition). We tend to feel things more and be more susceptible to mental health issues due to the stress and loneliness of having aspergers. Women with Aspergers go chronically undiagnosed and I'm pretty sure I am one of them.

Even MH professionals struggle to know how to understand or treat half of the conditions I'm dealing with. I've been unable to work for years and feel like I have been forced into being a hermit. My quality of life is zero. I have a couple of things I am very thankful for. But I cannot function at all and basically have no contact with other people, apart from one good friend I made recently who is keeping me going.

I have chronic depression and many symptoms of what is known as a dissociative disorder. i.e: the thousand yard stare. It's often associated with trauma, but can come on after long periods of stress, or with severe depression.. It massively affects my cognition: my memory and concentration is appaling. I feel like my intelligence is halved and have little idea of what is going on around me. I get these weird sensations in my body and my vision is blurry. I feel like a zombie, with no emotion, completely disconnected from reality. People actually stare at me on the street now. This condition is barely recognised and most people see to think I am a liar, even though this plus panic attacks make it pretty much impossible for me to leave the house or get near anyone. Also, the depression/anxiety/dissociation is so bad I can barely speak or do anything.

Everything is ruined. I have no future. I feel like I'm in a living nightmare. Because of the symptoms of dissociaton the therapists treat me like I am just stupid -- I sit there, barely even present, whilst they patronise me and try to create this narrative for why I'm in the situation I'm in which just doesn't really ring true. But I can't assert myself because of all this. I feel like my actual self has been completely eaten up by mental illness and no one even notices, or they just assign it to an apparent lack of character.

I managed to get onto an OU course recently which is one good thing in my life. I have managed to get by so far but everything has got so bad I feel like a monkey trying to write essays.

I don't want to come on here and talk about suicide, but I really don't think things can be fixed. The only way I can see things getting better is if someone who 'got' me could take me to a specialist MH unit. But I'm told to continue to cooperate with the services here, and as I said, I'm in such a bad way I can't really fight to get the right treatment.

I know all this is going to sound completely crazy... but well, I am and I need help.

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Mon May 22, 2017 4:35 pm

lizbeth wrote:Objectively, my life is pretty much ruined.

Objectively not. There is an overwhelming number of examples both current and historical of people facing much, much worse circumstances that went on to lead satisfying, amazing lives. Your past doesn't dictate your future.

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Mon May 22, 2017 6:29 pm

Right.

I appreciate your encouragement (and empowering words?), but I actually don't have many solutions right now. I guess my main reason for posting was in the hope that I could speak to someone who might have gone through a similar thing. I'm obviously in a really bad place.

Do you have any knowledge/experience of these mental health conditions? Because I feel like you're quickly belittling something which has largely dictated the course of my whole life.

What made you want to moderate this forum, by the way?

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Mon May 22, 2017 6:45 pm

Edit: I realised that you're not a moderator.

I had hoped that I would be able to talk about the real problems in my life that I don't know how to overcome, rather than essentially being told to go about my business.

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Mon May 22, 2017 6:57 pm

lizbeth wrote: I feel like you're quickly belittling something which has largely dictated the course of my whole life.

I'm not in any way belittling your situation. I simply pointed out that objectively your life is not ruined. I empathize with your situation and understand how people find themselves feeling helpless and frustrated.

Pre-agrarian conditions like being a "hermit" or "hoarder" were rather impossible. People didn't have a choice to stay in their homes as we lived in nomadic conditions. When agriculture took hold and people could be sedentary they still needed to get out and work and participate within the community, but as societies became larger this too transitioned. With the invention of coins and systems of taxation, being able to stay inside the home while receiving cash from a government or some other manner further allowed a person to never leave the home. Then the telephone and now the Internet. In modern society a person can be enabled to live a virtual existence a 24/7/365 hermit that never need interact with others, never see the sun, etc. All of this creates an environment that becomes a self-fulling cycle where a person never goes out so they become scared of going out which then makes them not want to go out, etc.

The above paragraph...are you responsible for any of the above? No. Absolutely not. The conditions for you to be in the situation you are in today have been handed to you. But, this doesn't make your life objectively screwed. The past and the conditions you are in today doesn't dictate your future.

You can take steps to help yourself, one of which is to disconnect from the Internet and start setting up conditions that will enable you to get out of your place and interact with the world around you. Certainly it may not be easy, and you can interpret my words however you like, but staying in the same conditions will not lead to different results.

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Mon May 22, 2017 7:14 pm

With respect, you have no idea what you are talking about here.

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Mon May 22, 2017 7:26 pm

I would do anything to be able to go outside without being in complete agony. I would do anything to be able to go out and live some kind of a life. The internet really isn't the effing problem.

I CANNOT FIND THE MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT THAT I DESPERATELY NEED. If it was the 19th century I would be shut away like Emily Dickinson until I died.

I go out as much as I can everyday, even though I am not even fit to be going out on my own and in such an altered state that I barely feel safe crossing the road. I cannot interact with people because of mental health problems and the constant pervasive discrimination that I face. All the time. I am gossiped about on the street. I tried voluntary work recently that I wasn't well enough to do and immediately faced bullying because I was too frightened to even flipping move. I have had these problems long before I had access to the internet. I am doing graduated exposure therapy (for the panic disorder) with a psychologist. I am trying to search for more help - despite being patronised and shot down by people who tell to do things I cannot currently do because of my condition.

I am immeasurably devastated that my life is the way it is. This is why I'm writing this post. Can you not see that?

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Mon May 22, 2017 7:26 pm

lizbeth wrote:With respect, you have no idea what you are talking about here.

That is fine, you are welcome to your opinion. But here is a question...

How has your opinion worked out for you thus far in life?

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Mon May 22, 2017 7:30 pm

lizbeth wrote: I am doing graduated exposure therapy (for the panic disorder) with a psychologist.

That is great. It sounds similar to CBT. In ed psych it is a version of scaffolding, where you take on tasks or goals that are progressively more of a challenge.

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Mon May 22, 2017 8:29 pm

Yes. It's based off BF Skinner's work on systematic desensitisation, with added, more touchy-feely holistic elements rather than just his behaviourist ideas.

I don't know exactly what you're referring to when you say "my opinion". I'm not denying that depression et al. involves negative thought patterns; obviously they do. All I know is that trying to pretend my problems didn't exist for years and years whilst in school and further education definitely didn't work and led me to long hospitalisations. And that people with psychological experiences that fall significantly outside what is considered normal are under an unbelievable strain in society. I also know that letting myself be beaten down by people who deliberately/unintentionally invalidate other people's real issues based on a stereotyped perception isn't an option. By making this post I was trying to make a tiny positive step.

I tried to cope for a long time with serious mental health problems from a young age. Being around people day-in-day-out never made it any easier, to say the least.

I'm not trying to make out that other people haven't been through endless horrific things I have no real concept of. Obviously they have. The point is, I'm stuck at home because of the specific nature of the problem.

Anyway, I'll keep trying and keep searching. Thanks

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Mon May 22, 2017 8:44 pm

lizbeth wrote:The point is, I'm stuck at home because of the specific nature of the problem.

Skinners work still drives a lot of therapy programs. An issue is that many of the programs do not look at the influence of the situation. Albert Bandura and Philip Zimbardo both discuss the tremendous impacts of social engineering.

The specific nature of your problem is expressly connected to your home, not absent of it. Your home is part of the problem, not you as the problem in isolation of your current surroundings. Your home enables your problem, hence modifying your environment and factors in your home can help.

Are you familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment? Zimbardos work that shows how quickly environment and societal influences shape behaviors and mental views.

Anyway, I'll keep trying and keep searching. Thanks

Best of luck. Look into Zimbardos work. The book the Lucifer Effect is not my favorite, but it is thorough in explains the relationship between environment and behavior.

**Posts:** 7 · by **lizbeth** » Tue May 30, 2017 9:08 am

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:
lizbeth wrote:The point is, I'm stuck at home because of the specific nature of the problem.

Skinners work still drives a lot of therapy programs. An issue is that many of the programs do not look at the influence of the situation. Albert Bandura and Philip Zimbardo both discuss the tremendous impacts of social engineering.

The specific nature of your problem is expressly connected to your home, not absent of it. Your home is part of the problem, not you as the problem in isolation of your current surroundings. Your home enables your problem, hence modifying your environment and factors in your home can help.

Are you familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment? Zimbardos work that shows how quickly environment and societal influences shape behaviors and mental views.

Anyway, I'll keep trying and keep searching. Thanks

Best of luck. Look into Zimbardos work. The book the Lucifer Effect is not my favorite, but it is thorough in explains the relationship between environment and behavior.

Hi

Thanks. Bit fuzzy-headed this morning but will try to reply briefly. Sorry for that drama.

Granted, it was naive of me to think that I was immediately going to get a response from someone who knows what panic disorder and dissociation is. And it follows that if people haven't heard of it, they'll treat it with suspicion, I guess. That's why I feel that the current steps we've made in shedding light on mental health and not brushing it under the carpet is only the beginning

Yes, of course it does, in a sense. But statistically a huge percentage of people with panic disorder go on to be housebound. It is an isolating and debiliating illness, because lack of knowledge and the seriousness of it means people feel they have to 'go into hiding'. And then you're also really cut off from people and left to, for want of a better word, go even more 'mental' in your own mind. I'm also extremely socially anxious and, although I don't think I totally lack social skills in reality (or the ability to learn them), I've linked face-to-face interaction with fear and failure for ages and completely shut down.

I spent a year in further education with the illness: I was non-functional, failing (because I couldn't even sit in class because I felt like I was dying and my whole body seized up) and it was hell.

Anyway: I've managed to get some transcription work from home since the last post, so you'll be pleased to know I'm now miserable, debilitated, yet employed.

Take care

**Posts:** 9885 · by **Candid** » Tue May 30, 2017 9:35 am

lizbeth wrote:I managed to get onto an OU course recently which is one good thing in my life. I have managed to get by so far but everything has got so bad I feel like a monkey trying to write essays.

I'm so glad you have "one good thing" in your life, and I think it would be helpful to focus mostly on that, because it is an expression of your intelligence... and that's got to feel a whole lot better than an expression of your despair.

Maybe some day you'll become an authority on the mental health problems you live with, and can act as an advocate for people with similar problems who feel as isolated as you do.

Depression, dissociation, panic disorder...screwed

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