#feeling detached

[furiousgoldfish]

Hi. Maybe this isn't the right place to say something like that but I'm going to say it anyway so you can skip if you don't want to answer.

I'm 22 years old (23 this year), and I'm really struggling with making friends. I'm really torn between wanting to be alone all the time and wanting a few friends. I've been bullied for 8+ years and abused at home. At university, I appear extremely cold, arrogant, and detached. My seniors are going to leave this year, and I can't make friends with juniors because friend groups have already been made.

I've been alone my whole life. I was 10 when I realized I'd be on my own forever. I'm okay with being by myself, but sometimes I wish I had someone to meet up with and share some memories with. I have one friend and he knows how emotionless I am and how much I hate being vulnerable so making friends is even harder.

Hey, it's okay to say it. I'm sorry you're struggling like this. I wish I could say something to comfort you, but I'm afraid I'm also completely lost in the field of making friends, and I can't give advice on that at all. I don't think it necessarily means you have to be alone forever, you're still extremely young, and we usually change as our life circumstances change. Still, I understand that this is pressing you down and right now feels very hopeless. I don't think you necessarily have to be super vulnerable in order to make friends, you can have friendships that aren't intimate and that don't require your every deepest secret or vulnerability (I wouldn't even try to have any other kind, at this point.)

If someone has a good advice or words of solace for anon, add it to this post please.

[lauras-happy-place]

Does anyone else have random weird bad kind of feelings throughout the day? I can never explain what I specifically feel I just hope someone gets what I’m talking about. They only last max 2 minutes. And it’s not physical either.

[mental-health-advice]

Hi, when I was 7 my father abandoned me and my family and ever since then I've noticed I'm always detached from my body like it's a virtual reality simulation and I'm not in control, sometimes i can't recognise my own face in the mirror and it really scares me sometimes I'll do things and I won't even know I'm doing them, it just feels like I'm watching my body from an outsiders perspective, I have talked to my mum about it but she says all I need is time, I'm really scared, please help. - Sam

Hi Sam,

I am sorry that you have been experiencing these feelings of being detached from yourself, that must be really scary for you. Hopefully I’l be able to give you some reassurance and advice about how to deal with this.

Please remember that we here at MHA are not professionals, so anything I say and suggest is based purely on my own experiences and research! Keeping that in mind, it sounds to me like you are experiencing a pretty severe dissociative state. Dissociation is made up of depersonalisation and derealisation. Depersonalisation means feeling like you are detached from yourself, and you are viewing your thoughts and feelings as if they belonged to someone is a movie; symptoms include: feeling unreal, out-of-body experiences, loss of feeling in body parts, and many more. Derealisation is characterised by thoughts that the world you are experiencing is not real and an inability to understand what is really going on. 

This can be related to other mental health conditions, such as PTSD or Bipolar disorder, or it can be a diagnosis itself. I really recommend going and talking to a professional like a GP or psychiatrist for a proper diagnosis and evaluation. A professional will be able to assess both your physical and mental health, begin treatment with you, and refer you for more specialist help if necessary. I realise that talking about this to someone may be really scary for you, especially after your mum suggested that you could just get over it, but honestly, getting some professional help is the best step forwards into recovery. Here is our page about getting help; hopefully this page will answer any questions or concerns you might have about seeking treatment. 

I’m also linking our page of grounding techniques here; these may be useful to you when you are going through a period of dissociation. An example of one of these techniques would be to:

Describe 5 things you can see

Describe 4 things you can hear

Describe 3 things you can feel

Describe 2 things you can smell

Describe 1 thing you can taste

I have found practical techniques like holding my hands under really cold running water to be particularly effective; it may take a few tries before you find a technique that works for you, but try not to give up, and keep persevering. These techniques can help you to stay connected to reality when you feel yourself getting particularly lost, and can even be useful to bring you back to reality once you have already entered a dissociated state.

I hope this has been of some use to you, lovely, and again, I’m really sorry that you are struggling with this. Please remember that we at MHA are always here for you and feel free to get in touch if you need us again. 

Please take care,

Rhiann xo

[mental-health-advice]

Sometimes I feel like my body is not my own and that I'm just wandering, my thoughts feel so scrambled and I feel like everything is crashing down and I don't want to feel like this anymore. I want to feel like I'm in control for once.

Hey friend,

What you'redescribing sounds like it could be dissociation, derealization,depersonalization, or possibly intrusive thoughts.

Dissociation is asense of confused wandering, like you're detached from yourself orviewing what's going on around you from another perspective.

Derealization isfeeling like the world around you isn't real and being detached fromeverything in an uncomfortable and confusing way.

Depersonalization isspecifically feeling detached from your thoughts and body, like youaren't your own person. Things feel different than they actually are.

Intrusive thoughtsare when thoughts come into your mind that seem like they came fromsomeone or somewhere else. They can be violent, and often make youfeel uncomfortable.

Any of these thingscan be the result of several different mental conditions. I can'ttell you what the cause of it is, because I am not a mental healthprofessional and I don't have experience doing things like that. Iwould strongly recommend seeking help from a mental healthprofessional like a therapist or a psychiatrist. You can check outour page on gettinghelp for more ideas on how to do that.

I'd also recommendlooking at our groundingtechniques. They should help with almost any of the issuesmentioned above. Basically what they do is they help you to feelconnected to the present and bring you out of a confused state ofmind.

I hope this canhelp

“What we achieveinwardly will change outer reality.”

~Mel

[righthandgroove]

[stopshot]

How do I be hip?

All my friends online know of or are playing all the coolest games, following the latest artists, listening to the latest musicians, meanwhile I feel like I’m living under a rock. I’m horribly out of touch with people, not current on anything, the only things I do for fun are old and now boring, and I feel terribly left out. What am I doing wrong and why am I so lame? My life feels colorless around others, and that’s only during the rare times I get to hang out at all. I don’t feel like I have any community I truly belong to and I really want a sense of community I can surround myself in more than anything.