Sociopath Community

Had a more severe panic attack last night, I was suffering with it for hours, until it finally got to be 5am. 

And I decided to take a small dose of klonopin to get it to stop as normal meditation techniques and breathing exercises (and every other possible thing you can think of) wasn’t working.

It is a last resort option I only use for when it’s at it’s absolute worst, and no usual techniques will suffice but it instead is just worsening over time. 

On Sunday I forgot to take my medication at the normally scheduled time 8pm, so I took it Monday morning around 10am. And then Tuesday I took it at 12pm. I was planning to take it two hours later each time and eventually get back to my normal schedule of taking it nightly at 8pm. 

But then Wednesday rolled around, and by 4:30am I’m in a severe panic attack, and I realize- fucking with my medication schedule wasn’t a good idea. So I took the dose around 4:40, along with .125 of klonopin. And by 5:30am, I was out cold. These medications relax me and make me very sleepy, and panic attacks typically exhaust me. I also had been up all night at this point. So I just passed out and had an amazing sleep tbh. 

Slept like a rock. It was great. 

Sometimes doing what your supposed to allows you to do what you want - it's a game of optimization in many cases. 

It seems like everytime I have a severe panic attack (severe meaning, worse than the average), it seems like there are new symptoms each time. 

I’ve been cataloguing them for years now in various threads. My experiences with dissociation, anxiety and debilitating panic attacks. These are experiences which are difficult to describe and seem like they would be uncommon, but I’ve found the more you talk about them, the more you learn other people just like yourself have experienced one of your experiences, at least once in their life. Or something similar. 

And if you research about your topics on the internet, you’ll find a lot of people talking about similar experiences to yours. Which, is somewhat relieving. Because it makes you feel more, normal. 

Like ah ok, that wasn’t just me that, felt anchored to the floor or like my hands weren’t attached to my body, or like my head was morphing within the three dimensional space in abstract and unusual shapes like jello. Got it. 

Sometimes, it feels like, everything I’m looking at is just a prop and it’s made out of cardboard- as if I’m in a play, on a stage. Other times, reality just, doesn’t feel real at all. And not in the video game ‘we’re inside of a simulation’ sense, but in the actual sense that not a single fragment of anything in reality actually exists at all. As if it was all just a reflection in a mirror or, a passing beam of light that will inevitably burn out, and cease to exist. 

That is how intangible everything feels sometimes, it’s beyond “dream like” but, minus the euphoria and hazy dazed confusion and add on the penetrating and petrifying fear. Suddenly everything is, viewed in a fish eye lense. And you’re in the plot of a fast paced horror flic. Imagine the dimension you live in shredding to pieces like in the way reality deteriorated in the movie inception, imagine it, falling all around you and wobbling in places it shouldn’t. While your heart beats through your chest and you’re in a cold sweat- and you’re hyperventilating. 

Imagine what its like to have the sudden realization that you are not real. And your existence feels thinner than transparent loose leaf paper, floating in the wind. 

Imagine, losing touch with the people and things around you as they turn to silhouettes and the connection you once felt to your surroundings, going completely cold. No sun, no, temperature. Just empty space, and all emotion, becomes void. You long for what was once there, to feel attachement again, but its, stretching farther and farther away out of reach like, falling backwards down a tunnel. 

That’s how out of control it feels. You might feel like you’re slipping, sliding down a mud slide, into a dark hole, the dark hole being- suicide. You might even be, watching yourself operate, and you’re not able to control what your hands and feet are doing. You’re just watching it, once again, fish eye lense- hands that aren’t yours- mutilating yourself. You want to stop, this terrifying slipping feeling out of control, but you can’t. You’re in the dark and can’t find the light switch- to just, turn the lights back on, and make everything go back to normal. 

When it gets bad, it feels like, you will never be normal again. Sometimes this can last for, days. Laying in a fetal position and shaking, and rocking back and forth. Your chest feels like ice, all the time. 

Or other times, your neck fills with hot lava which concretes itself, and you suffocate. While your blood boils inside your body, and the pressure builds around your temples- beads of sweat drip down your red forehead and cheeks. And you simply can’t inhale, exhale, the oxygen isn’t working anymore. No matter how deeply you breath in, its like youre not getting enough air, and the overwhelming nausea gets the best of you, until eventually you just heave your guts out on the floor- or the nearest toilet if you’re lucky. 

People wonder, what the fuck is wrong with you. Assume you had some sort of medical emergency and take you to the hospital, only to be sent home with a prescription for anti-anxieties. 

I used to shove my forehead against a wall and close my eyes and try not to think of anything- not a single thing. It’s incredibly hard to keep your mind empty, when it’s swarming with incessant irrational thoughts, spiraling you into a crisis at an incomprehensible rate. But shoeing them away isn’t possible. The only thing that works is derailing your focus entirely. I kept telling myself, “it’s going to be okay” under my breath, must of whispered it to myself 600 times whilst, trying not to cry. But it doesn’t work, no matter how much you try to convince yourself to stop having a panic attack it doesn’t work like that. You can’t rationalize your way out of it. But you can, focus on your breathing and various techniques like that. Which I did learn a bit myself but then my ability to do it was strengthened over time in a psychiatric hospital. 

It was really endearing, when I first got there, I couldn’t handle my panic attacks very well. And, a girl who, had a similar struggle gave me a pen and told me to balance it on my finger, with my hand extended far out from my chest in a straight line. And to just walk around, balancing that pen- whilst taking deep breath in, deep breath out. Balance the pen. 

It did help. And, with time I learned more and more exercises like that I could do, little tricks and things that, I got good enough at doing that, I was able to sort of slowly live my life again. Little by little. 

Of course, they still occur. These attacks but, with far less frequency. And, there are certain triggers which I have learned to be careful about And have worked on in therapy to deal with Them individually. And also being prescribed medication has helped a lot, as sometimes it gets so severe I’m not able to make it stop no matter how badly I want to- and the dissociation, suicidality, and physiological panic is so severe that it’s not something that’s managable without it. After enough visits to the hospital just for one benzodiazepine so my legs will stop shaking and i can go the fuck to sleep, my doctor finally agreed, it might be good just to have on hand at home. 

More recently, the symptoms have sort of evolved. So, originally, when things got bad I guess at a defense mechanism my brain would just immediately start dissociating, so I didn’t have to feel the pain and discomfort of these panic attacks (it feels like being trapped inside of a tiny box you can’t escape). And so to avoid that feeling I would just immediately start dissociating right off the bat. 

And it’s like walking through that mirror in Alice through the looking glass. Everything just starts morphing and fading into the background, and you feel so fuzzy, you can’t even really see anything it’s just blurred lines and, you don’t hear what anyone’s saying, and then you Get heavy with this cumbersome weight and fatigue inside, that forces you to collapse. It’s absolutely unavoidable. Everything is so dizzying it’s like, sea sickness to try to fight it and keep your head up anyway. As if you’ve been on the tea cup ride going 100mph for an hour or two. So I collapse with my head between my knees like I’m on some kind of terrible roller coaster ride just waiting for it to be over, and trying not to throw up. And then I fall asleep like that. 

LOL 

But, when that doesn’t happen, sometimes other versions of dissociation occur so. More recently, I’ll get a light dizzy feeling but- then I feel like, my entire body is literally made of steel and I can’t move it properly. It is too stiff. And slowly hardening and getting stiffer by the second, like some sort of Medusa spell slowly overcoming me turning me to concrete. It’s really terrifying because you know once you are fully paralyzed, there may be nothing you can do about it- you won’t be able to call for help or, take your medication, etc. So when this started happening I stiffly walked like a toy soldier over to my phone and purse, grabbed the medication and took it and called someone to explain what was happening. 

Another time, more recently as well, I just felt like everything was scary for no, identifiable cause. Just the feeling of being frightened by everything around you, impending doom and danger everywhere- in everything you see, in eveyrthing you think, all coming at you from all sides. But- not even knowing what the danger exactly even is. Or what it is you’re afraid of. It’s just, FRIGHTENING. For no reason. Like someone turned on the fright emotion, in my head- and forgot to switch it off. 

These were both instances I needed medication to make it stop. In addition to the time my entire body was shaking as if I was one of those oven timers that had gone off and wouldn’t stop vibrating- these are examples of some of the few times I needed to take medication for a severe panic attack in 2019. 

Last night, was my first time needing medication intervention for a panic attack in 2020 (surprisingly). I thought everything going on would be really overwhelming to me, but it turns out

Had another anxiety attack yesterday it didn’t get to the point of panic imo. 

anyways. This is how I’ve been feeling

https://gothtober.tumblr.com/post/628684124347072512/this-is-how-i-feel-all-the-time 

Do your symptoms ever become increasingly expected, or does it always feel new? 

They are always unexpected but I’m familiar with them. 

Had a depressed couple of days, I think it was a couple I dunno. But yeah I just felt empty inside af and my mind was very messy. To the point nothing made sense anymore. And I stopped enjoying anything. Stopped eating. And uh, wanted to die. Felt like I was always standing in a liminal space of just overwhelming silence. And internally I felt completely void is the best way I can describe it. 

I slept pretty much constantly. But only 2 to 4 hours at a time, and it was very sporadic. I couldn’t actually just sleep through the night. 

The cause of it, I could take a few guesses but, not entirely sure. 

Now that I’m coming out of that numb dark shadow a little and feeling a little better I... um... I feeel like I just didn’t get enough sleep? 

but I finally slept like eight or so hours straight and woke up, and I feel like recharged or whatever from that so I really think it was just not being able to get proper sleep. 

(keep getting woken up by other things) 

it’s really crucial I get a consistent eight hours every night and at the same times but... I keep forgetting that for some reason and then... it gets to be late and I’m like I can stay up late! It’s fine! 

not to mention the anxiety attack I had earlier in the week def threw off my sleep schedule if it wasn’t already messed up this, really messed it up. Because after the panic attack I’m so exhausted I have to sleep for four hours. But it was mid day so, I wake up at 9pm. 

then I get in this soul sucking cycle of sleeping sporadic four hours here and there. Too tired to stay awake any longer, but unable to properly sleep the necessary eight at any given time- especially not the time you’re actually supposed to. 

So yeah. I got thrown off or whatever and my mental health suffered cuz of it per usual. 

I think if I continued to get my proper eight hours every night consistently I’d likely be fine- but without it, I start becoming suicidal. Lmfao 

it’s that important folks. 

I’m thinking about leaving everything. 

Blanc said: 

I’m thinking about leaving everything. 

"Everything"?