Experience Tumblr like never before
i went out to the cinema with my mum and my friend yesterday and i was pretty fine i didnt rlly struggle with it like i thought i would when a few hours before leaving i felt physically ill and extremely exhausted just because i knew it was coming. and now i feel like im spiraling im dissociated and i feel like im faking everything because how can i be mentally ill when i left the house for the first time in weeks and was fine? does it mean im faking?
Hello anon! No, that definitely doesn’t mean you’re faking.
I can think of a couple different things that might explain it.
It sounds like your anxiety before the event was worse than it was during it.
Sometimes, the wait before a distressing thing can be much harder than actually going through it. That’s common, and it’s an okay way to feel. (In fact, for me personally, that’s the main way my anxiety presents itself.)
Maybe you felt comfortable, because your mom and your friend were there.
Maybe you were enjoying the cinema so much, you didn’t feel distressed.
Maybe after all the anxiety beforehand, you were just too exhausted to freak out anymore.
Or maybe you were slightly dissociated – just enough to take the edge off and allow you to function semi-normally.
The thing about our brains & minds is that they don’t really follow any rules. They just do whatever works best in the moment.
And what works best can vary a lot from day to day. Sometimes it’s easier (or harder) to cope, due to other factors. So your symptoms or issues can fluctuate, too.
That doesn’t mean “nothing’s wrong with you” – it doesn’t mean your mental illness is imaginary, or that it’s disappeared. And it doesn’t mean you’re faking.
It just means that on this day, for some reason that may or may not be obvious, you were able to handle that outing more easily than you expected.
That’s not a guarantee that you’ll always be able to do it so easily, and other people shouldn’t assume it is.
The best we can do is look at our patterns over time, try to understand what conditions are best for us – what we need in order to function best & be happy – and work on feeling okay giving that to ourselves.
Earlier in my life, I’d dissociate under stress.
But in some situations, it was more protective to fawn and comply. So while I was there, I’d act super friendly, engaged and responsive, for hours at a time.
And as soon as I got out of the situation, I’d shut down and dissociate completely. I couldn’t move, talk, or think. Once my stress level was low enough to tolerate, I’d “come down” from the dissociation.
At first, I resisted the shutdown because it was terrifying and silent and awful. But when I stopped fighting it, I found myself recovering more quickly, because I wasn’t adding to the stress. So I started thinking of it as “resting” and “re-stabilizing.”
A similar thing still happens when I get overstimulated by light, noise, or other people’s emotions: I naturally withdraw into myself until I can regroup.
It’s possible you also experienced that during/after the cinema.
You might have been overwhelmed by sensory stuff from being in public, other people’s feelings and reactions, or your own feelings. Or maybe you were just totally exhausted.
The important thing to know is that dissociation is a self-protective act. It’s not always the BEST coping mechanism you could use, but it is one, and it works. It shields you from overwhelming feelings until you have the resources to deal with them.
If you’re dissociating, it’s probably because you’re having a hard time right now.
That’s the bottom line. So when you’re ready to take care of your feelings, anything you can do to help yourself feel calmer, comforted, soothed, and grounded, isgoing to help.
It may not feel comfortable at first – after all, when you’re dissociated, it’s because you’re afraid to feel – but if you’re ready to come back to yourself, then go ahead, even though it feels awkward and hard. You’ll be okay.
When you find yourself dissociated, try and be gentle with yourself. Don’t judge or hate on yourself for it. Just be a little nicer than usual. Take care of yourself and your poor stressed-out brain.
You can take a nap, do a nice sensory thing like a scented bath or shower, cuddle with a pet, listen to music that you love, give yourself a hand or foot massage, write in a journal, do a guided meditation, or anything that you find restorative and calming.
Basically, anything that reminds you “hey, sometimes being in the moment actually feels okay.”
Right now, it’s probably really hard, but that doesn’t mean it will be this way forever. Over time, you’ll be able to handle it more easily and comfortably.
Thanks for writing to me, and I hope you feel much better soon! <3