Questioning my memories and reality

[samantha19]

Trigger Warning: questioning reality, paranoia, dissociation, glaslighting affects etc.


This isn't about trauma memories, this is about the day-to-day. It's really weird but sometimes it's like I question that things are real - is this experience real? I don't feel inside of myself or completely believing. It's not necessarily a negative experience but I feel pretty detached, like I am not me, I am out with that identity, that story.
I hear things, people talking, or experience things and wonder if I've made it up. Of course I haven't, but I doubt myself. It's really weird, sometimes I think it's an anxiety thing, like my brain is warning me "what if this didn't happen? Then how silly will you look" or something. I don't even know. Like I will question that a positive social interaction has occurred, just incase. How crazy to doubt ones own solid memories, but here I am.
It's weird. I guess it's like a cross between dissociation and depersonalisation. Likely also a result of gaslighting, as my M has really messed me up with that in the past. Maybe it's a learned behaviour - you doubt your memories / sanity and analyse their legitamacy long enough I guess it makes sense if this seeps into your day to day life.
I think I do it more the more I make friends and stuff - the dissociation and that. Stresses of a c ptsd life, eh?
I'm coping with it, it's just hard to find relation to this anywhere. I figured people who also have c ptsd might understand, yano?
If you have any input or shared experiences feel free to share. If not that's fine I am p much just getting this out.
Making me realise more thinking about this as well. I am so definitely a freeze type.  I used to fantasise and hope that high school was just a terrible nightmare that I would wake up from. I dissociated from reality a lot by watching tv and then becoming like a smart phone addict.
I retreated so much and now life, as I come out my shell, feels less like reality.
Also, this definitely relates, I think, to the time I had a really bad breakdown from reading and analysing conspiracy theories. It was like a downwards spiral of believing in crazier and more terrifying ideas. My beliefs were of a paramout level of terror and paranoia, the kind most people would not even be able to think up haha. I questioned the very foundations of reality, never mind just my own existence. It was terrifying. I got over it, but I feel it relates to dissociation now I guess, as I didn't know what to believe about what was real - my experience not only didn't count, but wasn't trusted.

Oh well. I'll deal with this like ive dealt with everything else so far. It's just so weird and freaky, when you feel this way. Like am I real? Is my life even real? etc, etc. It could be viewed as spiritual but it's more like detachment. For me spiritual would be to acknowledge a soul and a current identity, not just feel like some lost and confused soul that's like "what the heck?"
Totally rambling here but yeah...

[Three Roses]

I can totally relate. Sometimes feel like it's not really me in the mirror. A sense of detachment will come out of nowhere and suddenly I'm looking around going,  "Huh?"

We've been successfully brainwashed into not trusting our perceptions, and believing what other people told us was real, and how we were feeling.

[papillon]

Does this resonate with you? I'm not sure if this is what you're describing or not:

https://www.verywell.com/borderline-personality-disorder-identity-issues-425488
http://outofthefog.website/top-100-trait-blog/2015/11/4/identity-disturbance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_disturbance

What you said is all pretty familiar to me. I know I'm real (flesh and blood, walking and talking)... but sometimes I question whether or not there's a person, a soul, behind the mask. I feel like an empty husk. I don't know who I am.

When I felt stronger, I could change my personality as easily as changing clothes. Need to be "on" for work, no problem. Need to fit in with a certain crowd, no problem, your interests are my interests. Come home and be dissociated until the cycle starts again.

Which is the true "me"? Or is there a "me" at all? Strip it all away and I'm left with... what? I feel like the answer is nothing. I am no one.

But the thing is... it's all one big lie. That feeling is just a feeling. You are a person. We might have a lot of work we need to do, but we are definitely real. That feeling can/will fade. Hang in there.

I just went through about a day and a half of this. It's very disorienting. I've been depressed, so it's happening more frequently than what's normal for me. The only thing that made sense to me in that time period was that I wasn't real and that the common denominator in all the chaos and dysfunction around me was me. If I wasn't empty and broken the world would make more sense. Or rather, the world would make more sense without me, because I'm not really here anyway.

It's messed up thinking, for sure. I'm not saying that I went from that to now feeling 100% real and I'm all better... but the feeling is fading. I feel a hint of a sense of agency and interest in my work and friendships.

Something that has helped me is recalling the acronym HALT ( Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired). If I'm having what I know to be irrational thoughts (even though they feel true), it helps to ask myself if I need something. Meeting those basic needs helps to curb irrational thinking and put the brakes on destructive behaviors.