Posted by garnet71 on May 7, 2009, at 18:58:30
In reply to Feeling crazy... whats wrong with me?, posted by yellowbird01 on May 6, 2009, at 22:37:05
Yellowbird,
I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. This sounds awful. Did you ever consider PTSD? I'm only asking because some of your descriptions of the way you feel and your story reminds of when I had PTSD years ago.
I don't remember what meds I was taking at the time, but I can tell you about a little incidient I had that sounds similar to your cake story; an incident of a very brief depersonalization....I was in the hardware store shopping for some new furnace vents. I remember all of the sudden, I just dropped/sort of threw, one of the vents on the floor. Then I just had to leave the store. It was odd-like all of the sudden it wasn't me; like I had lost it for like 2 seconds. A depersonalization; nothing in particular triggered it-it just happened out of nowhere.
I may be totally off here, but this along with various posts you have written in the past sounds very familar to me. Hyper arousal and depersonalization is very common with PTSD. PTSD has aspects that are different from depression or chronic anxiety, but it is type of axiety disorder. One doesn't have to be a victim of violence to have PTSD. It also can build up over time-it doesn't always just "appear" after some event in your life...It's an awful state to be in. Although most people here say symptoms are more important that a lable, I think PTSD is an important diagnosis to "get right" because of the variables and treatment involved. EMDR is one such favored treatment. Maybe it would be helpful if you took a look at PTSD and assess whether or not it could be a possibility?
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/288154-overview
"The traumatic events that lead to post-traumatic stress disorder are usually so overwhelming and frightening that they would upset anyone. When your sense of safety and trust are shattered, its normal to feel crazy, disconnected, or numband most people do.
After a traumatic experience, the mind and the body are in shock. But as you make sense of what happened and process your emotions, you come out of it. With post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), however, you remain in psychological shock. Your memory of what happened and your feelings about it are disconnected. In order to move on, its important to face and feel your memories and emotions.
The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can arise suddenly, gradually, or come and go over time. Sometimes symptoms appear seemingly out of the blue. At other times, they are triggered by something that reminds you of the original traumatic event, such as a noise, an image, certain words, or a smell.
Emotionally, PTSD sufferers may struggle more to achieve as good an outcome from mental-health treatment as that of people with other emotional problems.
Symptoms of PTSD that tend to be associated with C-PTSD include: problems regulating feelings, which can result in suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or passive aggressive behaviors; a tendency to forget the trauma or feel detached from one's life (dissociation) or body (depersonalization); persistent feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt or being completely different from others; feeling the perpetrator of trauma is all-powerful and preoccupation with either revenge against or allegiance with the perpetrator; and severe change in those things that give the sufferer meaning, like a loss of spiritual faith or an ongoing sense of helplessness, hopelessness, or despair.
PTSD displays biochemical changes in the brain and body that differ from other psychiatric disorders such as major depression. Individuals diagnosed with PTSD respond more strongly to a dexamethasone suppression test than individuals diagnosed with clinical depression.
In addition, most people with PTSD also show a low secretion of cortisol and high secretion of catecholamines in urine, with a norepinephrine/ cortisol ratio consequently higher than comparable non-diagnosed individuals. This is in contrast to the normative fight-or-flight response, in which both catecholamine and cortisol levels are elevated after exposure to a stressor.
Brain catecholamine levels are low, and corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) concentrations are high. Together, these findings suggest abnormality in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
Given the strong cortisol suppression to dexamethasone in PTSD, HPA axis abnormalities are likely predicated on strong negative feedback inhibition of cortisol, itself likely due to an increased sensitivity of glucocorticoid receptors. Some researchers have associated the response to stress in PTSD with long-term exposure to high levels of norepinephrine and low levels of cortisol, a pattern associated with improved learning in animals.
Translating this reaction to human conditions gives a pathophysiological explanation for PTSD by a maladaptive learning pathway to fear response through a hypersensitive, hyperreactive and hyperresponsive HPA axis.
Low cortisol levels may predispose individuals to PTSD."
Cut and pasted from various websites.
poster:garnet71
thread:894593
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090421/msgs/894686.html