Something really scary happened to me this morning and I'm not sure whether it was a nightmare or me dissociating which I haven't done in almost a year. Last night I felt like I had a really sore throat coming on and I had stomach cramps and felt really sick. I thought great, I'm coming down with something. I felt so bad I skipped my anti depressants/anti anxiety meds because I have to take them with a whole glass of water and couldn't bear the thought of putting all that into my stomach :eusa_sick I've skipped them before the odd night when I've been sick and never noticed any side effect or worsening of symptoms. I just tend to wake up earlier in the morning and feel like I've had a different kind of sleep rather than induced. It took a while longer for me to fall asleep without the meds last night and also because I was feeling ill (sick and freezing cold). This morning I woke really early and when I looked around my room, it was like I didn't recognise it. It was unnerving. Anyway, I fell asleep again and had really weird dreams, that I was going to visit my friend in some far away city but when I got there it wasn't for that and I had to see an old tutor about an essay. Then I woke up and really believed that had happened the day before but had no recollection of what actually happened because of course it wasn't true. I fell asleep again and dreamed I had to sleep on the street and was feeling really unwell mentally so I went to see my doctor and begged her to help me but she wouldn't so I ended up camping out in the waiting room, only it wasn't my real doctor or the actual surgery so everything felt unfamiliar and weird. I went back to my university trying to find somewhere that felt familiar and everyone I saw called me by my birth name and I thought this isn't right, it's like the last few years of me realising I was trans and coming out never happened so I tried to ring my counsellor because I thought she would know who I really am but she called me by my birth name too and said I had only just started therapy. It was like I had gone back in time, only it wasn't exactly as it was in the past but some alternate reality. I woke up and felt really weird. I couldn't relate to anything around me, like I was in some one else's room. It felt like I had had some kind of mental disconnection from who I was the day before and I started getting intrusive thoughts that I was reversing the process by which I realised I was trans and was disconnecting from who I am now and going back to being female but not who I used to be, someone else altogether. This has really frightened me because I had similar experiences when I was coming to terms with being trans. A few times I would wake up and not recognise my room or my belongings. I done know what the hell is going on. Should I see a doctor?
I wonder... In the past I had similar (or a bit more intense) nightmares, also a couple of times I've woken up not recognizing my surroundings, but this has happened to me in periods of time when I've been emotionally and psychologically overwhelmed, when I've been suffering of a really bad anxiety and had hormonal changes because of it. The thing is, I had these effects/nightmares both with and without anti-depressants and/or sleeping pills. I haven't had those nightmares (or possible feelings/effects of disassociation) in a while... it's true I left my medication a couple of years ago (by my own decision, not the doctor's, I just didn't want to depend on them anymore), but I connect these things more with anxiety/stress/hormones/depression than with the medication itself. However, I don't discard the possibility of the medicine making these effects more intense or more recurrent, yet I really don't know. If this is bothering you a lot, or if it happens again and it's just as intense or more, maybe it'd be better to visit a professional, just to find the source. It could be the medication, the hormones, your current mental health... or all of it at once. Take care.
Thanks. I've felt pretty normal the rest of the day (apart from feeling sick) so hopefully it was just a passing thing. I really hope so anyway because if not, it means I am going down hill. I don't think it's hormonal. Wouldn't it be more frequent and regular? This is something I haven't felt for about a year and nothing has changed medication wise but I do have some assessments coming up so maybe it's stress, though I can't say I've felt that worried about them. *sigh* I wish I could make sense of my emotions. I often am not affected by things and will tell people I'm not worrying and I'm not. I really believe I'm ok, but then stuff like this happens, so it must be affecting me on an unconscious level.
