What do you do when you don't feel alive?

[tarmar]

Maybe it's a form of dissociation, but I don't feel alive. I can't feel my existence. It's as if I'm in a dream.
I have a bit of an eating dissorder because food is one of the things I use to stimulate my senses. Food, caffeine, alcohol, and incense, blast my music, blast the air conditioning... anything. I recently started EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), but I didn't get the treatment this passed session, because my therapist was worried since I haven't been feeling too good lately. A few days after my first session, I could "un-freeze" myself. But now I'm frozen again, with no feelings. Do you have any explanation of this or do you have any tips other than what I'm already doing? Thank you so much

 

[Jazzey]

Re: Anyone else here with Complex PTSD; what do you do when you don't feel alive?

yes, I go through periods like that too tamar. When I'm there, I really try and immerse myself with 'real life'. Meaning I go for walks, and I concentrate on everything around me - people, smells, sounds...every detail around me. I also try to stay away from the computer - for some reason, it can suck me deeper in that kind've dead space.

I don't have an explanation for it. Maybe someone else does. I often end up there without knowing why. And sometimes I come out also without knowing why..

good luck

 

[Raina]

Re: Anyone else here with Complex PTSD; what do you do when you don't feel alive?

I don't know if it is the same but I used to feel invisible for years....which is kind of strange because there is so much of me I'm very tall and big boned...

Writing helped me...I wrote out all my deepest darkest thoughts and I was reading a book that said it is safe to talk into a digital tape recorder too so when I felt a need to speak I would speak out my deepest darkest thoughts into my digital tape recorder...it was like a cleansing...the more I wrote and the more therapy and the more I talked...the more present I became.

Just yesterday I was on the train and I did not feel invisible...I felt very much like part of the scenery and I was okay with it. I guess I was ashamed because of my past and did not want anyone to know me...so I felt detached from everything and every one. I would walk in the mall and not connect with the merchandise...I felt like a ghost just whisking through. Even when I made purchases people commented that I did not look happy with my purchase...like I did not even know what I was doing. They commented that other women would coo and brag and smile and giggle when they made expensive purchases and I just stood there like a zombie not showing any emotion...

Still have a long way to go so I am continuing with the writing. I am quite old 42...so I have a lot of history that I need to get on paper....as I do it, it feels like I am lightening my invisibility cloak like they had in the movie harry potter....

Oh and I have been that way my whole life...since I was an infant but it was because of abuse...and ostracism....hope the treatment helps you and that you find other ways of helping you to feel alive....what I ended up telling myself was that people could see me and were observing me so I had to be alive...I had to be real...they were also trampling on me because I was not an alert and active participant in life...the truth is that I did not want to be alive....that only started changing with a decision that I was going to live in 2009...don't know if any of this rings true for you...just thought I would respond and let you know I can relate to you and there are things you can do but it is a process and it takes time and what I find too is that I have to recommit to being alive...it is easy to slip back into my old pattern and be silent in a group setting or just isolate so it is work...but I'm doing it and it is getting easier not harder and I am seeing results...now although I am still in a dark place...I know I am alive and am seeking out the sun...

 

[Prophet]

Hi tarmar! I have felt this way before. It is usually when dealing with a difficult feeling or emotion that I have, but the cannot put my finger on it. Has anything been bugging you that you might not have noticed, something deeper?
Prophet