I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder 5 or 6 years ago and have been to multiple therapists and tried multiple medications, the latest of which is actually working (and I am quite thankful for) but there’s something that still happens to me that no doctor or therapist can pin down, and it’s really scary and I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Even though my anxiety is mostly controlled, I do still have attacks, and they’re usually unpredictable and untriggered. When this happens, I can tell, because my perception of time goes out the window. Things move in a way they aren’t supposed to. People talking are louder. I can’t tell how far away things are. Sometimes I even hear screaming, or music. Or I smell things that aren’t there. Nobody ever talks to me, so it’s not schizophrenia. Nobody knows what it is.
And the other thing is that sometimes I have nightmares, night terrors really, and they will be so bad that when I jerk awake from them, I can’t move. My body is asleep, but my brain is awake. My body is still in the nightmare. I can’t even change the pace at which I’m breathing. I can’t talk. I’m just trapped.
What is this? It’s surely neurological. There’s some sort of problem nobody has found yet. I’m tired of my perception of reality getting destroyed at random points in the day.