Help Advice for wanting to crawl out of your skin?

[ferret-in-a-sock]

So, okay, no idea what the feeling is but I get it like a few times a month. Suddenly, everything is too much and I can't handle my physical body.

I just get a strong feeling of wanting to like be out of my body or mind, and whenever I feel it, I always get desperate and either SH, OD on sleeping pills or just do impulsively reckless things. I feel like I need to peel my skin off and rip out my organs. Lately, I escalate to throwing up, because I just need whatever is in me gone. it's not like I believe there's a literal parasite I can pull out, it's more like I feel trapped in my own body and the thought is "i need out."

If anyone else has experience with the same feeling, what is it and how do I get rid of the feeling?

 

[just_so_done]

I've had that happen a few times. Sometimes related to meds other times because the emotional turmoil inside is too much to contain that you just want to rip off your skin and make it stop. Are you on any medications and if so start with that as a potential cause. I don't really have much more advice since i tend to SH when that happens or take benzos to sedate myself. Maybe running or trying to tire yourself out? Just know that you're not alone in that feeling and i hope you find something to help ease it.

 

[ferret-in-a-sock]

I've had that happen a few times. Sometimes related to meds other times because the emotional turmoil inside is too much to contain that you just want to rip off your skin and make it stop. Are you on any medications and if so start with that as a potential cause. I don't really have much more advice since i tend to SH when that happens or take benzos to sedate myself. Maybe running or trying to tire yourself out? Just know that you're not alone in that feeling and i hope you find something to help ease it.

Dunno, I'm on Zoloft and a hormone med. The feeling existed long before I've been on Zoloft, but I can't say if it did before the hormone med. I think so, but how it manifested changed but that might be due to age. It has to be a repressed emotion, that i can't handle, but I have no idea what it is. Just know coping is non existent for it whenever it happens like right now. Sometimes it feels like amnesia whenever I return to normal/baseline. Like whenever my therapist would ask what I felt/what I was thinking I wouldn't know and I'd become distressed and angry being asked. I remember events of course during the feeling, but I'm disconnected from them. I don't lose time, but I also don't have coherent like..."well, I did A, because I felt B." I've had impulsive actions, but most are like simple things that don't really set off a red flag like small in the moment impulses like buying a food I won't eat, or buying a puzzle, or being convinced I'll do a new skill--things that aren't "wild" but also are outside my norm.

My therapist insisted on mindfulness and meditation before, but I don't get meditation and my mind doesn't feel ever...normal when I try to sort out feelings by like journaling or what have you

 

[just_so_done]

That must be so frustrating to deal with, i'm sorry. It's like theres a disconnect between your brain and emotions as a protective factor. just brainstorming, have you ever been diagnosed for bipolar? Or the buying of things could be another way to cope or as a distraction, And i fucking hate mindfulness and meditation, my mind just ruminates non stop and never feels helpful or calming.

 

[Livingvsdying25]

I can only explain what i understand for myself when that happens but a few different things come to mind:

Trauma/emotional flashbacks and your body being overloaded/overwelmed? Goin into fight mode I think?

-Could be a manifestation of anxiety

-could be an adrenaline surge (which happens in POTS/my understanding of it is within POTS but could be related to many other things and could also be related to a histamine surge)

For me I get that feeling when im experiencing a lot of stress or adrenaline surges. What helps is buspar(a medication), CBD and just distracting.

Bc Ive spent a lot of time within the freeze trauma response and dissociation I find mindfulness and meditation especially triggering regarding this sooo.

Yee I'm a bit tired so hope this makes sense. Sorry your experiencing this its truly an awful feeling and hope ur able to find some relief.

Also you mentioned hormonal stuff for me when I am not on birth control the PMDD is so bad that it causes anxiety like this. Only thing I find helpful so far really is buspar and continuous use birth control.

 

[ferret-in-a-sock]

That must be so frustrating to deal with, i'm sorry. It's like theres a disconnect between your brain and emotions as a protective factor. just brainstorming, have you ever been diagnosed for bipolar? Or the buying of things could be another way to cope or as a distraction, And i fucking hate mindfulness and meditation, my mind just ruminates non stop and never feels helpful or calming.

Psych evaluation ruled it out as well as ruled out Schizo and OCD and instead boiled it down to GAD and PTSD.

I like your sentence of a disconnect between the brain and emotions. Best way to describe it.

 

[ferret-in-a-sock]

Apparently a disconnect like I described is considered dissociation, the more you know. I ended up looking into it and it's like oh...huh. I always thought it had to be more extreme, like no memory at all or a completely different identity.

Read up on it and it doesn't have to be like Multiple Personality Disorder, it can be just "eh, your brain isn't running all its processes."

The disconnection was the key word and one article described people who were actively looking to CTB, lacked any feeling around it, but yet had calculated and planned out a way. Not psychopathic, but that they were dissociating to a degree they can't like feel the fear, anger or upset driving them to do it, only can just recognize that with their actions there's something wrong. Like being clueless you're depressed due to it, and then just realizing most of the way through a plan, "Ah, whoops. Looks like I'm depressed and this may not be rational." Which I definitely relate to. It also is why I grew so upset when asked about it during DBT.

I wonder what part never clicked for my therapist about "I don't remember." It wasn't a lie. It was a "I was never connected to my emotions to begin with during it, so why would I know?"

It also cited SH during those kind of feelings is a key sign that it's dissociation, the "I want to feel something and I cannot" and it works, though I somewhat disagree. Maybe. I dunno. If I had to name a feeling now in more clarity outside of the thrall of it it'd be I kind of wanted to cry. So I think I was upset.

And it described how your personality can still be notably different in the state even without having another identity. It's a trauma response ingrained in you.

On one and, yeah, that makes sense. I survived like a lot of awful stuff because my emotions just go out the window when I feel in danger and stressed, meaning I'm unaffected during the event. Very useful for danger, not so much for most things. On the other, therapist was still trash and naming the problem still doesn't give me the ability to slap a bandaid on it.

Guess I got my answer. My brain is trying to escape my body during that. Badly.

 

[just_so_done]

I think it's amazing you were able to do that research and find out more about what you experienced. That all makes sense to me, its our brains way of protecting us and i guess i've done that too where i've just kinda checked out because i couldnt cope with the situation and then the sh helps to ground/feel/numb/punish.

I'm sorry you're therapist missed this but might be worth bringing it up or even seeing someone more expereinced. Also I hate that you had to go through some awful things but sounds like you're a survivor and a fighter. Your brain just knows when to pack its bag and take a vacay from your body which can be both helpful and unhelpful.

Hope you'e feeling a bit better today and don't feel like you want to rip your skin off and if you do know that we're here and thinking of you