de-realisation, please help me

[ChocolateButton]

I joined this forum specifically because I need to talk to someone just to understand what I'm going through.

I had a day surgery procedure, with general anaesthetic, on Friday.
Before I left for the hospital that morning, I had pretty much convinced myself that I would never see the house again because I was terrified I wouldn't wake up from the anaesthetic.

Ten minutes before they took me to theatre I was crying my eyes out, feeling possibly the worst panic I've ever felt in my life. I didn't think I'd see my husband, my dogs, my house, anything ever again.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up in recovery. I had to spend the night in hospital but was allowed home mid-Saturday.

Since I've got home, though, nothing's felt right. Hard to describe, I just feel like things aren't "right" somehow, like I'm detached from everything. Disconnected. Like I don't fit.

I tried to go back to work this morning - big mistake. I sat down at my desk, switched on my computer, and just stared at the screen. I didn't know what the heck to do. Lines of program code stared back at me and I just didn't know what I was supposed to do with it. I burst into tears and had to go home.

I rang my GP surgery and got an appointment for late this morning. Saw a very understanding GP, and when I tried to tell her how I was feeling she didn't look at me like I was daft (like I'd expected) but instead told me I have something called de-realisation and that it is quite common after having an operation, and especially for someone like me who has underlying anxiety anyway.

Turns out I also have a chest infection, and she said with everything I'm going through she'd be surprised if I *did* feel normal.

But now I don't know what to do. It helps, to some extent, to know that what I'm feeling has a name, but I just want the feeling to stop, and I'm worried that it won't. The GP said it could take days or even weeks to feel normal again and that I need to walk before I can run.

I'm even feeling so anxious about this 'de-realisation' that I can't even bring myself to be worried about the procedure I had, and the upcoming results. I just feel like nothing will ever be normal again and it scares me so much.

I was so utterly convinced that I wouldn't wake up from the anaesthetic that I'm even beginning to wonder if I did in fact survive - maybe the disconnected feeling is because I'm in a coma or dead or something, I don't know.

When does this stop? When will it get normal again? I can't imagine ever doing something as simple as going shopping with my husband, or walking the dogs, because the thought just seems so alien to me.

I just don't know what to do. Even walking is strange, like I'm not quite sure where the ground is. I've never felt like this before and I'm just so scared.

[Carys]

Hiyer Chocolate Button,

Don't panic (as the panic itself will be adding a huge amount of depersonalisation ontop of any actual physical symptoms)! Some people are more susceptible to GA effects lasting longer than others. I've know people who have said that for 2 weeks after a GA they have felt tired and emotionally ropey, with some confusion, memory problems and feeling a bit surreal. I think, but I might be wrong, it is around 9 or so days for the medication to entirely leave your system, so it's very early days if you had your GA on Friday.

Funnily enough I was exactly like you when I had my first ever GA two years ago. I had a massive life-long phobia about medication and anaesthetics, and my surgery wasn't anything elective but for a fairly unpleasant condition. I even wrote a letter to everybody to read when I was dead, which was definitely about to happen. I was in a terrible state leading up to it, absolutely in a state of trauma and when I came out of it for a few days I felt 'odd'. I'm not sure if it was as bad as you are feeling now, probably not by the sound of it, but I recall lying in the bed and as people came in and out I felt like I was dreaming them being there and I was wide awake. It freaked me BIG TIME. I think the combination of the GA and the appalling anxiety state leading up to it, just makes things last a bit longer than for some other more resiliant people. I even woke up from the GA and had the anaesthetist called as I was very tachycardic (very elevated heart rate), which was purely that I woke up carrying on the extreme panic that I had entered the GA in.

It took me a week for the oddness to go. One day I realised it had gone and I'd not thought about it, and I bet the same happens to you. Having a chest infection ontop of it will make you even more weak and unwell, so increasing anxiety anyway. So, put it down to GA, anxiety de-personalisation (so common and you can read about it on this forum) and being unwell. Unfortunately nobody can say 'when' it will go, but go it will, just as your GP stated. I think you need some quiet home time, to rest and recuperate.

Edited to add - you may also see the term de-personalisation, it goes hand in hand with de-realisation, though one is about your environment and the other about you as a person.

[ChocolateButton]

Hi Carys,

Thanks so much for your reply, it's helpful to hear from someone else who's gone through this. Glad you got over it though.

The funny thing is, when I first woke up from the surgery I don't know what the heck they'd given me but I had *no anxiety* whatsoever. I mean none. I remember lying there in a sort of half awake state, vaguely aware of an oxygen mask on my face, and thinking to myself "I don't know where I am exactly or what's happened but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter."

I wish that feeling would have lasted. I didn't even freak out later in the evening when hubby had to go home once visiting was over. I just calmly read my book until I felt sleepy. It was only the next day when I woke up almost screaming in pain cos my foot was twisted against the bottom of the bed (thanks, EDS, love you too ) that things kinda went downhill from there.

I do wonder whether that blissful state of "it doesn't matter" is how people who don't have anxiety, feel all the time. Ah well, for a brief few hours I got to experience it.

My GP and hubby both pretty much told me I'm being too hard on myself and I need to give myself time to heal, I just hate myself for reacting like this. The leaflet about my procedure said "you should be back to normal activities the next day" yet here I am lying in bed unable to work and with a stupid chest infection to boot. Why can't I just react to things like normal people can? I hate myself at times.

I just want this disconnected feeling to stop, it's like I'm slightly shifted sideways from normality or something.

I shall see what I can read on this forum about it though, thanks.

[Carys]

What's EDS ?

Everyone gets over it, in their own good time, apart from - sadly - some very elderly people for whom it seems to induce long-term effects.

As for the blissful state, I doubt that's how non-anxious people feel all the time, I think that's how medically drugged people feel

I don't know what your surgery was for, but if that was also for traumatic reasons then that will have an affect on your now too. All the fear leading up to it and the complete exhaustion of stress comes out at some time, and now is that time. I too had day surgery and once I got home was on a bit of a high, it was only the next day when I decided I was going shopping (as it was only day surgery right and I should be ok the next day) that I went really wonky and realised that I wasn't right at all. It was that afternoon and evening that my depersonalisation started.

Yes, you are expecting too much too soon, but if you are the sort of person who doesn't usually need to stop or want to stop (which I am like) then having to do so is tough. You have written a lot of negative statments about yourself here, and it yet again shows how unkind you are being to yourself! You didn't choose to be this way, nobody would want to have this problem after GA, its not a fault with you - its just 'how it is'. The quicker you accept it, stop admonishing yourself and just 'let it be', the sooner you will improve I think.

[nomorepanic]

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your post was moved from its original place to a sub-forum that is more relevant to your issue.

This is nothing personal - it just enables us to keep posts about the same problems in the relevant forums so other members with any experience with the issues can find them more easily.

Please also read this post:

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=213239

[ChocolateButton]

Sorry, EDS = Ehlers Danlos syndrome, otherwise known as Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, otherwise known as "my joints go out more than I do" I'm so used to saying EDS cos it's easier than saying its full name, so I typed it as well. Oops.

Sounds like what you went through is extremely similar to me; the de-realisation only hitting a couple of days after the operation. Would have been nice if someone would have warned me!

Ah medically drugged, makes sense. It still would be nice to feel like that more often though!

My surgery, well without being too personal it was a procedure with a biopsy to do some tests. I have to wait 3 weeks for the results, and I'm dreading the letter/phone call.

I've had so many panic attacks over the last few months since these particular problems started, convinced myself so many times that I'm going to die, and I've been waiting since the beginning of November to have this stupid test/procedure/operation that now I've had it, I thought I'd feel better now I was past it, you know? But now there's all this de-realisation, and waiting for the results, and it's a nightmare that just never ends.

As for being negative and hard on myself - welcome to me I always do that. I'm guilty cos I'm signed off work, I blame myself for the EDS even though it's genetic and not my fault, I still feel guilty when the pain and fatigue hit and I can't do something that we'd planned to do, like a day out.

And now this operation seems to have completely knocked me for six, my EDS is flaring up, my back muscles have developed about a million knots, I'm in pain from the procedure as well, I'm coughing up stuff, my hands and legs won't "answer the helm" properly when I try to use them.


One day I will feel normal again, yeah? One day? I think I've forgotten what normal is. And now I'm crying cos I don't know what day it is or when hubby is due home from work or god I don't know, I'm sorry.

Thanks for listening Carys - you're very nice to talk to by the way. It does help.

[Carys]

Tomorrow is another day, and day by day you will feel better. As you physically start to improve, you will slowly and surely mentally change also. I know the 'nightmare doesn't end' feeling, as mine was cancer surgery and I had to wait for results too (though I think it was 1-2 weeks and not 3, that's a long time to wait). I thought after surgery that I would feel much better, but I didn't either, as one unsurmountable problem gave way to another, then another. Feel free to PM me if you'd rather talk privately.

Everything is piling up for you now with so much making you feel exhausted and anxious, your mind and your body are telling you it's time to take a rest and think of you. Don't worry about work, and don't punish yourself with guilt.

[ChocolateButton]

Sorry to hear what you've gone through Carys,

I have sent you a private message.

[Carys]

Its fine, honestly, I didn't say it for sympathy ...I was just kind of drawing parallels. PM'd you back.

[ChocolateButton]

No, I know you didn't say it for that.

I've been thinking about the fact that I'm signed off work and instead of being upset about that, like I was all day, now I'm thinking that it's maybe a good thing, cos it means I can rest at home without worrying about trying to be well enough to go back to work tomorrow, if that makes sense.

Like it's taken some of the weight off cos the decision is out of my hands.