After almost a decade with VM I have the panic attacks and extreme anxiety mostly under control. However, a huge issue I suffer from is dissociation. I believe the dissociation is triggered by my brain as a response to vertigo, probably as an alternative coping mechanism to anxiety.
Sometimes the dissociation is really bad. I look at my hands and they look like someone else’s hands. Other people look alien and unrecognisable, I will look at my family and it will feel like I don’t really know them. Days will pass without me really feeling “present”.
Running and meditation seem to help, but mostly while I’m actually doing those activities. And I can’t spend my entire day running and meditating.
Benzodiazepines also seem to temporarily fix the problem, but they are habit forming so I try to avoid them as much as possible (only use them for bad vertigo attacks when I have important things I need to do).
Has anyone else dealt with dissociation? What helped you?
FYI there’s a great paper on this, posted by @Onandon03 only yesterday, but its locked behind Trust Level 2, which you will achieve by engaging in the forum for longer:
It’s not just a VM symptom, I had it with MAV related to my ear injury. It affects a lot of people with vestibular deficit. There’s a thought that our vestibular system “places” us and our movements in this world. Without this reliable information we become “disconnected”.
If you search on dissociation there’s quite a lot already discussed about it. It’s arguably the same as “derealisation”?
Yes Its not so bad now, but when it was bad I felt like I was walking around in a bubble, sometimes I get the sense time is speeding by around me and I wonder if I was even present in the day. My symptoms are pretty much controlled now on Amitriptiline and the brain fog and vertigo Is all but gone. Occasionally I will feel the sense of time speeding, it’s an out of control feeling but it’s rare now. Pre MAV I sometimes felt this way if I was extremely anxious