Sunday, November 20, 2011

OCD's blur

Over the past several months as my OCD got progressively worse I found myself experiencing what I refer to as blurry vision. I don't know if it is directly related to OCD, just obsessive behaviors, depression or what. But, I find that there are times when I don't feel like I am experiencing things through my self. It is so hard to explain. It is like I am so stuck in my own head and my own thoughts that my brain can't process anything going on around me, and I am just in some kind of fog. I was at dinner one night and just felt crazy. Like I wasn't really there and couldn't process what was going on around me. I tried to explain it to my therapist last week. Sometimes it's a feeling where there is just too much going on around me, like in grocery stores or heavily populated areas with lots of people and things. When I am in these places I tend to just feel overwhelmed. Not necessarily by the people just by all the commotion. Last week I went to a dog expo with my pup. There were hundreds of vendors there and obviously hundreds of people. I started to get a horrible headache and even got disoriented. It was that foggy feeling, like there was just too much to process and the fog just starts to set in. Like I'm not there. It happened to me at dinner one night as well with a group of people. This is the most specific experience I remember. The whole dinner I just felt so odd, like I couldn't figure out what was going on in the conversations and I couldn't process anything. Again, that foggy feeling. It's almost like your brain is so overloaded all day long and so worn out that its defense mechanism is to stop working and not put the effort into figuring out your surroundings and the people and things around you. I would love some insight on this super unorganized and hectic post. But, it's pretty reflective of how these experiences make me feel.

2 comments:

  1. I feel this way at times, also. When I have high anxiety one of my main symptoms is blurred vision, coupled with disorentation. One thing I do is to not focus so much on it. By focusing on physical symptoms it seems to make my anxiety worse. I tend to go on autopilot when I experience the "not here" feeling, but the reassuring thing is that that feeling never lasts, and it is just a symptom of our anxiety disorder, OCD. There is a lot on the internet about vision problems and anxiety disorders, it's quite interesting. Hope you're doing well... -Lolly

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  2. My vision itself doesn't blur but I know exactly how you feel with the "not there" feeling. I had it a lot when I went through a particularly bad period of anxiety. I still have it periodically, but like Lolly said, it will not last forever. Good luck!

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