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Could someone please help me understand

Pikl

Earlier today I was exploring research ideas an concepts, and getting more and more ideas. I was getting really excited. Then something triggered a memory and that set off similar memories, not positive. There was so much noise in my head. I started rocking and holding my head, and I was desperately trying to mask it and push through it. Then I started to feel unwell. I had to go out on an errand and thought the fresh air would help. I started feeling really disconnected and my peripheral vision was out of focus. The bright noisy shop was unsettling and people suddenly appearing near me was scary. I was feeling really unwell. I had to ask for something at a counter and had to force the words. The short walk home and I felt really wrong. Managed to tell husband that I needed to lie down. I grabbed my dressing gown and pulled it over my head and just lay there. At some point I fell asleep. Got woken up awhile later because someone shouted. I just lay on my bed unable to move for a long time. My kids came in and chatted to me and all I need was stare at them. 

I was feeling very drained, shaky and more jumpy than usual.

Then my kids started bickering and I could hear then fiddling with something (they are not little) and their arguing and the clicking noises got to me. I screamed and shouted so aggressively. 

This was a little while ago.

I still feel so drained, shaky and jumpy.

Could someone please let me know what happened, I really want to understand. 

  • Thank you everyone. 

    Taking it easy today.

  • in reply to Deleted User

    It might be an ocular migraine, if you do an image search it should turn up recreations of what that looks like. I get them occasionally, it was scary until I knew what it was but it turns out my Dad gets them. I don't get any other symptoms, no headache or anything, just a weird jagged light effect in the centre of vision like a dot that grows bigger until it goes all the way out to the edge of the eye, but it's only the edge that is jagged colourful lights with normal vision inside it. It takes about half an hour to pass. Your thing might be something different of course.

  • Hello Pikl, I'm sorry that happened to you. I hope you're feeling a bit better now.

    It sounds kind of like a panic attack but I don't know. Did you get any physical symptoms like sweating, heart racing when you first got triggered, as well as all the noise in your head?

    When you get a big adrenaline surge from anxiety, sometimes your senses get heightened that's why you can't stand small noises and bright lights etc. Dissociation is also a panic/anxiety/trauma response your brain is kind of trying to take you to a safe place where the bad thoughts/memories can't harm you. Both the major type where you feel like your floating outside of your body, and the other type where things just feel weird and disconnected for a longer time.

  • It sounds to me like a sensory overload, possibly resulting from your mind racing in response to unbidden memories. I have had similar sensory overload when walking along a fairly busy road - the traffic noise suddenly becoming absolutely unbearable.

  • Hi Pikl, 
    This sounds like an intense and terrifying experience. It's brave of you to share and let your clearly questing mind grapple with something so overwhelming. 

    I'm not a qualified psychiatrist or Autism specialist. That said, from what you have eloquently described, it sounds like you might have experienced a trigger for traumatic memories. That sense of disconnect brings to mind dissociation, as the irritability and quickness to startle would align with my understanding of trauma too. 

    Some of this overlaps with shutdowns though,I think - the needing to try hard to get words out, again the disconnect... 

    Again, please don't take my answers as gospel or diagnostic. Maybe someone else here can share more expert and in-depth thoughts. 

    You've been through what sounds like a frightening and disorientating experience today, and all the more so given that it happened so suddenly whilst you were engaging in something positive. Take care of yourself tonight, and I hope you get some good rest.

  • Evenin' Pikl.

    I can't explain (although it sounds like a form of meltdown thingy-ma-jig) - but I can tell you that, on occasion, I have had a similarly super-uncomfortable / quasi medical event for no apparent reason.  With mine, I tend to get kaleidoscope vision effects.  It is very unpleasant and very unsettling.

    If it is any comfort to you - I've had this happen to me on a handful of occasions over the last decade or so - but have never had any form of lasting nor apparent long term or underlying problem.

    The worst time this happened to me, I was driving !  I stopped and rested for a good couple of hours without moving.  It was scary - but I was OK.