For some background, if that’s helpful: I’ve been in therapy since I was 12 and am turning 20 in a couple weeks. I’ve been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and, most recently, complex PTSD due to the shitty environment I grew up in. I’ve self-harmed since I was 12 but haven’t for a year now after completing a partial hospitalization DBT program. I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder but have a basically nonexistent appetite that at one point caused me to inadvertently lose 20 pounds in 2 months. I’m on medication.


For the past couple months, I could tell that my depression was getting worse. I’ve been bad about my hygiene; I barely have the energy to get out of bed and find that no matter what time of day, I can get back in bed and sleep practically indefinitely. When I’m awake, I’ve noticed that I’m often really jumpy, even at the smallest of sounds. I’m in college and hearing people talking and laughing in the dorm is frightening for some reason, and I don’t know why but I feel the need to be as quiet as possible. Even clicking into the mousepad in my single dorm room makes me nervous. I know these are unreasonable things to feel (nothing bad’s going to happen to me if I make noise) but I always end up complying with the anxiety. It feels like I’m drifting farther from reality or that I have two brains, both of which are me, but are also pulling me in opposite directions. And all I can do is stare at the ceiling and be surprised when I  realize that an hour’s past. I’m getting absent-minded like I never have before; just today I put away a pill bottle without putting the cap back on and didn’t realize until I found the cap later. It’s hard to focus or read. Even when I’m writing, if I don’t focus on every letter, I’ll end up writing a different word than I meant to and that doesn’t make sense. I feel like I’m slipping out of reality into this nothingness where I can’t make sense of the world and the only emotion I can experience is some ambiguous anxiety that’s always resting in my chest.

Maybe this isn’t a psychotic break at all, I don’t know. But if anyone has gone through anything like this or just has any words of advice, I’d really appreciate it.