Hello. I am 28 years old and back in January (8 months ago) I had what I can only describe as a “mental break down”. I have always been a little bit of a hypochondriac, but it had gotten much better as I’ve gotten older. Until 8 months ago, I started having chest pains, going to so many doctors that said nothing was wrong but I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t even three chest pain that bothered me the most, it was the anxiety I was feeling. Eventually my anxiety got out of control and it felt like my brain snapped. I remember the exact moment, it just felt like I would never be okay or the same again. The next several months were filled with unexplainable terror. I think I developed a dissociative disorder and I spent every moment of every day feeling like I was in some kind of purgatory hellish nightmare. I never experienced any hallucinations or delusions unless hypochondria counts as a delusion. I tried medications that all made it worse. Benzos helped, but I didn’t want to become dependent so I stopped taking them. Now 8 months later I just feel…. Broken? Charged forever. My whole frame of mind and reality seems altered. I go through my day, I spend time with loved ones, I do things that are good for me and I work on controlling my anxiety. Everyone around me says I’ve made so much improvement. But it feels like I’m just acting, like faking it til I make it but perpetually. It feels like I i started improving and now this is as good as it gets. My brain just feels like it functions differently now. Things look different (I think this is depersonalization/derealization disorder) which I read is caused by anxiety/trauma or some times just happens on its own. But I just feel hyperaware of my own existence and the existence of everything. Like I’m outside of the human experience looking in. My thoughts and feelings are distressing, constant and exhausting. It’s like I’ve become afraid of my own mind, afraid of not being able to live a normal life because of this and persistent fears of being severely mentally ill, despite my therapist, psychiatrist and several other doctors telling me otherwise. I’m on here I guess for some insight if anyone has experienced something similar and maybe just some support from people who are like me.