When You 'Lose Yourself' to Mental Illness

It felt like trying to stay afloat but suffocating and drowning. Like being resuscitated, my body was given life again but everything known to me had died.

This is what it’s like to lose yourself.

Your own experiences are foreign. As if somebody took their pain, their hurt, their trauma and inserted it into your brain and body to relive.

Walking down the street as the same vessel, but with no soul. If somebody called your name you would answer and if somebody saw you, they would recognize you.

You’re recognizable to everyone but yourself.

The mind is racing with urges that never existed before, exploring dark thoughts you’d never previously thought. Trying to convince you you’re not meant to be in this position, in this body, in this life.

When you close your eyes to enjoy the satisfaction of remembering and reliving times when positive emotions inhabited your body, they seem locked up. Inaccessible and foggy, you can’t remember, you can’t retrieve.

An impersonator of your own life, hoping to one day exist again.

Praying one day to wake up as you.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources page.

If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text “START” to 741-741.

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Thinkstock photo via TiagoBaiao.