The Fog

I've been "off" this weekend.  Physically, I've had a strange feeling of discomfort located at the lower sternum/upper stomach region; I'm still not sure what that's about.  I'm not nauseous or in pain, just uncomfortable and a little achey.  Today I also had a shaky, hypoglycemic feeling even though I had eaten a sandwich and a small candy bar before it started.   It wasn't caffeine-related; the shakes were different and I had already switched to decaf.

Even more troubling- to me at least- was a sense of disconnect.  I had to force myself to go to my AA meeting; I wasn't sick enough to use that as an excuse to skip it and isolate.  Once there, I felt out of sync with everyone.  I couldn't track with them, with what they were saying.  I drifted from group to group of friends before the meeting started, but felt that my responses to them were somehow wrong.  I wasn't a step ahead of where they were, or a step behind; I was a step or two to one side, if that makes sense to anyone other than me.   I don't believe anyone noticed, but I grabbed one of my closest friends there and told her what was going on with me.  She asked if I'm manic, and I honestly don't know.  I don't have that fey feeling I usually get when manic.  I suspect that this has something to do with suddenly having nothing much to do after having to do so much for so long; it's taken a mental and emotional toll. 

You know that head rush you get when you've stood up too fast, or if you've been sick in bed for awhile?  That sense that the world has slipped sideways for a moment?  That kept happening to me while I was at the meeting, and I tuned in and out of what was going on around me.  I'm not depersonalizing.  I don't feel as though I'm outside of myself watching me.  I came home and curled up in bed for a few minutes, and it suddenly struck me how weightless I felt.  I don't mean that lighter-than-air feeling you get when you're really happy.  This was ephemeral, as though a breeze would not simply blow me away, but dissipate me like vapor.  I wasn't real.  I wasn't solid. 

I'm a little better, I haven't yet completely reconnected.  Now it's as though I'm real and the world isn't.

You don't mind being imaginary for a little while, do you?