ABSTRACT
‘I feel light-headed and things around me seem strange and unfamiliar. My arms sometimes feel like they don't belong to me and I often have the sensation of being very tall or small. I experience life as though it is projected onto a screen and not actually happening to me. I've odd physical sensations too, such as creeping, nervy feelings in my face and the experience of being divided into two. My head feels like it is crammed with cotton wool and my hearing strangely muffled, like listening to sound under water. Distances are exaggerated, as if looking down the wrong end of a telescope. Incessant, probing thoughts continue to bring the existence of everything, including myself, into question. I feel fragmented and disjointed, with an overwhelming impulse to strip meaning from all things. My increasing detachment is accompanied by a kind of all-pervading numbness, making it hard to connect with other people and the real world.’ Carole, 2011.
