subterranean_nerd

I have told this story to three different psychologists, and none have ever heard of anything like it.

By the time I was 35, I had sunk into severe social anxiety and dysthymia. I mostly stayed at home and let my brother do the shopping, etc. Even ordering a coffee was a stressful experience. The future appeared to be an endless stretch of unbearable suffering. I kept going because I am so stubborn that it would drive Satan himself mad. I imagined that at the end, I would flop into a grave with relief, tired of life and the soul-crushing weight of it all.

My immune system became dangerously weak. I was opening antibiotic capsules to stuff the powder into the nail folds of my fingers. They were all infected, swollen, detached and oozing pus. I had chronic atypical pneumonia.

One night, spontaneously, I let my imagination run wild. My favorite escape was to create rich, intense visualizations, and I made full use of it that night. I unleashed my creativity and emotion to the absolute maximum. It was a bizarre experience. Whatever was keeping me in that hellish state was utterly blown away by it. The effects were immediate and dramatic:

• My infections vanished, never to return.
• I wanted to move out alone, meet people, and travel. I did all of these.
• Before, I had repressed anger which would emerge after petty frustrations. I would pound my fist on the table, sometimes hard enough to hurt. I remember looking at my fist that day, wondering why I ever did that. I never did it again.
• I enjoyed moderate drinking, and would drink every weekend. It made me happy. The next weekend, I drank as usual, but it didn't feel good. I felt tired, subdued. I no longer drink.

My mind was a mess, and I've spent years resolving past traumas, questioning everything about my personality, who I am, what I believe. At one point I was lying on my bed, tormented, with images of collapsing structures repeating over and over in my mind. I knew of the theory that the mind builds structures of meaning to navigate the world. I was hell-bent on erasing most of who I'd become. I considered much of my childhood to be abhorrent, turning me into a living lie.

Is this kind of transformation a known phenomenon? Is there any literature on it that I can read to learn more? I am still changing. I'm much more stable now, but would like to know as much as possible about where this is going.

Familial pathology had a great deal to do with my condition, but also, as a teenager I encountered a character who was, as you say, malevolent to the core. Long story, but one question for you: is it possible for a malevolent person to cause serious mental damage by words alone, while I was vulnerable and in a suggestible state? In total I was with him for several hours at different times. I was lucky he did little more than that.

I can provide more information about what he was up to, but it's not for redditors who need trigger warnings, that's for sure.

The strange thing is I remember almost nothing of what he said, and I sure didn't feel that it was damaging at the time. But I guess you could say the same about Derrida.