How bad does your mental health have to be to not recognise yourself in the mirror?

[Batu]

A couple of years ago I was in a pretty miserable situation. Nothing really terrible was happening but I was very unhappy. I went to the GP and asked for antidepressants because I wanted to stop crying all the time but she wouldn’t give me them and suggested therapy instead. I didn’t see the point as I knew why I was unhappy and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Things are better now but I keep being reminded about a couple of episodes where I felt really disconnected from the image I saw when I looked in the mirror.

I would describe it as not recognising myself, but obviously I knew it was me, but I couldn’t make it be me in my head, iyswim?

Once I took a photo of myself in a shop window because I thought I looked so strange. Another time I was out drinking and went to the toilet and spent ages drunkenly looking in the mirror and thinking who the hell is that? (Again, not literally...)

Then one occasion when I went shopping for clothes that I associated with a previous time. I looked in the mirror as I tried on these clothes and felt very strongly, ‘oh, it’s me!’.

What’s all that about eh? I was generally functioning ok, doing what I had to do, managing to socialise etc. As a symptom it seems quite extreme though, and I’d have thought associated with bigger problems than I was experiencing at the time?

Hello @Batu, I recognise what you are describing - to me it sounds like dissociation, and more specifically depersonalisation. Here’s a description on the Mind website:

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/about-dissociation/

I think that everyone experiences dissociation to a degree, like when you’ve driven to somewhere but you don’t remember the journey when you arrive at your destination. It’s all on a sliding scale, if that makes sense.
I experience dissociation due to PTSD, normally for me it is triggered by a flashback, it’s like a coping mechanism to take me away from difficult memories.
How are things now for you?

Thank you @Star8181, I’m sorry you have suffered with the flashbacks and the trauma that caused it.

I have read up about depersonalisation before and maybe it’s a mild version of that, but I don’t relate to most of what that link says, except maybe not really remembering much of my childhood, but I’ve always put that down to having a terrible long term memory.

I’m much better now, thanks for asking. It was very much a situational problem which has been resolved. It was just such an odd experience I still wonder about it.

That's happened to me. I was very depressed and psychotic at those times. I would also wonder who DD was talking to when she said 'mum'--that she wasn't talking to me.