Everything online about catatonia is about what it looks like to doctors and strangers, from the outside.
If I google “what does catatonia feel like?” I get a bunch of articles about how it’s diagnosed. :/
What it feels like to me (and it’s different for everyone, sometimes very different), in approx order:
1) I start to lose words. I know what I want to say but I can’t say the words. Maybe I am hungry, and I have to try to say it in different ways before I find a way that works.
"I'm hungry" ❌
"I want food" ❌
"Can I have something to eat?" ❌
"Do you have anything I can put in my stomach?" ❌
"Empty, tired. Got anything?" ✅
2) I lose access to whole bits of language, like grammar. I can see/hear them in my head but they're stuck there. They don't make it even halfway to my mouth.
3) My movements get sluggish and stilted. I start to feel really uncomfortable that my face and eyes are exposed.
4) My gaze is lowered. I can't really move my arms. I can probably walk a bit but I can't really pay attention to where I'm going. Voices louder than a whisper are painful. My environment starts to become intolerable.
5) All my words are gone. I might be able to open my mouth.
Time stops happening to me. Everything is a neverending moment. Memories aren't really being formed any more. Anything you say to me won't get processed. I feel frozen in a state of permanent electrocution.
6) If someone tries to look at my face or into my eyes I will cover my face. I start to feel like my whole body is exposed, and I might hunch over and wrap my arms around myself.
At this stage if someone touches me I will probably lurch away violently and maybe make a noise.
7) Kaput. I'm probably curled up on the floor with my face covered. I've probably taken my glasses off and put them somewhere near me on the floor. Every muscle is as tense as it can be. I can't move, I can't respond, if someone touches me it makes it worse, but I'm frozen.
At this point I might be doing other stuff that I don't know about? Like, crying or making weird noises or breathing weirdly? I don't know, I'm basically unaware of my impact on the people and space around me.
The longest I've known this to last is two to three hours, I think?
The inside of my head feels like a relentless deafening volume. I can't relax anything. I'm probably pressing parts of myself into other parts of myself so hard that it hurts. (Like, hands into eyes/face, for example.)
The first sign that it's going away is I feel aware of my breath relaxing. Then other muscles start to feel like they might be able to relax too one day. I start to be aware that I'm in pain from the tension.
Being okay with my face being exposed is one of the last things.
Language comes back in bits gradually, sometimes from as early as my muscles starting to relax, but sometimes it takes much longer.
They're often caused by paradoxes. Like, my brain gets stuck in a loop, because two things that shouldn't both be possible are somehow both happening. Or, someone insists on something when I know the opposite to be true.
But sometimes they just happen and I never find out why. Sometimes stress/anxiety or sustained effort is a factor.
Once it was caused by the sound of the car engine while we were driving along a road. Someone asked if I was okay and I sort of grunted, but the driver didn't pull over. I sort of tumbled out of the car when we eventually stopped, badly hurt my knee, but couldn't move for ages.
They're completely exhausting, in a totally unique way, and executive function is just not even a thing for at least 24 hours afterwards. I'm often very slowed down and feel stupid and sluggish for many hours. Sleep helps.
For a long time I didn't realise this was catatonic episodes. I thought it was ~autistic shutdown~ or that they might be the same thing.
I am still really not sure what autistic shutdown is! There's this comic though: https://introvertdoodles.com/comic/shutdown/ Shutdown seems... less unpleasant?
I hope that helps someone. :)
@cassolotl I get much the same thing, almost always stress triggered
I've found when the vocal subroutines crap out I can still write things down on paper or switch to a language I only half know
@troubleMoney Like, being non-verbal is for me quite a different thing from being catatonic. It's just that catatonia often starts with words going, but I think that's just a coincidence! And non-verbal is totally fine, because I can just write things down. One day I hope to learn BSL so I can talk without my mouth.
@cassolotl with me the non-verbal is always a prelude for going catatonic if I don't get some diazepam in me so I'm assuming they're linked in me
and the "switch to a second language I don't know well" is just bizzare but it seems to work for me, idle speculation is that my brain stores languages I'm not good at in a different place than speaking my native language but 🤷
brains be weird
@troubleMoney Yeah like you have to go through atypical bits of your brain and think in a different way so it's a different system, kinda thing. That is the case with me and being non-verbal. It is interesting that you *only* go non-verbal when you're pre-catatonic, then!
@cassolotl that's what one of the docs said when I first went to them for the symptoms, on my records I think they listed the whole catatonia thing as "non-epileptic attack disorder" which I believe is code for "nope, no idea, but it's kinda funky and we wouldn't mind poking about if we had the time"
@troubleMoney Heh, you are an enigma. :D Well, it sounds like it SUCKS and I relate somewhat. I hope you have good ways to deal with them, or find some, and/or the docs can help you.
@cassolotl the meds I'm on certainly do the trick
and even if I do have one then the witnesses are lot more concerned than I am
"ARE YOU OKAY?!?!"
"huh? yeah, where's nearest cup of tea?"
"YOU WERE OUT FOR AN HOUR!"
"oh yeah, does that sometimes, again, where's the tea?"
@troubleMoney Meds! Good good. :) And tea, and people caring about you and stuff. 👌
@troubleMoney Yeah, sometimes I can still write. But sometimes I can only write the things I can say, and I can't write the things I can't say. I haven't worked out the pattern for identifying the things I still have access to yet.