indigo-alice

Are anyone else pupils permanently MASSIVE

I don't really like looking at myself in the mirror cause it freaks me out but whenever I do my pupils almost fill up my irises (correct plural?!)

my sister said she notices it a lot of the time too, hopefully people don't think I'm tripping constantly hahaha

Hi everyone

So I am about 2 months down the line in my wonderful journey with dpdr - most of the symptoms have cleared up, I feel in my body most of the time, things look real enough which is progress - but at the moment I am really struggling with the Existential thoughts.

I have really struggled with whole Solipsism thing and stuff to do with the universe - how big it is, how it could end at any second, you know all of that fun stuff. I am pretty much over that now, it still gets to me sometimes but I can deal. I've also dealt with being trapped in first person view, not being able to understand the "self", not recognising myself in the mirror. The focus of my thoughts now is about how the brain works and understanding time and memory. I just can't get over the fact that this moment is all we really have and after each second it just becomes an intangible memory in our heads - we can never be sure if anything actually happened. It is really hard as I will look back at how far I have come from when this shit all began, but then question if any of it has even happened at all. Call me crazy but this whole experience has made me think that my existence is some kind of experiment, I've just been created and put on this world that doesn't make any sense at all and whatever has put me here wants to see how long I can take it until I go insane. Seriously, though - it is really hard because whenever I actually enjoy doing something, I'll come back home and immediately start questioning if it happened at all - and the fact I will never get that moment back. It's like I exist with all of these happy memories but they're almost there as a form of torture - I can never fully appreciate them as I will never be sure they are real. For example I'll be having a conversation with someone and they'll ask how my day was, and as I'm recalling what I've done my mind is constantly doubting everything I am saying. So much of our day to day experience is built up from recalling memories - the physical world would make no sense without them. I'll wake up in the morning and hear a car outside - but the only reason I know that is from memory... I know it seems like common sense but there's something about it that scares me? Has anyone else dealt with and got over stuff like this?  I guess if I've gotten over the whole Solipsism syndrome I can get over this - but then again, did that actually happen? Again - the problem with it is that all the things I use to reassure myself rely on memory, things I have read, conversations I have had etc.

I used to love my life so much and love talking with my family, boyfriend and friends about memories we share - but now everything just seems ruined. I can't just enjoy the moment without thinking about how it's going to be over soon. The concept of time freaks me out so much. I feel so sad and broken and I just want to be able to embrace my life and not doubt everything constantly. I want to be able to wake up tomorrow morning and just think "Yesterday happened, lets get on with today" instead of analysing if me and all of my memories have just popped into existence. I feel like I'm far too self aware of my thoughts - I'm worried that one day my brain is just going to collapse in on itself - brains aren't supposed to turn inwards and start interrogating themselves, right?

To help with the thoughts about Solipsism and stuff, you could say I used my own kind of Exposure Response Prevention therapy, I just kind of accepted that the thoughts were unfalsifiable by nature - I gradually accepted them and even told myself they were true, and as my brain stopped over-reacting to them my logical brain was able to kind of take over again. I'm pretty sure I've always had some from of Pure O OCD, ever since I was little I've had periods of obsessive thinking about various themes; Existential is definitely the worst one. It's just so exhausting battling my mind all the time, there are so many contradictory thoughts in my head every second of the day. It honestly just feels like every little thing I thought I knew about life is slowly being unravelled  - the nature of the self, the nature of time, space and everything. I feel like I'm discovering some kind of profound truth about everything - but it's so damn depressing instead of enlightening. It's so sad because these topics used to really interest and inspire me, but now they're just terrifying and make me want to never leave my bed. Although I still do - every day.

Any help would be appreciated.

Alice xx