Surfer Rosa

First and most importantly, I have had treatment success, and want to share this information with you. Go check out Lamotrigine (Lamictal) 50-200mg (Stanford Article, Success, Etc.)​ at http://www.dpselfhel...le-success-etc/, or just click on the link in my signature.

 

 

With mental health awareness rising and breaking into the mainstream, support for these disorders is rising. For me, personally, going to an online forum to seek help is no longer necessary. If you are willing to take the time (sometimes an extraordinary amount of time, maybe even relocating), there are professionals out there who can help you. That being said, DPSelfHelp has been the best straight-up web forum for fiding support. You guys formed an amazing support community, directed not only at the creators of the site, but its numerous kind and helpful members.

 

You're all very present for and supportive of each other through recovery and management of depersonalization along with various other mental issues. The team fostered something really great here, for so many years. Even after the change in management, DPSelfHelp is still going strong as a support tool, and that is very admirable.

 

I believe in shedding your skin and moving on when it becomes necessary, not only for my account but for the future of depersonalization awareness and peer support. We need to be constantly changing and adapting to survive. Still, DPSelfHelp's counterparts have their issues, namely being subforums of overly trendy, highly populated sites such as PsychForums, Facebook and Reddit. There is clearly a hole to be filled. If one group doesn't succeed at fostering a support community, I firmly believe that another will. It might take many years to iron this sort of thing out, but it looks like depersonalization is pretty intrinsic to humans (at least), and won't be eradicated anytime soon.

 

We can make it through these times, even when it feels like we're going crazy. Those of you who are seniors to episodes of severe depersonalization, many props to you for having the strength to keep on. Also, much respect to those who put in the work and have the cards in their favor to make a speedy and full recovery, because that is equally impressive. You are all great, thanks for being here, and best of luck to you.

 

I'll probably see you down the line.

 

 

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Anyone struggling can still PM me, because I'll be getting email alerts.

​Raising awareness of this thread and the Lamotrigine will be an ongoing effort, since it encapsulates what little I have learned about depersonalization and how to treat it.

 

Also, apologies for any posts that seem scattered, rambling and somewhat nonsensical. Hopefully these threads are very focused, easy to digest and concise.

 

Bye to any familiar faces. You will be missed.

 

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Love,

 

 

Surfer

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Hello. I'd like to throw something out there. No professional I've spoken to expects chronic, long-term depersonalization to get better. They say that better mental health is still attainable, and that acceptance can be reached, but that they have never seen someone with long-term depersonalization find relief from the symptoms.

Thoughts? Experiences?

Most people do not care that you have depersonalization. Many people will peck at you and manipulate you all the same. It's typical, and few know the horrors of this disorder. So, be weary. If your own mother and father don't understand or care about the disorder (I hear this a lot from our forums), do you think some bastard with bad plans for you will? No.

I read "The Stranger" recently. Nothing have read before comes close to capturing my present situation quite like this. Some of the more extreme symptoms of depersonalization have been described very well online, by members of this forum and otherwise, but the overarching problem I have can best be explained by looking at Mersault in this book.

 

The entire book is about Mersault's slow and difficult fall from grace, after his mother dies and he can't be moved to tears. The book ends with him being sentenced to death for the third degree murder of some criminal who was threatening to attack him, only he was unfairly tried for first degree murder because, "What kind of moster doesn't cry at his mother's funeral?

 

Unfortunately, the book is all too relatable.

 

There were a few other important points in the book. He hung around with some questionable characters, and served as an accomplice to their crimes because "why not?" He agreed to marry a girl he didn't love in return because "why not?" He even called life unreal at a few points, and the descriptions of his environments are from a very detached perspective, even detached from his own senses.

 

The only emotions he seemed to feel were almost animalistic in how basic they were: fear, anger, sexual attraction, platonic physical attraction, tiredness, and stress. He didn't seem to feel anything more complicated than that, so he was called "odd," "callous" and eventually "a monster."

What a fate.